This thing still on?

Back in October of 2013, I limped away from this blog with a post Summer Blackout Recap. Not a word since then.

You lucky bastards.

Unfortunately for you all I still remember my password and still have access to this blog.

A quick recap. The Talker is almost a teenager (less than 2 weeks to go as a 12 year old). The Princess is about to finish elementary school, and The Boss Lady survived a nasty bout with a viral brain infection last year. I did finish my 3000 mile bike ride challenge last spring, topping it off with a 1 day, 75 miler through the Texas Hill Country.

The last year and a half have included several job changes, one for me, one for The Boss Lady. After a four year detour, she is back in a job that she loves and is having a blast. I gave up a job teaching and working with some of the most physically and developmentally delayed students in our school system. I now teach classes for students who are either Autistic or have other sensory issues.

The Backyard Farm currently consists of one Big White Dog, the black/brown/red/grey short-legged, long-haired, loud-barking Different Dog, The Other Kitty (now 19 years old), 6 chickens and 1 Betta Fish.

There you go. I stayed away of 15 months and you are caught up in 7 minutes. See you in a year or so.

Summer Blackout Recap

We are six weeks into a new school year.  That means we are 1/6 of the way to next summer.  And if most teachers are really honest, THAT is what matters.

I haven't stopped by here in a while.  I thought I had posted a few times over the summer, but I noticed today that my last post was the weekend that school ended in June.  So what did you miss?

An epic trip to Southern and Central California.  We flew into San Diego, by way of San Jose (I fly SWA outta the way sometimes). We lounged in San Clemente for about a week and then went to Sequoia National Park for a few days.  On the way back south we drove along the Pacific Coast Highway.  It was an amazing trip.

This summer I didn't get to ride the new road bike as much as I had hoped.  In the Spring I had to have some skin cancer removed and the doc removed a nice chunk off of one ear.  He repaired it with a skin graft that came off of my chest, right above my clavicle.  The whole thing was much more draining than I had expected and my 6 weeks of recovery really took about twice that long before I felt good again.  At the end of the summer, literally the last day before I had to report back to work in August, I finished my spring/summer goal of pedaling 1000 miles.

The Talker and The Princess are doing great in school this year.  The boy is on campus with me and I see him several times during the day, but we are both lucky that I do not have him in my classes. The Princess is in 4th grade and she seems to have the world by the tail.  I was concerned how she would like school without big brother around, but those worries were for nothing.

The Boss Lady started a new job this school year.  We both still work in the same school district, but she is across town, working in administration at a high school.  It is really the job she was hired to do about three years ago, but the bigwigs had other plans and she worked on a special, super secret, double stupid assignment that she hated for that entire time.  It is great to have her doing the things that she likes and wants to do.

My entire education team fell apart over the summer.  I knew one of the three teachers was leaving, but the other was a complete surprise to me in the early summer.  We also have about 15 assistants that help out in our three classes and only 2 of those staff members returned from last year.  Needless to say, with all new staff, I am a busy little dude this school year.

I am keeping up with one goal for this school year.  I am trying to merge my interests and my obligations.  This school year, even with the craziness of a new staff, I decided that I needed to work fewer hours.  I was routinely working 60 hours a week for a job that pays me for 40, regardless.  This year, to keep myself in check, I decided to bike 1 mile for every hour that I work.  So far I am about 30 miles ahead of my hours.

Hopefully, unlike my blogging that seems to have died a slow, horrible death, I'll be able to keep up with my riding for this entire school year and I'll have ridden almost 3000 miles between March 2013 and June 2014.

Two GOOD LOOKIN' bald guys (Soon)

The Talker and I are getting ready to get our beauty on. In a couple of weeks we will be participating in a St. Baldrick's head shaving event.  St. Baldrick's funds pediatric cancer research.  This is an issue that has become very personal to our family, thanks to an amazing teen neighbor who has battled aggressive tumors this entire school year.

The Talker has already collected more than $500, eclipsing his current $250 goal.  (He originally hoped to raise $100).  I am almost to my goal of $265. Last year I tried to raise $500.  I fell short by $15.  So this year when I planned to raise $250, The Talker reminded me about the shortfall from last Spring.  Thus, my $265 goal.

I was planning to post a link here to our participant fundraising pages but I decided against that since those pages are all listed under our real names.  I know you are flabbergasted to learn that his name isn't ACTUALLY The Talker.  I feel sorta like a fraud... 

If you would like to donate to The Boy, please contact me and I'll direct you to his collection page.  I'll be sure to post some pictures after we get our melons all bald and beautified.

I don't wanna...

Just haven't wanted to write for a while.  I used to apologize for extended absences.  Nowadays I say "deal with it.  Or don't"  I am just not inclined to worry about it.

A month ago I renewed my love of road biking.  The Boss Lady helped me make the leap and I bought a Specialized road bike (aka a ten speed - though this one technically has 18 gear combinations).  I have had the bike for 3 and a half weeks and have already topped a hundred miles in the saddle.  I still grin like a school boy when the new blue racer and I hit 30 miles per hour on a nice, flat cruise.

The new bike may have been a really well timed purchase, too.  A week after I got the new ride home, the bottom fell out of our household.  And since then it has been nice to have something to keep my mind and body occupied.

Not even a month ago we got some awful news about The Big White Dog.  His chest cavity was full of one giant and fast growing tumor and the cancer was already showing up in his kidneys too.  We knew he was not feeling great, but we were certainly not prepared to hear the worst case scenario was coming true.  Less than a week later our 125 pound, 8 year old puddle of puppy was gone.  After realizing that he was unable to eat or drink, The Boss and I knew that we had to let the vet help Kodak go.

And that sucks.  Again.  And Again.

Long suffering readers may realize that this is indeed the third pet we have lost in less than a year.  Our Spring addition to the family was a 2-3 year old Great Pyrenees girl who had been used up by a lousy backyard breeder.  Something went wrong after her spay surgery and we lost her two weeks later.  The kids were crushed.  The Boss was devastated.  I was wrecked.  It sucked.

A few months ago we had to decide to have our 17 year old kitty cat, P.K., aka Pretty Kitty, put to sleep.  She was ancient and it was no surprise. Still, the kids were crushed.  The Boss Lady was devastated.  I was wrecked.  It sucked. Again.

After losing Kodak, none of us are totally back to ourselves yet.  We have mostly quit crying but it is still horrible to realize that our big ol' albino melon head is not sitting and peeking OVER the fence when we arrive home in the evenings.

The 12 pound puppy we adopted last summer is adjusting well to his role as big dog of the house.  Now I can only hope that the rest of us adjust pretty soon, too.

Two months. Hope you enjoyed the break...

and there is probably more of the same to come.


Been thinking for a few days, trying to come up with something blog worthy.  Today, driving home from work I hit on a topic.  My total lack of anything interesting to say.  I have already mentioned in the past that I have a lot of 'off-limits' topics.  The kids are getting older and I never actually set out to keep a long list of every embarrassing thing they said. Also it is true that there are the many, many interesting things I see and hear in the hallways at school everyday.  Most that are bloggable make it over to Facebook and go no further.

My classroom is an interesting and exciting place that keeps me on my toes but it is extremely off limits for both Facebook and this blog.  No matter how I try to disguise things, I only have a handful of students and it would be much too easy for the mama tigers to find out that I had mentioned their cubs.  Not worth the hassle!

So today my big revelation:  I am no longer cool enough to write about.  When I was really AtHomeDaddy, I was either interesting or at least different enough from the neighbors that it seemed like a worthwhile thing to document.

Now?  I am just a working schlub.  I  head to work at 7:15 and I come home at 5.  Or 6.  Or 11:35pm.  Whatever it takes.  Just like millions of other medium sized dudes do every day.  I listen to NPR or local country radio or Dale Watson beer drinkin' songs.  And I go to work.

After work we still hang out at home as much as possible, but The Princess plays volleyball and The Talker plays soccer so games and practices keep up busy in the little free time we have.  Add to that, my truck has been packed away for almost two years, my yard looks like it belongs in front of the abandoned house around the corner and we have a few chickens. 

There.  You now have a re-cap and status update of every cool thing I have done in the past half dozen years. 

So there it is.  Nothing.  I still have it.  Or I don't.  I feel confused. 

And judged by the number of schlubs I see on the highway every morning, I may be contagious, too!

the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated

AtHomeDaddy and the whole crew (mostly the whole crew, anyways - more about that later) have indeed survived the summer and we are gearing up to get back to school.

I posted earlier in the summer about our road trip adventures through the central US.  Since getting home from New Orleans we have been busy doing not a whole heck of a lot.  Which really isn't the reason for my lack of blogging.  Let's face it, facebook is easier and the audience is much narrower, so I tend to go there instead.

This blog has been around for 1850 posts and more than 6 years.  WOW! just rechecked my math.  8 years!!!   I just can't put it to bed.  I have gone through periods of posting multiple times a day and times that I posted once a month.  Heck I have a couple of other blogs that get updated quarterly.  If that. 

Anyways,  I feel like a stranger in my own house when I pop back in here. Add to all of that the number of things that are now off limits.  I seldom post about school stuff because I am fairly strong in my opinion that I don't wanna get sued.  At least not for something I write on my blog.  If I get sued because of work, let's make it worthwhile.  I am talking US Air steward jumping out of the plane and sliding away with stolen beers, NUTS!  Of course, it is hard to find an inflatable emergency slide on the first floor of a public  middle school...  Challenge accepted!

Next week I start back for real.  Of course, my first day back this summer will also be my 3rd.  Or my  8th. Or my 12th.  Depends on who is counting.  It works like this.  I am on contract to work 187 days a year.  185 days occur during the school year, between staff training week and the last day of school.  Also, I must attend two full days of specific trainings over the summer months.  But I get to wear shorts and flip flops, so that isn't all bad...

The reality of teaching is that I spend June and part of July denying that school is coming back around.  I generally sign up to take additional classes over the summer, especially if I am changing classes/grades/curriculum areas (which I seem to EVERY year).  I went to about 5 or 6 days of these classes this year.  Still it is better than last year, when I went to 17!  After all of that, I start trying to get my thoughts together and getting my classroom set up ASAP in late July or early August.  Once I get that done, I start planning out my daily schedules and covering the big things.  And I plug all holidays into my calendar! 

Anyways, I mainly work in my classroom because it is easier to stay focused on the upcoming year.  But, by the time teachers MUST return to school, I have been in my room almost daily for almost two weeks.  It shortens my summer, but I can work at my own pace and since I am on my own time, I can pick and choose the important things that get my attention.

Next Monday teachers report to campus at 8am.  It will be a rude awakening for us all.  But, I expect that in a couple of weeks we will all be back in the school routine and  plugging away through the academic year.

Of course, all of this is a lot easier since The Talker and The Princess still really like school.  They get excited at the end of each summer.  But based on the fact that I have given up another half a month of my summer and The Boss Lady has worked almost straight through, it seems that they take after their parents.

An aside - I don't think I ever mentioned the new dog on the blog.  Or the other new dog. The one one that came a month or so after the first new dog died two weeks after we brought her home from the animal shelter.

iLean  hanging out in the big bed, watching TV

In the Spring The Boss Lady let me know that we were prepping for the arrival later that week of a two year old Great Pyrenees girl pound puppy from the city shelter across town.  She had a rough life and was really timid, but we all grew instantly attached to iLean (because she always leaned on whoever happened to be nearest). Anyways, it was obvious in a few days that something was really wrong.  Our best guess is that she picked up an infection during her spay surgery.  So The Boss and I did one of the un-fun parent things and we decided to let our new girl go.  It sucks to have an animal put to sleep but this was one of those "right times".

The Princess was rocked even harder than the rest of us.  It sucks to be 8 and have someone tell you your newest pet is dead.  No doubt.

This summer we paid a visit to an animal shelter down the street from my school.  We went out to look at one Great Pyrenees girl but it was obvious that she was more work than we wanted to deal with.  While we were there, The Boss Lady and I finally told each other that we were individually thinking it was time to look for a small, lap dog that The Princess could really bond with.  Thus, we found Jingles, an 8 pound boy who was tagged as a long haired Chihuahua but we quickly realized was at least partly Papillion.  Best guess, Papillion and Dachshund mixed.  Evidently shaken AND stirred!  This is one crazy looking dog.

Sick in bed with her favorite Squirrel!

Anyways, our nefarious plan has worked almost perfectly.  Jingles was renamed Squirrel! and he is The Princess' best buddy.  This little guy is always just about one shake of a magic wand from being force-dressed in a tutu and tiara.  Lucky boy!

The Last of the Lucky Sevens

Tomorrow The Princess turns eight years old.  She is an awesome, kickball playing, doll toting, chicken chasing, dancing, singing, awesome bundle of girly-girl.   

She still twists her hair into knots when she is tired.  She wakes up grumpy every school day.  The Princess is my gardening pal and she is always good for a laugh at my really bad jokes.    She still can't seem to keep her room straightened for more than 15 minutes at a time.  She pretty much refuses to ride her bike anywhere but I think she knows that it is easier to parade down the street on foot.  Makes it easier to visit with any neighbor who might have something interesting going on... 


I could not care less about my birthdays anymore.  Just another year on the clock from what I can tell.  Don't get me wrong, I am all for the presents but I would accept them ANY day.  The kid's birthdays are another thing entirely.  Lots of times I think I might be more excited about the day than they are.

Happy Birthday Princess.  I sure hope it is a great day.  'Cause I know you will be an awesome eight year old!

Might as well make my beauty work for me!

I have signed up to help raise money for St. Baldrick's, a charity that raises funds to help fight childhood cancer.  I hope to raise $500 pretty quickly.  And the team I am on has a goal to raise over $2000.  The catch?  On April 14 I will get my head shaved at the finale of the fund raising.

You guys may have already seen my beautiful, bald melon.  There are several good pictures and stories about the different times I have decided to shave my head.  But this time I get to collect more than a story and a snapshot.  I am going to collect some cash to help out lots of great kids.

Want to donate?  Here is a link to my St. Baldrick's fundraising page.  Donate a lot.  And often.

Or this guy might haunt your dreams.

 A preview from a few years ago, when I "fixed" my hair real good.

A whole new level of backyard chicken keeping

Fair warning.

This post and the accompanying links may not be for the squeamish...  It is all about our family taking a new step into keeping a backyard flock of chickens.

Chickens lay eggs and they are food too.  That is your last hint...



In the last few weeks I have become more convinced that one of our newest chicks was not a potential egg laying hen (which are really called pullets), but a potential noise maker and hen hassling roo (which are actually called cockerels).  In a backyard flock of 10 (now 9) birds, roosters aren't really desirable especially by the neighbors.

A few days ago The Boss Lady bought a magazine about different chicken breeds.  The suspected rooster was an Australorp and he had huge, long tail feathers.  The magazine all but confirmed my suspicions.  But conventional wisdom says that you don't know for sure until the bird gives you either a crow or an egg.

That noise I heard this morning when I was walking to the car?  Yeah, that was NOT an egg!

I posted an ad on our local chicken message board, but I knew that this guy needed a new home quickly if we were not going to make the neighbors mad. Yeah, their four barking chihuahuas?  That is another story...   No nibbles on the ad, AND Wednesday is trash day which would make it a lot easier to get the "leftovers" taken care of quickly.  It was looking like the rooster's fate was sealed.

This evening The Boss Lady and I decided to butcher the bird ourselves. So, like all good urban farmers, I hit up Google and found this link:

How to butcher a chicken in 20 minutes or less... 

After a few hours of reading up on how to best process and butcher chickens, I decided that this was the best method for us to try for our first time. We would skin the bird, instead of scalding and plucking all of the feathers and there was not even a small chance I would eat the livers and gizzards...

Cut to the chase.  We did the deed and it took less than an hour, including the times that we stopped to read the instructions I printed out.  Now the bird is in the freezer and we will cook up some chicken and dumplings later this week. 

When we started with backyard chickens, I promised the kids we would not be eating their pets.  But this seems like we are kind of coming full cycle with having chickens and growing our own food in the garden. The Boss and I decided that we will tell the kids about the roo and give them a choice when it come time to eat the chicken and dumplings.

Front yard re-do, Part 2

A follow up to my last post, Front yard re-do, part 1

I'll come back and write up a little more about the specifics of our yard makeover, but I think that the results are worth more than the $500 we dropped on this project.

 After two and a half days of work, we are almost done.

 The focal point pieces of our new flower beds.  Two horse water troughs.

Loving the new look!  No Asian Jasmine and a lot more water conscious!

We will get the planters filled next weekend (or during Spring Break). 

What we started with.  That is a big difference!

One of my goals for this project was to re-use as many plants as possible.  Everything that we had growing is water conscious and either native or adapted to Austin's climate.  Plus, the neighborhood deer leave all of this stuff alone!

Lots of the big shrubs were growing out near the street,  so they moved to a better spot in the new  beds, swapping places with much smaller plants.  Of course, that meant that I am now re-doing the flower beds  out by the street, but that project will not be photographed for a while.  

In the end, we only spent money on the planters, some mulch and a roll of weed block fabric.   I am thrilled with the results.  My yard  chairs are no longer facing the street.  We repositioned them, too, so that we  can admire all of our hard work.

Front yard re-do, Part 1

Our house is in need of some serious TLC.  When I was home full-time I kept a pretty close eye on repairs and maintenance needs around here.  In the last year and a half our 30 year old house has started showing her age.

Next month we are having some foundation work done and I have been really wanting to get the yard back in shape.  Today we started cleaning up and renovating a big flowerbed in our front yard.

The front flower bed.  A mix of 1982 fabulous and a 2005 re-work that is looking a little tired and boring.

After Day 1.  

Lots of clean up and digging out of 30 year old ground cover.

There may not be a lot of obvious progress in these pics, but I have the blisters on my hands to prove that The Boss Lady and I did A LOT of work out there today.   I dug out about a mile of Asian Jasmine ground cover that was here when we bought the house.  This stuff is notoriously hard to kill and even though it is brown and dead-looking in the top picture, I am sure we have not seen the last of it.  In fact, I didn't trash the jasmine, I moved it to the backyard to fill holes left by the dog, kids and chickens.  We have a retaining wall that is a pain to mow or weed-eat, so ground cover will be perfect up there.  

To keep the cost of the renovation down, I am going to move several plants to new locations in the landscape.  When we are done with the cleanup and new pea gravel ground cover, we are adding some large planters.  You'll have to wait for those details though.

The start of the kid's summer. Mine will wait a few more daze

The kids finished up school last Friday at noon. I originally thought that I would finish up after a couple hours this morning but last week's bombshell re-hire announcement changed my summer.

I thought the kids and I would return to our slothful AtHomeDaddy ways quickly, but I have to knock out a couple of more days of staff training and prep for the fall semester. Wednesday the kids and I going to head out of town for a day or two and hit Six Flags Amusement Park. Bro and his family took the kids to the park earlier in the spring and bought season passes for the kids. The Boss Lady bought herself a season pass a few weeks ago, when she and the kids went back tot he park with cousins and The Mother of the Bride.

I haven't been to Six Flags in somewhere near 20 years, but I bought a season pass the old fashioned way, over the internet. They had a price break before Memorial Day and I may not be a roller coaster fan, but I AM a cheapskate, so I got my pass for half price.

And in another sign that summer has surely returned, my head is now shaved. I used to shave my beautiful brain bucket most summers, but I skipped last year because I was out looking for a teaching job. No need to scare a potential hiring principal. Since that ship has sailed and I have a new gig lined up, I can return to my roots (or lack of) and be comfortable this summer. There is a pic on facebook if you need a glimpse...

Spring Garden and Fam News Update

It is hard to believe, but summer is almost here. Oh, sure, the calendar rings in the new season some time in mid-June, but anyone who has spent May in Texas knows that REAL summer begins quickly after the last frost.

The academic year is winding down. The kids have 9 daze left and it is showing at the middle skool. There will be no new learning until the fall semester.

Dunring the week of Spring The Princess helped me plant the veggie and flower garden. We haven't had much time to tend to the plants this season but everything is growing nicely. Actually, several crops were utter failures this year. A combination of poor timing at planting time, not enough rain and some "helpful" chickens is going to keep us out of beans, peas and broccoli this season. Also, some of The Princess' flowers did not germinate. But she planted enough other varieties to make up for the weaklings.

This season we planted our garden a little differently. No structured rows of plants all lined up this year. We decided to mix things up a little bit and did more of a "square-foot-garden" thing. Of course we have a few hundred square feet to work with, so we kind of went crazy. I really like the way the garden looks this year. I am sure that we will do more of this type of garden in the future.

A few pictures from our plot:

Our first time growing kohlrabi. Still haven't eaten any of it. You first, OK?

The survivors - onions, corn (another first timer in our garden), watermelon, spinach, eggplant, zinnias, kohlrabi, morning glories, loads of different herbs and marigolds.

A sneak attack form one of the helpers.
The caterpillars and chickens have done a real number on the kohlrabi leaves.

A few minutes before the photo shoot, the cats were both helping in the garden, too. They have recently been evicted from the house and I no longer care if they eat grass or leafy greens. If they barf outside, then I don't have to clean it up. Or I can at least use a power washer.

Regular readers here or over on my facebook page will know that my job situation changed quickly a couple of months ago. There is still no promise that I will be returning to the same skool (or any skool) next fall, but things are starting to look a little more promising. Hopefully we will know something definite, shortly.

The Princess will be having a pretty big surgery in a few weeks and that is of course the biggest issue on our horizon. Having to miss a few weeks of swimming is not the best way to start a Texas Summer Break but this works best so that she won't miss out on a ton of skool in the fall. And the flower garden should be looking great by then, so she will be getting fresh cut blooms each day that she is at the hospital.

So there you have it. I haven't updated in a month or so, but you are officially up to speed with the AtHomeFam in less than 7 minutes.

Darth Vader Explains the Pythagorean Theorem

So I have spent much of the last two days trying to teach the Pythagorean Theorem to classes of 7th grades who are fully aware that there are less than 25 days left in the school year.

Yeah, it's been BIG fun.

Anyways, at some point I had a flashback to my own young teen years when Mr. John Smith (not even an alias - and yes, his wife was Mary) tried to learn me the Pythagorean Theorem while we were fixing a leaking section of his underground sprinkler system. Though I probably didn't fully learn the lesson, I do remember the effort that Mr. S put into the sprinkler fix.

With that in mind, I came across this jewel of geometry. So I shared it with most of my classes. In the end, maybe some kid will remember a little part of the stuff that Lord Vader and I have tried to present. And if nothing else, at least the kids were quiet for 2 minutes and 50 seconds. And at this time of year, that is something...

A season to remember, that is for sure!

This Christmas Season started out with a bang AND a scrape AND a crunch. The Boss Lady was side-swiped by a high school kid about a month ago. Her 2001 Beetle has seen better days and we had already been entertaining the idea of replacing it in short order (But the plan involved waiting a few more months at least).

When we started weighing our options with Itty Bitty, it started to make a little more sense to either let the insurance total the car or to sell it as soon as we could get the body damage fixed.

Somewhere along there I went insane and agreed to take a new job. I'll be leaving my High School teaching gig and moving over to a Junior High School (6-8 grades) at the start of next semester. The job is going to be crazy busy, but the paycheck should be nice.

The Boss Lady started finalizing her plans about the time I took the new job. But she really hit her car buying frenzy after going out to eat with a friend who has just bought a brand new Toyota SUV. After that lunch, a new car WOULD be bought. And soon, I guessed.

We went out a few days ago and we test drove a few cars. The Toyota Matrix and the Corolla were in contention for a while. But there were lots of cars ruled out. Nothing too small, nothing too big. Safety and good gas mileage were absolute requirements. the more airbags the better and the higher the mpg count, the betterer!

After we test drove a brand new MINI Cooper Clubman, we were thinking a lot about that car. (Probably me more than the wife.) I kept snooping around and found a 2009 MINI Cooper S Clubman sitting at a Chevy dealership a few miles from our house. The car had 12,ooo miles on it and it looks like it was previously owned by a germ-a-phobe. This thing is clean inside.

It is true. I haven't even started the new job and the car is already in the driveway. But it is also true that I won't be seeing much of this car once skool starts. I'll be too busy and The Boss will manage to keep her foot out of the turbo charger enough that she should get decent gas mileage in her new ride.

Me? Yeah, good gas mileage thing is not gonna happen. I am a dude! This car wants to be driven and he wants to get there in a hurry. So it looks like I'll be sticking with the Saturn Vue. Good thing my car will get me reliably to work. It looks like I'll be needing the paychecks very soon.

A side story about the new car - He already has a name, Randall.

The salesman treated us great. Never been happier to deal with a salesman. Really!

The guy's name is Randall. When The Boss and I got back home, I was joking that Randall had tempted me to really NEED that car. Then I tried out my best John Goodman impersonation, I quoted Scully from Monster's Inc. and said "Randall's your monster."

A day later and the name has stuck. Even the kids are running around saying "Randall's your monster!"

Ready for Christmas Break

Turns out there is one thing all teachers, regardless of grade level or the subject they teach, look forward to. Winter Break! Two more half days and The AtHomeFamily can start ours.

Hoping to post some nice substance during the next two weeks. (But don't hold me to that, OK?)

I spent a good portion of this week prepping for a job interview. No word yet, but soon I may be getting the call-up to the big leagues. Hopefully soon I'll be moving into my first full-time teaching gig. If this job works out then I'll be switching from High School to Junior High.
And if not this job, then I'll keep chasing the next ones.

But for now that 2 weeks without an alarm clock is sounding goooooooooood!

Parade recap

We spent the morning at the Chuy's/Children Giving to Children/Blue Santa Parade. True, it may have the worst name ever in parade history, but it is also the greatest of all parades. For several reasons. One, it happens in Austin. Which is always cool. Two, the kids who attend the parade donate toys to the local Blue Santa program that is sponsored by our Police/Fire/EMS Departments. The toys are given to kids all over the area who otherwise might have nothing else to open on Christmas morning. And three, it is the one day a year that the kids can count on dad waking up way early. But really, it is about the balloons. This is the only parade all year that they use the big character balloons.

This year I hit downtown before 7am (several hours later that years past), but it was only 33 degrees out there, so I was confident that the crowd would be slow to form this year. And I was right! We still got our preferred viewing spot.

I loaded up the netbook and the cell phone, so I kept entertained with random Facebook posts and watching Groundhog Day on Netflix streaming, thanks to the wifi from the Starbucks across the street. The wait was a lot shorter this year, but much colder, so I would rate this as the toughest year yet.

Knowing that there are sometimes 100,000 people at this parade, I go downtown early and camp out on OUR spot. But we are always prepared for some fun while we wait. Last year the kids and I geocached downtown. This year it was chalk art in the street.

The Princess was proud of this drawing, her "Peace Sign Kitty"

The kids and I always stroll over to watch the crews blow up the balloons. This year they had Super Grover, King Prawn (?), The Grinch and the Coca-Cola Bear. The Princess was thrilled to see them inflating a My Little Pony balloon, but something must have happened with that one, it never made the trip down the parade route.

The pickup trucks stop at the end of the parade and the kids rush out to load them up with the donated toys.

Joe McDermott and his band. He is a local kids entertainer who the kids and I have stalked followed since they were babies.

The Biscuit Brothers and Buttermilk. From the PBS Show filmed right here in Cap City.

No PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIGE! :(

I'll admit, when I saw the weather report, I was not thrilled about sitting in a camp chair, freezing my fat butt off, just so the kids could see some parade. But at the last minute I decided to head downtown and park my blanket-wrapped carcass. The kids will be too grown up for all of this nonsense too soon so when the kids and The Boss showed up (with doughnuts, sausage kolaches and Dr Pepper) and they were bouncing around with excitement, then I was glad that we had continued this family tradition once more.

Let's try this a different way

So one thing I am learning every single day in the classroom is the importance of presenting new information lots of different ways. The idea is that each kid learns new stuff a little differently, so if you give lots of variety in the way you present stuff, then eventually most of them will catch on.

Yeah, so that is the way it is supposed to work anyways.

So with that in mind, I have decided to try a new approach to this whole blogging thing. You see, I like facebook because I have been able to rediscover lots of friends for years ago that I thought I would never hear from again. But I always feel a little limited in what I am able to share. Some of that is a result of the way facebook (and twitter even more so), limit the AMOUNT of content you can share at one time. Now I have been accused of lots of things, but never have I been thought of as a "man of few words". So this space limitation is tough on me.

I also try not to share some things because of the mix of people on my friends list. I know most of them. And I even like many of them. But (and looking at my friends, it is a big butt!), sometimes I just want to think about a subject before I share too much about it. So with that in mind, I am going to start blogging occasionally ABOUT my facebook posts. Because I am too tired to think of anything more creative, I'll tag these posts as "facebook further". I now present you with the first installment:

From just a few minutes ago,

Sitting here watching the kids while they watch STOMP Live. I bet the house is going to be even louder in the next few days. Especially since we bought them all new drumsticks a few weeks ago when we were at the music store.

A few weeks ago I decided on a whim to change to strings on my acoustic guitar. In the process I broke one of the bridge pins. So we headed over to Guitar Center to buy some pins. The kids weren't too excited until they got tot he drum room. They spent about half an hour banging away in there. When we left The Boss Lady grabbed a couple of sets of real drumsticks out of a clearance bin.

Since then it has been a little more rhythmic around here. I occasionally hear some pounding beats coming out of each bedroom. No wonder I noticed a few new dents in each of the bunk-beds this week. With this showing of STOMP Live, I assume those dents are just the first wave. In fact, as we are finishing up the movie, The Talker is sitting on a giant exercise ball and drumming his heart out.

And from a few days ago,

Helped serve dinner for 25 on Monday night. Cooked dinner for 50 on Tuesday night. Helped teach a cooking class this afternoon at work. Followed all of that by whipping up spaghetti for 3 tonight at home with a ton of help for the 6 year old chef-to-be.

Hoping to not see a kitchen for a few days.

Lately we have been incredibly busy. I am realizing daily how much I loved our simple, uncluttered life with one income and a much less busy schedule. Most of that was bound to go away, as the kids get older and more involved in sports/dance/music/art/whatever. But I am still trying to wrap my little brain around how quickly and dramatically things have changed for our whole family.

A side story that I was too ashamed to put on facebook: we ran out of milk last Monday. Neither The Boss nor I had time to get to the grocery store until Saturday. The store is less than a 2 mile round trip from out house. I used to walk up there. But it truly was "that kind of week". As we get this figured out a little better, then we can plan a little better. But until then, we are jumping around putting out fires as the pop up.

Which reminds me, we are out of milk again. I should have time to grab some on the way home of Thursday. Oh wait, I have to cook for another meeting that night, so maybe Friday...

Right.