Road Tripping. Again

The Boss Lady was not able to go on our jaunt to St. Louis and Memphis. Somebody has to keep working to pay for all of this running around, you know!?!  As originally planned, we were going to extend our original trip all the way down the Mississippi River to New Orleans.  Time and the fact that I was driving solo AND keeping the kids entertained finally intervened and I cut the trip off and headed for home as we left Memphis.

Last week The Boss Lady said  she would like to visit New Orleans.  Road trip #2 was on!

My go to trip planning sited this summer have been Costco.com for rental cars and hotels (Best Western). and google maps for routing.  After about 10 minutes on Costco's travel website, I found a hotel that was in walking distance to most sites that we wanted to check out in NOLA and the nearby railcar system's 3 day passes would get us everywhere else.  Even better, the hotel was less than $110 bucks a night.

Turns out we did REAL good on the hotel room.  Because we only stayed in Best Western hotels on our first trip, we had a voucher for a free night.   Since we had never spent more than $75 on the earlier rooms, I was not sure they would comp us the full value of the room, but a discount would be OK, too.  One of the mistakes we made in traveling to new Orleans was under estimating the cost of parking.  Even our hotel charged $25 a night to park a car on site.

When the hotel comp-ed our room for the first night, they also gave us free parking.  So our total stay for two nights and parking was just over $150.  DEAL!

The biggest mistake we made on this trip was our serious underestimation of the cost of eating.  Sicne that is a big reason to go to NOLA, we knew it wouldn't be free.  We estimated about $40 a meal to eat at family friendly (aka CHEAP) places.  We should have upped that by 50%.  We never even ate at the fancy restaurants where dining for 4 could have been $150 or more.  If I had known we were staying so cheap, we might have gone a little higher-end on one meal.

In the end, we had a blast.  We ate great.  We checked out tons of awesome street artists and we heard a lot of incredible music.



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Home Grown

Somewhere near 4 years ago I started using the same egg carton for storing all of our fresh eggs in the 'fridge. It is a nice, sturdy carton but nothing too special.

When starting out with backyard chickens, I was trying to figure out ways to keep the costs manageable while keeping the flock in the best feed for the money. During that time we tried out a brand called Home Grown.

Though we settled on a different brand of feed, my juvenile sense of humor kicked in and I made all sorts of jokes about 'gathering my "home grown" from the backyard'. One pot joke led to another and soon I was carefully dissecting the feed bag.

I used the label to decorate my reliable egg carton. And it has been in constant use ever since. Just like real 'home grown', I giggle a little every time I put some eggs in the fridge.

Sadly, old reliable is getting worn out so I am retiring the carton. No worries, Home Grown gets a place of honor in the kitchen.

Besides, a guy might need a stash box next to the microwave, right?

Road Notes 5 - The final route

Now that we are heading home tomorrow, our route is ALMOST finalized.  This map shows a 1,555 mile route through the central south.  That does not include several hundreds of miles of running around and a few more miles of backtracking while trying to find the hotel driveway,  Twice.

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Road Notes 4 - Upward!

Today was THE big day.  We spent a ton of time at the Arch, checking out all of the exhibits and the IMAX movie about the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  And hanging out with the kids 630 up in the Arch is one of the memories I will cherish.

Still, the Arch may not have been the highlight of the day.  City Museum has got to be one of the coolest things I have ever experienced.  If I were a resident of St Louis, this would be my usual hangout with the kids.  As it was, we spent 3 hours and still did not climb (or see) everything.  The kids were wiped out this afternoon and fell asleep on the car ride back to the hotel, so I know this was a quality experience for them.

Tomorrow we are planning to hit the St Louis Zoo and then we will return to Citygarden with out splash worthy clothes.  Today we were not properly equipped since the Emergency Swim Bag had been left at the hotel room on accident.

After Citygarden, we are heading towards Memphis after a quick detour into Kentucky and Illinois.  Sorry Indiana, you didn't make the cut this trip.  




Tomorrow's proposed escape route:


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Road Notes 3 - Onward!

Today we head into St Louis. We will be visiting Grant's Farm and the St Louis Zoo.

We stayed in Springfield, Missouri, the home of the world's hottest hot tub. Awesome!


Today's escape route:


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Road Notes 2 - Getaway Day

We are sitting at The Queen Mother's House, waiting for our rental minivan to be delivered to the sales office.  Road Mistake Number 1 - I forgot to check the default settings on the Costco car rental search engine.  They plan on all pick-ups to happen at noon unless otherwise noted.  I did not note. 

I think we are in pretty good shape to hit the road within an hour of getting the rental.  I will be outfitting the car with a power converter so that the kids can keep a continuous charge on the DS games and the video system that we are hauling along.  After getting the creature comforts setup, we will hit the road for Springfield, Missouri by way of McAlester, Oklahoma and Galena, Kansas.

Today's alleged route:

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Road notes 1

Thanks to some bad luck with our cars, the kids and I left a day early on our multi state roadtrip. We were only planning to stop at my parent's house long enough to drop my car and pick up a rental. Realizing we had a day to kill before even getting a real start, I started looking for something entertaining for the crew.

We ended up at the recreation center nears parent's house. And boy, do I feel dumb. It turns out that this place is exactly what I have looked for on every visit home since the kids were born.

We have just killed several hours in the indoor water park and made use of that necessary road trip item, the emergency swim backpack.

This bodes well for our trip. May the car and scheduling hassles be behind us.

Hey FoF!

Look what I found when I replaced a geocache container last month.

One more

There is one more thing I want to add to my summer "to-do" list.  Unicycling.

http://12for2012.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/unicycling/

Hanging around.

Each summer the kids and I try to settle on a "thing" to do.  It is sort of like a theme.  Maybe you could call it a mission.  Last summer it was supposed to be biking.  We were going to bike all over our neighborhood and discover what we might about the place where we live.  Urban adventure!

Then I remembered that we live in Texas and it gets to a hundred and millionty degrees during the summer.  And it never rained, which made it hotter and dryer.  Mostly hotter.  In the end, we didn't ride our bikes very much.

This summer we are spending the first part of our time off planning for the Family American Road Trip.  We still have not decided on a summer "thing" for the time after our return.  I am thinking that it might be all about hanging out.  Hanging out at home, hanging out at the library, hanging out laundry, hanging on the monkey bars. Whatever and wherever something needs hung, we will be there.  Unless we are hanging out elsewhere.

Last summer, my first spent as a teacher, was also fairly uneventful because I spent about a month in training classes for a new teaching assignment.  The kids and I did not have a lot of hanging out time.  This year, even though I am facing another new teaching assignment, the required training classes are all scheduled for the first week of August.  And I didn't sign up for the optional ones... So that leaves the AtHomeTrio almost two months to hang out and chill.

And that my friends, makes for a good summer "thing"

OK, so here is the deal...

I got busted on a teacher review earlier in the year for using that phrase too often in front of my classes.  Evidently it is not OK to make deals with the students.  I am just supposed to lay it out for them and they are supposed to learn.

Like my students, I sat through the lecture on my technique and then returned to the classroom to make more deals but no real changes...


It is officially summer.  I have no keys to any public school classrooms and I like it that way.  I have very little work related that I need to do between now and August 1.  Awesome!  The kids and I are leaving in about 5 days on our epic road trip to St Louis and points East.  We will be gone for at least a week, running the roads in the south and central United States.  I bet we find some awesome adventures along the way.

In work related news:  I am officially finished with my tenure as a math teacher.  But I will always have the fond, happy memories.  When the new school year starts I will be back on my same campus.  Neither The Boss Lady nor I ended up taking a job at the new school.  My new class will be much different.  I was responsible for 30 7th grade students last school year as their Tracking Teacher. Supposedly I helped them keep up with assignments and communicated with their parents frequently about individual Special Education needs. I was also responsible for 25 math students in my drop-level math classes.  THEN, I saw about 75 more students in grade-level math classes.

Now I am not great at math, but that seems to add up to about 130 kids a day I was supposed to keep tabs on.  Next year I will have less than 10!  And THAT is math that I agree with.

Of course, there is a downside.  These 10 students (maybe as few as 5) come with lots of medical issues and LOADS of paperwork.  I keep thinking that no matter how much paperwork 5 students can generate, there is no way that it could be more than 130 can cause.  I am also afraid that I am about to be slapped right upside the head with a reality check!

The biggest change of all is that I will need to bust out my managing skillz again.  The new classroom comes with a staff of 4 or 5 that I have to keep corralled.  That will be the biggest job.

So there you have it.  The final installment on the 2011-2012 school year.  Forever to be known as The Year of Mikey Math.

Now let us never speak of it again.

The end is near!

2 1/2 school days until summer break! Technically I have 3 full work days but the students have a half day on Friday...

Also, my time as a math teacher is wrapping up too! I have finally received my new teaching assignment. There was a big problem this year on our campus and I stepped in to cover a second class last month. I'll be staying in that class next year. Tons more to come about that later.

The AtHomeTrio are hitting the road in a couple of weeks. We are heading to St. Louis and points undetermined on a week long road trip. The Boss Lady has to work a few more weeks before her two week break begins so I'll be making the trip solo.

That part doesn't sound bad but the maniacal sounds of laughter that the wife makes when I talk about the trip are a lot worrisome.

There is tons to catch up on. Luckily for both of you readers, I will soon have a lot of free time to fill you in.

Job changes and unchanges

I didn't get the new job.

I got a different new job.

Surprised? Yeah, not as much as me.

I am staying at the campus I love and because of some chaos caused by NOT me, I am shifting into a new role already. There are only 20 days left at school, but my new gig is crucial so I have started already in my new class.

Of course I have my old classes to cover too. But that is because I am a nice guy.

That and I am always scared when the Principal's office door closes. Seems that all I can say in that closed office is "yes ma'am".

I may pray to burn in Hell, just so things cool down around here

OK, that may be waaaaaaaaaaay to far with the title, but this blog is still mostly about making myself laugh like a mental patient on a 3 day bender.

Evidently I am in the running for a new job.  Didn't ask for it.  Didn't know it was being considered.  Wasn't looking but the email exploded into my inbox this morning.  Of all of the cool stuff I have done over the years, two of them were EXACTLY right.  I made for a pretty good AtHomeDaddy for all of those years and I am a really awesome Special Education Teacher.  The Boss Lady has to remind me about that once in awhile because I tend to be a pretty harsh critic. 

Even though the work is sometimes tough and the parents are sometimes a pain to deal with, I do not regret moving into teaching at all.  Some would say I just haven't been around long enough to get really bitter and tired.  Those are the teachers I tend not to spend much time around.

Anyways, our school district is opening a new middle school this coming year.  Some of my current students will be moving to the new school.  Teachers are getting shuffled to the new school too.  I haven't been against moving, but I have not really sought out a spot for myself over there either.  That does not seem to matter.  I was called today to interview for a position at the new school.  The technicalities of the position would bore you to tears, but suffice it to say that if I were to create my dream classroom, it would look A LOT like this opportunity.

So, AtHomeDaddy what is the problem? 

Let's just say that The Boss Lady would love (love might be too weak of a word) a job at the new school. But if I take the teaching gig at the new school then she would not be in the running for a new job over there.

See?  You knew I would get back to the title, right? 

I am officially stuck.  I can chase after this opportunity and cost The Boss Lady a shot at a new job. Or I can tell the hiring people to kiss off (nicely, of course) and never have another chance like this land in my lap.  For now I am going to spend a day or two trying to decide.  Wish me luck.

After all, if The Boss Lady kills me in my sleep and hides my body in my classroom filing cabinet, at least we will end up with an easier decision.

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.

I highly recommend

Taking a cruise back though your own blog.

I was heading to bed two hours ago.  Then I decided to find something really quick that I knew was posted here, back in 2006.  Or was it 2005?

Anyways, I have just gotten lost in stories about my children as babies, long dead pets and many of our great times at home.  It made for a good night and I am sure it will all be worth it when I am waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too tired in the morning.