Most people understand the concept behind counting to ten when you get angry. It isn't dissimilar to the reason that we sometimes give our children "time-outs" when they are naughty or out of control. The idea is to step back, take a breather, sort out our feelings, and (hopefully) calm down a little.  read more »

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day, who is having a pretty rough time with his daughter. She's a bit wild and rebellious, most likely due to the fact that her mother is no longer part of the family. What little influence she did have from her mother before she left was not very healthy or positive. So my friend has pretty much been on his own as a parent.  read more »

The local electric company has their tree-trimming crew on the prowl in my neighborhood this week. They started up the street from us, and were only three doors down as of this afternoon. Normally, this doesn't bother me much. Aside from the noise, they usually do a pretty good job of raising the trees and removing unsightly dead limbs. However, I happen to notice that this time they are cutting down entire trees.  read more »

My kids are still playing the old Sega Dreamcast every few days. Choosyboy is getting quite nimble with the controller and has been making his way through Sonic the Hedgehog with increasing dexterity. His older sister still helps him when he needs to battle the Eggman. He'll get there eventually. I've seen it happen a zillion times before, particularly when I was a kid playing video games all night at my friends' houses. Our fascination with video games was intense. It proved to be an expensive habit over the years, too.  read more »

When choosymom and I first started dating, I had a small west highland white terrier (or "westie"). When we moved out and married, that little guy came with us. He was an awesome dog - extremely affectionate, gentle, and low maintenance. He never whined for attention or food, and would endure long durations of time in his pet taxi without soiling it. We felt bad about having him locked up for so long sometimes, but we were both working full time and finishing our college degrees, so there were times when we might not be home for ten hours or so.  read more »

Yesterday, while we were elbow-deep in bathroom renovation hell, we received a phone call from school indicating that Choosygirl was sick with a fever. We hopped in the car and picked her up. Once home, choosymom checked her temp and she registered in at just under 100 degrees. Our daughter was acting a little meek, but didn't seem very sick. She was up to her usual antics with the dog, and she was eating just fine. She also mentioned that there were five kids that had gone from class sick that day. Must be a mild pandemic. The weather sure is nice out.  read more »

Why is it that every home improvement project that I attempt turns into a disaster? I guess it's the iceberg effect - you only see the top 10% of the problem. As I previously mentioned, I decided to replace the wax seal beneath our master bathroom toilet, and have had nothing but headaches since. The how-to books don't mention that mountain of potential problems you open yourself up to by engaging in this supposedly menial task.  read more »

Several years ago, I was feeling quite reluctant to pick up a laptop computer. They were too expensive, didn't come with half of the upgrade possibilities of a desktop, and they were a fad. Since my family has committed itself to as many forms of voluntary simplification as we can stomach, fads are generally out of the question. I eventually bought one for my wife, but only because it was on sale for $500 and it would allow her to work anywhere in our home. I continued to use a home-built desktop.  read more »

At least, don't trust a how-to home improvement book to accurately predict how much time it will actually take to complete a project.  read more »

This summer, we've been hitting several of the local watering holes fairly regularly. It has been so hot and humid this year. When I was a kid, we had an above-ground swimming pool in our backyard. My siblings and I practically lived in that pool during the summers. My sister even had the green hair to prove it. When one of my neighborhood friends would come over, he/she was always conveniently wearing a swimsuit.  read more »

Our house is for sale right. I know what you're thinking...

"Great timing!"

Unfortunately, the market is absolutely horrible right now, and I suspect that we are on the verge of a recession (if we haven't already fallen into it). Our plan is to build our own home on a piece of land that we recently purchased outside of town. But we need to sell this house first.  read more »

While we were shopping for school supplies last week, we also had to pick up some new shoes for the kids. Within minutes, choosyboy had settled on some velcro tennis shoes with blinking LEDs and a construction worker theme. (The back of the shoe says "caution" in big, bold yellow letters - cute. They were on sale.)  read more »

We're a week into the school year, and both kids are already adjusting to the new schedule. We were a little worried, as there were quite a few occasions in which they were able to stay up late through the summer. But they are back into the swing of things now - going to bed on time, and getting up with little resistance.  read more »

Last night, we attended a parent teacher conference for our preschool-ready son. Rather than the typical one-on-one conference that I remembered from my own academia, this meeting was delivered en masse.  read more »

Today was choosyboy's first day of school!  read more »

Yesterday, I made a huge mistake. I took my family on a short hike through the woods. After about ten minutes, my daughter complained of her ankles itching, and upon further investigation we discovered hundreds of tiny seed ticks ascending her legs.

I feel so stupid. I don't know what made me think that tick season was over. Sure, the weather has cooled off a bit, and I haven't run across a tick in the last few weeks. But taking a hike through an oakleaf-laden forest in the middle of August is about the worst family outing I could have planned.  read more »

My kids have recently rediscovered our Sega Dreamcast system. You may or may not remember it - it was discontinued back in 2001. But we still had about a dozen games for it, and it worked just fine. So why get rid of it? And what's more, why upgrade?  read more »

While shopping at Wal-Mart, I was surprised to see an Amish or Mennonite woman riding one of those motorized "hover-round" wheelchairs. Isn't that against the rules?  read more »

Today we stopped at Wal-Mart for school supplies and walked out spending about $120...well actually about $225, but that included an oil change and a bicycle that I've been eyeballing for some time now. It was finally on sale for $99, and I've been needing a bicycle, so we splurged. I justified it by convincing myself that we'll save a ton of cash on gas when I start riding my bike all around town. It could happen. Really!  read more »

Yep, that's me in case you didn't notice. I'm just not in the best mood today. The kids were acting up more than usual. Our visit to the school was like a circus clown nightmare and one of those lost-in-a-crowd anxiety attacks all rolled into one. Choosyboy got soap in his mouth and a timeout later in the evening. We're having trouble getting him to stop hitting and spitting. It rained, and the darn gutter is still leaking all over the side of the house (I tried to fix it once, but I guess it didn't work).  read more »

School supply lists are a joke. Every year, the teacher details a handful of things that the kids either never use, or that end up being used as the "community supplies" for the entire class.

Choosygirl is supposed to bring 30 pencils with her on the first day of school. 30! Why does she need that many pencils on the first day of school? Are we supplying for our daughter or the entire frickin' class? I think we'll start her out with about ten, and we'll replace those throughout the year. The same goes for the three packs of wide-ruled looseleaf paper.  read more »

Today we attended an open house at the local elementary school. They had a theme for the kids - the circus. My kids dressed appropriately. The place was more like a zoo, though.

The music teacher was blasting some obnoxious circus music the entire time, and between that and the crowd of chattering parents, I couldn't hear a thing. Since my wife occasionally substitutes for them, she knew most of the people there. I walked around like a zombie with a faux smile. Only one person caught my true feelings, and commented to me under her breath that, "this too shall pass."  read more »

Our home is for sale right now. We plan on building once we can sell it. Of course, the current housing market isn't very fluid at this time so the house may be on the market for some time.

Having a house for sale is very stressful, particularly when you have kids, and even more so when you have messy kids. (But what kids aren't messy, right?) I think we've pretty much got it down to a science, but every so often choosyboy will spread about 300 toys across the living room floor just before we have a showing.  read more »

I can't believe it! After about seven years of always having at least one of the kids around all day, choosyboy will be joining his sister in school this fall. In about a week, he will be in preschool during the day and choosymom and myself will have weekdays to ourselves. We hardly ever drop the kids off at babysitters, so this will truly be an alien experience for us.  read more »

One of the big changes that occurred when we relocated a few years ago was that I was no longer the sole source of income for our family. My wife had been a stay at home mom for about six years prior to that point, but once we moved we needed some extra income to supplement the period while I was starting my business. So she picked up a part time job, and she absolutely loves it. It doesn't pay that great, but it helps.  read more »