O.K., you are right again.

So it's no surprise that my wife is right about 95% of the time. The surprise is that I fail to give her the proper credit she deserves. I bring this up because today I was watching my gal "O" (I have now watched Oprah enough as a part-time-stay-at-home dad that I can call her "O") and the subject was motherhood, stay at home moms, etc. This is a subject I can relate to at the moment so I paid a little more attention than I normally do. Part of the show featured a mom named Heather B. Armstrong who started a blog back in 2001 about motherhood and other parts of her life adventures (the website is www.dooce.com). I thought, hmmmmm, maybe I should really pay attention now, so I turned it up just in time to hear that Heather currently makes around $40k a month from this blog website......um, excuse me. Did you say $40k a month?!? Her husband quit his job and her blog is now the sole income for their family. WOW!!! You must be shitting me (old school term...only used for special occasions). This is what my lovely better half told me when she gave me her "start a blog" pitch. What did I say to her pitch...sure, whatever. I mean, 40k a month. Even a quarter of that would make life real nice for our family. So what does this mean for me, well first of all you might be seeing a whole lot more blogging coming from the part-time-stay-at-home dad in the future. Second, I again have to give it up to my wife. She is one of my loyal readers (maybe the only one right now) so I know she will get a big kick out of this. Third...that was $40,000 a month right???

PEACE OUT DADS!

Work, what work?

So business has had a small blip of activity the past couple of days. It seems so foreign to be busy again after so many months of inactivity. I welcome it gratefully and hope it continues, or do I? I mean, I do like my work and was very busy until things went south, but I am also really liking my new role of "part-time" Dad. We have a great little system in place and if my real job starts to get busy again it might mess that up. Is that what we want, what I want. My wife and I believe that things happen for a reason so I guess we will have to wait and see. I have a long ways to go before I can call myself a good stay-at-home parent, and I would not mind having the time to work on it.

PEACE OUT!!!

"Dad, what's for dinner?"

Tonight was one of those nights that make me think being a part-time stay-at-home Dad is going to be more difficult than I thought. My better half was on a day trip for work and was headed home a little later than she thought. The girls and I were knee deep in some home cleaning (the family has recently decided to get our house picked up and put in order, which I love!!!). Yesterday we tackled the girls room, and today it was the toy room getting the home make-over. Well, dinner was now on me and when we finished our room cleaning it was already 5:15pm, and I didn't have a clue what we were going to eat. If I would have just remembered what my wife had told me and cooked up a little pasta thing would have been fine, but I decided to improvise a little. I went straight to the freezer, the one place I used to call home for the night's dinner plans before I was married. There was nothing, nothing at least that I could handle. Then, in the back I saw something, it was frozen solid and looked a little like taco soup, one of my favorites. Mind you, it was frozen solid and by now it's 5:30pm. So, I dump the frozen block of something into a pot and turn the stove burner up to the max. Needless to say this was going too slow, so I then transferred the frozen block into a bigger pan and threw a top on it. The girls were getting anxious and hungry so I called audible #2 and threw together some cheese quesadillas and apple sauce (that's healthy right?). While they chowed down I was still holding out hope for my frozen something or other. After it started to smell like something was burning I decided to take a look. Not only was it not close to being ready to eat, but I discovered what I thought was taco soup was actually spaghetti sauce. How someone can make this mistake is beyond me, but as I have been telling my wife I must have been in another state of mind or something. So, with my options for myself running low I turn off the stove and abandon the burnt frozen mess and look at my other options. It turns out my plan B for the girls was not enough and they are still hungry. I then go to an old standby and try to throw together several items to make something that, after eating, does not remember anything that anyone would eat. In this case it was tortillas. cheese, ketchup and pepperoni, or as I was calling it, pizza. This idea was more horrible than it sounds. Did I mention I pounded down two glasses of wine during this whole process. Thankfully, as I was finishing off my so called pizza (oh yes, I ate it...and my stomach it feeling the effects as I write this!) my angle, my goddess, my wife walks through the door. Before I can even fully explain the events that have taken place up to that point she has pasta boiling. Before you know it all my girls are eating a wonderful dinner while I sit at the computer and write down what happened. I have a long way to go, but I think my heart was in the right place. Now I just hope I don't get sick later tonight.

UNTIL NEXT TIME...D.I.T. OUT!

Laugh 'til you cry

There are a few certainties I have in my life and one of them is that I married the perfect woman for me. We are so compatible it is scary. One of the ways I know this is that we have the same sense of humor, which is probably only funny to us. Last night we were catching up on some of our shows on DVR and my wife was enjoying a chocolate peppermint patty. She then looked at me to say something very important and I turn to her and see her mouth surrounded by a thin, chocolate ring. This is funny to me on so many levels, but mostly because our 5 year old daughter has this look constantly. In fact, I swear she sometimes gets this look without even eating chocolate...I don't know how but it seems I am always cleaning off her face. So to see my wife, a 38 year old woman, with the same look made me laugh instantly. And when I pointed it out to her she too started laughing. We both laughed so hard we were crying. It was the second time last night we did that, but I probably shouldn't talk about what made us laugh the first time. She is my soul mate, my best friend and the other half of my comic duo. I am more than certain she was the one I was supposed to meet and I love her more than she will ever know.

UNTIL NEXT TIME...D.I.T. OUT!

I'll get to that tomorrow, right?

I feel like there are so many things I am putting off these days. I can't put my finger on why that is and sometimes it drives me crazy. Yesterday afternoon I spent the better part of an hour collecting a couple months worth of Maggie's presents in the back yard. Some were so cold they just disintegrated at the touch of my shovel. My youngest was with me and she does a great job as my spotter "Dad, here's another Maggie poop" I heard her say about 3 dozen times yesterday. So I can cross that little chore of my list, but it seems like 3 more got added after I was done. Maybe I am feeling pressure to do more outside of the office since at work there is less to do. I have a mountain of cardboard that needs to go to recycling, my oldest daughter has about 25 fundraisers and reading logs to fill out this month. I have been telling both of my girls since the holidays we were going to get a choir/allowance chart going. I need to get my arse in gear and get some of these things done before the weather gets nice and the new round of landscaping/gardening items get put on the list (but I do have to admit I love doing yard work so these really aren't a bad thing). I could be the lack of afternoon expensive coffee shop coffee in my bloodstream (we have cut that out of the budget as well). I will get it going soon, I just know it. Heck, writing about it gives me just a little boost so I feel better already. HECK TO THE YEAH!!!

UNTIL NEXT TIME...DAD IN TRAINING OUT!