Life Lessons for Boys, Young Men, and Men

Things i've learned over the years that, if taken to heart by a young man, will save him immense amounts of grief. If you are a father or mentor to young men and/or boys, make it a point to help instill these things into them. By example is always best, but weaving such things into daily conversation and situations can have a positive affect as well.

Feel free to add useful items in the comments section!

(note: These are in no particular order)

1. Get to know your potential wife's mother as well as possible, because she is very likely a close approximation of who the love of your life will turn out to be. A girl gets a lot of her values and beliefs (and half of her genes!) from her mother.

2. When you love a girl and you think you want to marry her, the true test is to look at yourself. If she makes you twice the man you could ever be on your own, then there's a good chance that this is the one. ;)

3. Buy a house at the earliest possible time. Any house, any place, any terms. Just do it. You will not regret the investment.

4. CARE about your credit from the  moment you take your first job, and treat it as a precious thing.

5. Practice the self-discipline of having moderation in all things; too much of ANYTHING will have a negative effect on you.

6. Always remember that you are not the captain of the ship, but merely a first mate...you do NOT have control of every aspect of your life. Therefore, be aware of the nudges and hints and road signs that "fate" will give you, and follow them; watch for the doors that open, and walk through them.

7. Do everything with the understanding that it will come back to you eventually (because it will indeed come back to you), so give it your best effort, morally and physically. Believe this: NOTHING in your past will ever just disappear; if you do not deal with it now, you WILL deal with it later.

8. Adopted from Solomon, but so, so true: Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might. If a thing is worth doing at all, then do it to the very best of your ability.

9. Do not fear change, no matter what form it appears in; Change is good and a door of opportunity: utilize it as a step upward.

10. Whatever you break (relationships, moral obligations, physical items, etc.), FIX IT immediately. Procrastination can render a thing unable to be fixed...ever.

11. Silence (in a relationship) is never your friend. Communication is the pathway to healing and growth.

12. In order to make every argument result in a positive outcome, remember and practice this truth: The ONE thing that all sides need above all other things is TO BE HEARD. Not shallowly, not patronizingly, but sincerely listened to. Give them that, and they will be able to hear you. Deny them that one thing, and they will never be able to hear you no matter how solid your case is. (here's another post I did a while back specifically on this subject)

13. Whenever possible, buy yourself a used car outright ($2000-$5000) then plan on occasionally investing in repairs. This is MUCH wiser than financing and you'll be happier and smarter for it.

14. NEVER resign yourself to a less than desirable outcome until you have exhausted every possible avenue, and I do mean EVERY one. Do NOT be a "door shutter"...you open those doors, and you check them out.

15. If you want something, ASK for it, no matter how certain you are of the answer beforehand. You never know what you can have until you ask.

16. Do the things that cause you to like and be happy with yourself; choose the things you know to be right and good no matter how hard your peers or even your own self pressures you to choose otherwise. Elect to do the thing for which you will have no regrets later.

17. In all of your relationships, romantic or not, GIVE. Practice it.

18. Honor those who trust you by doing what you commit to, for they have honored you by believing that you will.

19. All politics aside, you ARE physically the stronger of the sexes; use that advantage to protect, provide, and love; never to harm.

20. Ascribe great value to your relationship with your parents, even through the tumultuous teenage years. You may feel like you don't want it now, but you WILL want it later.

Following are the top 20 things that I have come to learn over the years that I feel, if implemented, taught, embraced, and adhered to, will be the keys to maintaining a happy and efficient home, as well as a posterity fully prepared to go forth and do likewise.
Feel free to add to this list in the comments! :)

(note: the following items are not listed in any particular order)

Life Lessons for Husbands and Fathers

1. Every person in your home is entitled to a safe, drama-free environment. Make this precept the primary goal in all things. Make NO exceptions to this rule. When an individual chooses to disrespect the right of others to a drama-free environment, that individual must "repair what they broke"; make it right, make reconciliation with whoever it is they have affected and offended. It is the RIGHT of all members of your household to peace. Defend those rights, to one and all.

2. Teach your family NOT to waste. Electricity, water, heat, food, AC...only use what is needed, then TURN IT OFF or CLOSE IT. Frugality is of lifelong benefit to all who learn it.

3. Consider every situation, moment, and interaction as an opportunity to teach your children. Drop a bit of relevant wisdom, point out something of interest, show them affection, do something that you would want them to mimic, ask them questions to get them thinking, connect a dot or two, etc. Just always be mindful of the fleeting time and that one of your primary jobs is to guide and instruct, whether by word or example.

4. Every rule you have set for your home should be upheld at all times, without exception. Consistency is so very vital to maintaining a happy home.

5. Consider every rule in place a guide, and treat each violation as an individual situation, applying judgment and love. The true goal, desired outcome, and primary reason behind having rules is that, in the end, you will provide your children with a stable and consistent environment, and to instill within them the ability to discipline themselves. Do not make the mistake of enforcing rules without making judgment in every individual situation the lens through which you consider the circumstances of the matter. A child's age and maturity level, their ability, capacity for understanding, motive...all must be weighed. Use the rules as a starting point, a guide, by which to assign standards to your household; but in all of it, use judgment first.

6. Taste life. Life happens each and every moment, but make it a point to purposefully taste it, be aware of it, appreciate every small thing. This is for you personally, first, then for your family.

7. Make it a point to teach your family that there should be moderation in all things, at all times; that too much of anything (tv, fun, food, video games, sunshine, sleep, work, laziness, etc.) can be detrimental to one's well being and mental health. Practice what you preach, and point out to them the times when you and they DO exercise moderation and how much better it is.

8. Hold your children accountable for their actions. Reward those that are good, punish those that are bad, always mindful to exercise judgment in the situation based on the child's age, the situation, the circumstances, and the child's maturity level.

9. NEVER reward bad behavior. NEVER.

10. Be consistent in the manner in which you apply the rules and guidelines of your household. No favoritism, no slacking due to your own apathy, no double standards.

11. As often as possible, spend the first few minutes of bed time talking to your children. About your own childhood, Bible stories, analyzing situations that happened that day, making shadow puppets on the wall from the streetlight coming in the window...anything. Spend that time with them, make it special, make it memorable. Make sure they know that they are loved.

12. Start family traditions. Even small things will stay with them and their children for generations to come. For instance, my grandpa used to take me out to sit on the front porch with him, and together we would eat an apple. he would peel it and give the peelings to me, then take turns cutting slices off of it, one for him, one for me. During that time we would just talk about things...those times were some of my best memories, so I do it with my own children and grandchildren. Nothing is too small to be special.

13. Expose your children to new things. New genres of music, new leisure activities, new games, new books or movies; teach them to desire the expansion of their own horizons, and how to do it themselves.

14. Teach your family to respect nature and the earth. Never allow them to throw their trash on the ground, don't permit the pointless killing of any living creature for no reason, relocate spiders that find their way into the house by catching them and releasing them outside, teach them to be mindful of recycling, put a bird feeder on the back porch, plant a small garden (even in a flower pot!), set up a fish tank, and any other thing you have opportunity to show them by your own example.

15. Show the children, consistently and without fail, how to respect and love their mother. Show them this by your own love and respect for her. Never permit even the slightest hint of disrespect from your children toward their mother, and always rise to her defense when such things occur. Stand by her side, unwaivering, and show your young ones the queen that their mother is. In this they will learn how to treat women, how a child ought to esteem his or her mother, how to behave themselves well, and how to become respectable people themselves.

16. Teach your family not to fret during times of apparent financial stresses; be the pillar on which they can lean. Maintain a positive attitude, a proper prioritization of the things life consists of, and demonstrate the benefits of being resourceful, shoring up the budget, selling unneeded 'stuff', and being frugal in order to meet your family's needs. When you have finally run out of things to do and try, take the family for a walk. It helps clear the mind, relaxes the body, and I can't count the number of times I have done this and come across some idea or means of meeting the need (an unexpected check in the mail, finding cash or (back in the day) a book of food stamps, etc.). Show them how not to fear those things outside of our control, and instead to count their blessings and have faith in one another and that omniscient presence that sees all.

17. Never assume that by nature you will always love your wife like you should. It isn't a sign of weakness or fault in the relationship if you would benefit from some proactive soul searching and self-reminding about why you chose this woman and she you. Find scriptures that speak of the love and fidelity of a husband toward his wife, and lay them to heart. Get them out every now and then and read them, think about them, remind yourself, renew your love for her.

18. Even if you are a man who could hold a grudge for ten lifetimes, at the very least you must ALWAYS keep the door of forgiveness open to the truly repentant. If a person truly sees the error of their ways and asks you to forgive them, it is your duty to do so. Make this a part of the man you are.

19. Practice self-sacrifice for your family and for others. Not to be seen, so much (though that will occur sometimes), but for your own sake. When there is only enough pancakes left for each of the kids to have seconds, serve it to them happily, no matter how much you wanted one too...you can always go back later and grab an apple or a bowl of cereal if you're really that hungry! When everyone is in line for showers, go last; when you see something that you know your wife usually does (like take out the bathroom trash, or get up early and get your son ready for school), YOU do it. Every act of self-sacrifice, even in the small things, will make you just a little bit better man.

20. Make it a point to execute random acts of love and kindness...special acts...toward your wife. The unexpected back rub, breakfast in bed, a carefully chosen piece of jewelry bought on ebay, doing the dishes, INSISTING on date night, showing up with two glasses of chilled blush, your best attempt at poetry...the random, sincere "I love you"s; These are the water that keeps the plant thriving, the logs that keep the fire burning, the health that keeps the hearts in sync and beating.

PROLOGUE

All the world's a coffee drinker. If you're not, it would behoove you to at least take the time to explore this little side of heaven in the manner I describe in the rest of this post. I know, you may have tried 'coffee' before and didn't like it; but I say to you that every cup of coffee is not created equal, and as with every meal you've ever eaten, the end product is a result of the skills and care of the preparer. If you already DO, however, fancy yourself to be an afficionado of the grind, then please do yourself a favor and allow me to instruct you on how to make the PERFECT cup of coffee. I mean, hey, if you're going to do something you should do it to the best of your ability, right? Myself, I'm the kind of guy who believes with all my heart that I am special, and so if I'm going to do something for myself, I'm going to make it the best it can possibly be, within my means and abilities. You're special, too, so let's make sure you're rewarding yourself properly.

So, coffee. The seed of a plant grown somewhere else, harvested, roasted in an oven, ground up and brought into contact with hot water in order to extract the goodness that lies therein: so we can drink it. I grew up in a culture who felt like if they managed to produce any amount of brown liquid in the process, they had succeeded in making coffee. My first experience with coffee was in the military, drank purely out of a desperate need to stay awake in some pretty dry tech school classes. It was Navy coffee, made in a pot that had not been cleaned...ever...purposefully so in order to fulfill some Navy tradition I never bothered to become acquainted with. In a word, the coffee was nasty. Weak, plain, made with as much indifference as a human being can muster, this was not coffee as I have come to know it; this was coffee flavored water. Most of the "coffee" you encounter in life is just coffee flavored water.

My travels through life and encounters with thousands of "coffee drinkers" and their beloved ten dollar drip makers has brought me to the conclusion that most people don't really have a relationship with coffee and don't comprehend the pleasure potential it possesses. Even with a Starbucks on every corner and the uber sweet six dollar concoctions that come sputtering from their commercial machines, the average person has not been awakened to the joy of coffee. The only way to truly know said joy is to have an intimate relationship with The Bean. Make it yourself, in a manner respectful of and complementary to The Bean. Hence this post.

THE CHASE (cuttin' to it)

Here's the end product we're going for:

(the perfect cup of coffee should be a light caramel color)

 

Ingredients Needed:

• A one cup french press (I got mine for less than ten bucks at Khol's
• heavy whipping cream
• honey
• french roast coffee beans
• grinder (mine was around ten bucks)
• spoon
• tall cup (make sure you select a cup that is pleasing to your eye, feels good in your hands, or in some way tends to please you. This is the vessel you'll be babying for the next half hour, and it is as much a part of the relaxation formula as the elixir it will hold ;) )

 

 

 

  
(honey and heavy whipping cream; vital ingredients for the perfect cup of coffee)

STEPS

PREPARE THE BEANS

(french roast beans and coffee grinder)

First, grind up a handful of the beans. Some people are anal enough to invest the money to get a grinder that will make each tiny piece of ground up coffee the exact same size, but in my experience...who the heck cares about that! Just grind your beans up until you have at least some grinds that are almost powdery in size. Grind it like you mean it!

Note: you'll end up with extra coffee grinds; just put these into a zip lock bag immediately and toss them into the freezer. Make sure you also store your bag of beans in the freezer!

HEAT THE WATER

(french press filled with water)

Next, fill your press about an inch from the top with the purest water you have on hand. Our fridge has a filter in it, so i use the fridge water. If your microwave is a large or medium sized one, put the water in for 1 minute and 30 seconds. If it's a small one, make it 2 minutes. IMPORTANT: have the coffee already ground and ready to put in the water IMMEDIATELY after you take it out of the microwave!

MIX IN THE COFFEE

(mixing the coffee into the hot water)

As soon as the water is hot, place the caraf into the press base. Spoon in 2 heaping tablespoons of coffee, and toss in another teaspoon for good measure. Stir it gently until the coffee has all been sucked down into the tiny maelstrom you just created. While the coffee/water mix is still swirling in the caraf, place the plunger and top on. Press the plunger down only a half inch or so below the water line! We are trying simply to ensure that the grounds remain below the water...they tend to float.

(let the coffee steep with the plunger just below the water line)

You'll notice that the mixture has developed a kind of brown foam on top. This is actually one of the reasons why coffee made in a french press is far superior to coffee from a drip maker. It is within this foam that the oils from the beans are contained, and (just like with bacon or any other kind of meat), it is the oils that contain so much of the flavor! Your final cup of coffee will contain these oils ;) This is also the reason why drip coffee makers do you such an injustice; they filter out the oils and thus a lot of the bean's character and flavor.

Now, wait for at least 15 minutes for the grounds to steep. But while we are waiting...

PREPARE THE CUP

(mix the honey and the heavy whipping cream in the cup)

Let's prepare the cup! Yes, we have to prepare the cup. Okay, put about 1 1/2 teaspoons of honey into the cup. Me, i just squeeze some in until it "feels right", but it ends up being about that much. Now, put about a full shot glass of heavy whipping cream in with the honey. Put the cup into the microwave for 10 seconds, and when you take it out, stir the honey and cream together. Heating it slightly allows the two to mix and form the perfect complement to your coffee.

PRESS THE COFFEE

(slowly press the coffee)

After your coffee has steeped for at least 15 minutes (the longer the better, though...I have forgotten it in the morning and fixed it when i got home from work...goood stuff!), you now need to press all the grounds to the bottom of the caraf. You have to do this VERY slowly...if you press too hard too fast, the grounds will escape up the side of the plunger and you'll have to pull the plunger out, clean it off, and start all over with the plunging.

BLENDING

(mixing the coffee with the cream and honey)

After you have pressed as far as you can go, you will now pour the coffee steadily into the cup, stirring as you do. It's important for the cream/honey mixture to blend with the coffee as you pour, not after. Once the coffee is all in the cup and mixed, you should see it a light caramel color. if it is darker, or lighter, that means you put too little or too much cream. Now, take a sip. If the coffee isn't still hot, nuke it for about 30 seconds...it's much better hot.

(Your perfect cup of coffee!)

ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS

The rest of these instructions are purely recommended, but not required, in order to enjoy your coffee

1. get undressed and put on just a fuzzy robe
2. find the quietest place in the house or outside on the veranda that you find to be pleasant
3. get to know your cup of coffee intimately

 

 That's it! Now, don't you EVER give the same regard to a cup of drip coffee AGAIN. That's not coffee...it's an "almost" suitable substitute in desperate times.

For the past four years I've had the privilege of caring for and learning about several tarantulas and a scorpion. Today I donated them to a local Montessori school so that other people can benefit from them as much as me and my kiddos have. To help the teachers, I created a short document on the care of these guys and some of the fun facts that we have learned about them. It is no way intended to be comprehensive, but will definitely give you things to research.

 Following is that document. May you and yours also discover the joys and wonder of our fellow Earthlings! :)

Tarantulas and Scorpions

Care and Feeding

 

Environment

Tarantulas and Scorpions are somewhat shy, despite their appearances, and in order for them to thrive they require the ability to seclude themselves when desired. Therefore, their environment should always include some form of shelter in which they can hide when desired. Also, since life in a small plastic cube can become monotonous, always try and incorporate items to keep their lives ‘interesting’; rocks, wood, and other natural items for them to explore and manipulate.

 

Never allow direct sunlight to shine into their cages, as the temperature will rise to the point of threatening their lives. Myself, I have always kept them near a window that gets indirect sunlight, but have never used a heat lamp or let the sun hit them directly.

Observation

One can’t help but be intrigued by these creatures, and rightly so; but in order to learn the most from the time spent observing, it is imperative that they not be disturbed when doing so (no forcing them out of their shelters, making them move around, etc.). The goal should be for them to not be aware of your presence when they are being observed.

 

Tarantulas and scorpions have eyes, but their site is not very good at all. Therefore they connect to the world mostly via the sense of touch. They are extremely sensitive to even the smallest vibrations (sound is a vibration), and that is how they hunt and find their prey. Therefore, it is very important that when observing these animals that their cages (and the table or shelf they sit on) are not touched, bumped, or disturbed. An excellent rule of thumb to drill into everyone’s mind is “FOR YOUR EYES ONLY”.

 

Observation is also GREATLY benefited by the use of a hand held magnifying glass. Many of the more intriguing features can be better seen when magnified, such as their eyes, their spinnerets, the pads on their feet, and their fangs!

Feeding

What

Tarantulas and Scorpions eat only live food. They’re not very discriminatory and will probably eat “anything that moves”, but for the maintenance of their health it is best to only feed them live crickets purchased from a pet store.

When

Like us, each individual has their own appetite. One of them will eat once every two weeks while others will eat as often and as much as given to them. A good rule of thumb is to ensure that they have fresh, living food in their cage at least twice a week. If feeding day rolls around and the tarantula or scorpion still has food, do not add more.

How Much

As I mentioned, some tarantulas are gluttons and will literally cram their fangs as full as possible, while others will take one cricket and be completely satisfied. I recommend putting no more than two crickets into the cage at a time. For those gluttonous, it will limit their gluttony; for those who are picky eaters, it will improve their odds of finding and catching at least one.

 

Watering

Tarantulas and scorpions require constant access to fresh water, so do check this daily. Due to the nature of the tarantula’s “mouth”, they require that a sponge be placed in their water dish so that they can suck water out of it as needed. The scorpion’s mouth on the other hand is such that it does not require a sponge but only a shallow dish of water present. It will dip its head into the water to drink when it is thirsty.

Crickets

Crickets are people too (even if they are food)! Since the arachnid may not eat all of the food given it in one sitting, it is important to ensure that the crickets in the cage with the tarantulas, and those extras in their own cage, are provided with the basic necessities so that they can survive until they are eaten. Make sure that they have access to water (in the arachnid’s cage they can use the water dish there, in their own cage put a shallow dish with water and a sponge) and food (I put in a few pieces of dry cat food that they can nibble on).

 

Fun Facts and Research Items

My family and I have learned a LOT about tarantulas and scorpions, and I wanted to pass along some of the more interesting items for the students to learn and/or research.

 

Tarantulas are not true spiders!

There are several differences between true, modern spiders and tarantulas...things that make them interesting and unique among arachnids. What are those differences? The way they breathe, the number of eyes they have...what else?

 

How do tarantulas eat? How do scorpions eat?

We tend to think that tarantulas “suck the blood” from their prey through their fangs; not so! And scorpions...the process is something you have to see to appreciate. The scorpion doesn’t tend to eat all that often, and prefers to do so hidden away, but careful and frequent observation may result in an opportunity to observe the process! Oh, and pay particular attention to the tarantulas right after they catch a cricket. I like to call it “the happy dance”, for they will turn in circles while dipping their spinnerets to the ground, forming a “blanket” on which they will lay the digesting cricket. They will then place more web over the cricket and pick it up again to finish eating it. Very interesting!

 

Shedding of Skin

Tarantulas shed their skin in order to grow. These particular tarantulas are fairly old, and so will probably only shed once or twice a year, max. When they get ready to shed, however, they do an odd thing that at first glance will cause you to think that they have died! So, if you come in one morning and find the tarantula lying flat on his back with his legs in the air, do not disturb it; it is in the very delicate process of taking off its old skin. Once it is finished, it will lie in that position until its new skin is dry and hard, then very often it will take the time to move its old skin to another part of the cage. You may use tongs or some other instrument to gently and slowly remove the old skin from the cage for closer observation.

 

The scorpion doesn’t shed its skin, at least at this stage in its life. It has a body that is more elastic and expandable.

 

Urticating Hairs

One of the tarantulas (the one with the long, red hair) is the type that protects itself with urticating hairs. You should have your students research this to find out more about it. When provoked or frightened, this tarantula will turn itself around and, using its back legs, kick or throw the hairs from its abdomen at its attacker. So, if you see one tarantula that appears to be going bald on its abdomen, it probably just threw some hairs.

 

Reproduction

Tarantulas and Scorpions are very mysterious in this regard, and even being able to discern a male from a female takes a trained eye. All of the tarantulas in this collection are female, but the only way to truly tell is to examine their shed skin under a magnifying glass. Also, male tarantulas when mature will develop a special set of hooks at the knee of their front legs which they use during mating to pin the female’s fangs with so she can’t bite him.

 

Other than the very brief time when they mate, tarantulas must be kept separated because otherwise they simply see each other as a potential meal. Scorpions, on the other hand, are very much at ease with one another and can be kept in groups.

 

Colors

Observe the tarantulas under different kinds of light and at different angles. One will glow a beautiful purple in certain light and angles; the other appears a nice shade of pink and grey. Scorpions, under a black light, glow.

Just before completing the process of moving into my wife and I's new home, I did a blog post covering what I consider to be a lot of good tips, info, and ideas. Now that we've been in the home for a full week, there are a few more things regarding this process I'd like to share as well.

If you haven't read the first or second posts on this subject, you should do that now and then come back (link provided back to this post in the second post).

Your Home Is An Investment. Period.

It's VERY important that you don't allow the glamor and romance (which is definitely there and should be enjoyed) get in the way of you viewing your new home as an investment. Unless you are of retirement age and/or are so content with this purchase that you plan on having your ashes put on the mantle place, you must view this as merely a seven year stepping stone towards the home that you really want to live in for the rest of your life. With that in mind, here are some things that my wife and I did that I know will help our home stand out among others that will be for sale seven years from now when we're ready to build the dream mansion.

Upgrade, Upgrade, Upgrade

Centex/Pulte offers a lot of different upgrades. Upgrades cost money, for sure, and the last time I had a home built, I didn't take advantage of these options. But, I'm telling you now that you should take almost every single upgrade that you can possibly afford. With our deal, part of the incentives was almost $6,000 of free upgrades, and we spent every penny and then some. Don't worry, the extra money you spend will be part of the sale price and not have to come out of your pocket, so DO spend it! Get the top of the line appliances (we got all stainless steel); get the top of the line carpet and pad; get every possible light fixture set up for ceiling fans; add extra cable and phone jacks anywhere they might possibly come in handy for someone; take all the tile you can get (bathrooms, etc.), UNLESS you plan (as we did) on ripping out the entire downstairs flooring and having it custom tiled the day you get the keys; get the largest AC unit they offer, with heat pump; get pre-wired for the alarm and garage door opener, and get pre-plumbed for a water conditioner; take the stoned in fireplace!; take the masonry on the outside of the home; if there's a lot with trees, take that one!; and any other upgrade they have that your gut tells you will appeal to potential buyers in the future. If you have to, in order to afford the upgrades, downsize the model that you are choosing and take one with a few hundred less square feet, just so you can afford the upgrades.

Make plans well ahead of time on what modifications you're going to do once you have the keys in your hand. My wife and I already knew that we were for sure going to have the entire downstairs tiled, as well as the upstairs bathrooms, with ornamental inserts put in in a decorative pattern. So, we bought the tile months ahead of time when it was on sale, and had the tiler lined up several weeks before we closed. The money we were saving up had the tiling budgeted in, so we had it all arranged to give the tiler the key the same day that we received it. All went VERY well, and now we have flooring that nobody else does!

We also contacted several water conditioning companies and had them give us bids, as well as a company to install the garage door opener and one to do the alarm system. so within less than a week after we moved in, we had all of these things taken care of. Why the rush? Because we're human, and humans tend to think that they'll eventually get to it "very soon". The problem is that so very often "soon" never comes, so we MADE ourselves do it right away. Definitely no regrets here.

Hire a Mover
If you're like my wife and I, you've probably moved about a hundred times in your life already, at least. And I bet I can safely say that not one of those moves was probably enjoyable to you. It always involves rounding up whatever friends you can, renting a UHaul, and lots and lots and lots of "making like an ant", and carrying things back and forth, back and forth. Well, neither of us had any intention of going through THAT again, and so we got a quote from a moving company and budgeted it in to our savings. To give us maximum affordability, we also started literally two months ahead of time packing things into boxes and moving them into the room nearest the front door. The front room became our storage room, and as the weeks passed that room became filled with furniture and boxes stacked from floor to ceiling. Why? Because movers charge by the hour, and the easier we could make it for them to pack it up, the less time it took. Additionally, we decided that a new house should equal a brand new start, and we sold a LOT of the big stuff. Two queen size beds, one of the kids' beds, a couch and loveseat, a kitchen table...sold them all. We went through our house at least three times and put usable items out on the sidewalk for people to take; and they did! We purged ourselves of everything that wasn't absolutely necessary and/or that we didn't feel would be a good fit for the new house. By doing this, we managed to move a four bedroom, 2500 sq foot home into a 3 bedroom, 2100 sq foot home at a total cost of $540, including a $90 tip for the guys! It was WELL worth it, let me tell you!

Getting Your Deposit Back
Historically, NOBODY gets their full deposit back when moving from a rental, and most don't even get half of it back. Well, my wife and I got ALL of our deposit back, PLUS an additional $60! Essentially, the plan here is to do what your momma always preached to you: "keep up instead of catch up". When my wife and I moved in to our rental, our mantra that we always preached and practiced with ourselves and all 13 of our kids (yes, 13) was: "Keep the house landlord-ready at all times!". What this meant was that we took preventative actions, such as laying a long strip of cheap hallway plastic down in the high traffic areas from day 1. We also kept on top of the kids about keeping their personal spaces neat, correcting them whenever we saw them rubbing hands on walls and the like, and we enacted the rule from day one that no shoes would ever be worn in the house. By maintaining a mindset of keeping the house in a state that, if the landlord were to show up he would not be displeased with us, we had very little to do by way of repairs and the like when it came time to move out.

Because we really really wanted to get our deposit back, and we knew that we had been maintaining the house as if it were our own, we also did this: we called the landlord when we gave him our 30 day notice and asked him outright, 'what do we have to do to the house in order to get our deposit back?'. His answer was, 'take out the checklist we made when you first moved in that noted any issues with the home, and make sure that there's nothing additionally wrong with it'. Simple enough! So, we did. We spent ten bucks on a gallon of paint that matched the wall colors, bought two small sponge rollers, and we spot painted the house in areas of high wall to hand traffic. We removed staples from the girls' posters and put putty into every single staple hole we could find; we hired two young lady friends of ours for $125 to come in after us and clean the house from top to bottom; and we made sure the yard was cleaned up and groomed. By doing this, our landlord was more than pleased at our final walk through, complimented us on having been really great tenants, and handed us back our deposit, in full. Oh, but I said we got an extra $60, didn't I? The extra money came by way of improvements we made to the home and left for the next tenants. I simply prorated the value of those improvements (ceiling fans, a small brick outdoor fireplace patio, a garden box that we built) and asked him to buy them from me at their current value, which he gladly did. It was my first rewarding experience as a renter, but it wasn't luck of the draw, it was because my wife and I had been proactive from the beginning, always thinking ahead and knowing that we would one day be moving out.

Buying Appliances
Our new home came with all appliances except for one: the refrigerator. Now, the existing applicances I mentioned we had upgraded to the stainless steel ones, so we needed a refrigerator that would match. My wife being the most passionate about refrigerators, she had her heart set on one that was in the $2000 range. Since this is a new house, and since we will probably be leaving the fridge behind as a selling point, we decided we'd spring for it out of the money we had saved for this purchase. We shopped around, and it was when we got to Lowes (in The Rim shopping center off of IH 10 near the 1604 intersection) that we decided this was the place to buy it. The salesman there was just amazing. His name was JP, and the fridge my wife wanted was actually about $500 more than our budget allowed. JP being the awesome man of integrity that he is, told us that he would go ahead and give us a ten percent discount right off the top, AND that this same fridge would be going on sale next week for an additional ten percent off. If we bought it, he said that he'd call us next week and we could get the additional ten percent off as well. This total of twenty percent off put the refrigerator exactly within our budget! To make things even better and give us a little more breathing room, JP had us apply for a Lowe's card to put the purchase on. We applied, holding our breath (because I have an ex spouse who after several years has STILL not refinanced my old house in just her name, so every time SHE makes a late payment it goes on my credit!). In a few minutes the nice young lady at the service desk whom JP had introduced us to had us a card with the whole purchase put on it at twelve months no payments and no interest. She said the system had said that we had only qualified for a few hundred dollars, but she managed to get it up to $2600! THAT lady (and JP) are definitely being invited to our house warming party next month! So, we got the exact fridge we wanted and didn't have to spend a dime. They delivered it the next day and we simply adore it.      P.S. JP DID call me the following Thursday to tell me he hadn't forgotten, and that he had already taken off the additional ten percent from our Lowe's card. If you're shopping for appliances in the San Antonio area, hit Lowe's at The Rim and ask for JP!

The New Lawn

Here in south Texas, there really isn't a lot of dirt to speak of; in fact, the substance that our foundation was poured onto was a lot more like cement than any kind of earth. This is a good thing for the foundation; bad for any kind of plant that isn't native to this area. So, one thing that my wife and I did was to sneak in one day during lunch, just after the topsoil for our lawn was spread, but before they actually laid the sod. We picked up a $50 bag of lawn fertilizer and a couple of spreaders from Home Depot and fertilized the soil pretty thoroughly. I can't say for a fact that it made a difference (maybe they just gave us great sod), but I can tell you that our sod took off incredibly fast compared to the neighbors and is now, three weeks after being laid, thick and green. I recommend that you give the same kind of pre-treatment to your new lawn as well.

That's all the tips and info I can think of right now, but if I think of anything else I'll be sure and append them to this post. If you have any questions or need any input whatsoever, don't hesitate to shoot me an email via the link at the top right of this page!

Doug out. :0)

(I shared more details prior to this post in a previous post)

Tomorrow morning at 9 am, my wife and I go to close on our new home. Just to make sure we come prepared, we called the builder today to find out what the specific amount of closing costs would be. To our surprise, I was told that the only thing we needed to bring with us is a picture ID, and in fact, we would be receiving money from them. That's right, we get money back. In a nutshell then, what has occurred is that my wife and I put $500 down on a $178,000 home which was built for us from the ground up, and when we sign the papers tomorrow to take the keys and move in, they are handing us back almost $300. No down payment, no closing costs out of pocket, and out a total of only $200 that we spent. Oh, and they gave us a 5.3% interest rate. America (and Centex), you totally rock.

You Can Do It Too!

Some of the details, in case anybody would like to duplicate what has been a very rewarding and satisfying home buyer's experience for my wife and I...

First of all, you really need to get yourself to Texas just as fast as you can (seriously), especially the San Antonio area. Real estate prices are some of the best (if not THE best) in the country, the winters are pretty mild, the people and culture are great, jobs are in decent supply, and the cost of living is quite tolerable. Secondly, find yourself the nearest Pulte or Centex subdivision where building is still going on and walk into the sales office. They'll take it from there. My wife and I, on a whim, stopped in on a Saturday and by end of day Sunday had all of our options and amenities picked out and our new home process had begun. Now a mere 5 months later, we're moving in to our brand new home.

A few fun facts

Incentives

Centex (and probably most home builders) will very often have a wide variety of incentives designed to, well, give you incentive to buy :) . They change all the time though, and from one weekend to the next may be completely different. Make sure when you walk in that you ask about available incentives, because depending on what's most important to you, certain ones may appeal more than others. For instance, my wife and I are looking at buying a new home almost exclusively as an investment of our money and resources. So, knowing that we are going to sell in 5 to 7 years from now, we wanted to include everything possible that will make the home stand out and be more appealing to potential buyers. Centex just happened to have (that particular weekend) three lots that had a $5,000 dollar upgrade incentive, meaning that if we chose to build on one of those, we could select up to $5,000 worth of upgrades without upping the purchase price! So, we added that fireplace, and we upgraded that AC unit, etc.. Make sure you ask about upcoming incentives, too. The sales people usually have heard what's coming down the pipe, so if a more appealing incentive will be in place next weekend, you may want to wait till then to make a decision on which lot to build on.

VA Benefit

If you've spent any time in the military, then you can use your VA home buyers benefit during the purchase. In a nutshell what this does for you is allow you to not have to put any money down towards the purchase. It doesn't necessarily mean there won't be any closing costs (money paid to the title company for doing their paperwork, etc.), but it does mean you won't have to come up with a giant chunk of cash if you don't want to. Oh, and it used to be that a VA benefit could only be used towards ONE home. Not anymore. Now they pro-rate it, and your certificate is worth a certain amount. I'm not sure what that amount is, I believe they said 300k. So, if I use it to buy a home worth 85K, I still have 215K worth of certificate left to use towards another home! That's exactly what we did, too. If you're young and reading this, you should seriously consider giving 4 years of your life to the guvment. You'll have a steady job for 4 years with all benefits and probably some travel, and when you get out you'll be able to pay for your education AND your first home. It's a pretty sweet deal.

HUD

If you don't have VA home buyer's benefits, you will also want to know this little tidbit: if you get financed through the HUD program, you will only be required to come up with 3% down payment, and NOT the 10% or more that we typically think we do. That's a HUGE difference, and it can make a purchase completely do-able when going through the builder for financing instead of an "on the street" lending institution. So, whereas that $180,000 dollar dream home may have been out of your range due to having to come up with $18,000 as a down payment, through HUD you'd only have to save up $5,400! Still a lot of money for someone on a budget, but MUCH more achievable!

Realtors

Another tip: use a realtor. Even when buying from a builder, you are still entitled to a realtor. Cool thing about that: the builder pays the realtor's fees, not you. Don't ask me why, I have no clue, but nothing comes out of your pocket to compensate the realtor. Their primary job in this is to just act as a second set of educated eyes and ears on your behalf, making sure nothing gets overlooked and that you understand the process as it happens.

Credit

Credit. Most of us really hate that subject, but unfortunately it's a fact of life we have to live with. The good news is that Centex/Pulte are not robots like so many other institutions, and will actually evaluate items on your credit report to determine their validity. For instance, I am still legally bound to the first home I bought over ten years ago which my ex spouse got in the divorce, so every time she makes a late payment, it shows up on my credit. All I had to do was provide proof that the home was no longer mine, and the Centex underwriter didn't count it against me.

A year and a half prior to beginning the home buying process, I did what has turned out to be a very wise thing, and invested $400 with a local credit repair company to get my report cleaned up. They were totally awesome and their work in combination with me being fiscally responsible for the past couple of years has resulted in a credit score in the low 700s! Something I have NEVER had in my whole life. You really do want to reap the rewards of decent credit, so I highly recommend finding and using a reputable credit repair company to give that process a boost...it has really paid off for me.

Conclusion

When I share my home buying experience with some people, I'm often amazed at how DISinterested they are. I think it has a lot to do with their age, as the younger among us (physically or mentally) tend to think of buying a home as the equivalent of taking a spouse: some kind of life long commitment that they just aren't ready to make. But au contraire, buying a home is nothing but an investment of your hard earned money, a place to put it where it can grow and become much more than it would sitting in a bank account. You have to pay to live somewhere, right? You might as well pay yourself! If you don't, you are without a doubt giving your money to someone else so that THEY can reap the rewards of YOUR money. Exactly...that makes zero sense except in only a few circumstances. Buying a house doesn't mean you HAVE to live in it, either. You can always rent it out, or sell it. Of course you can't force it to sell, so the possibility exists that you may be stuck making the payment when you really didn't want to, but if you're willing to at least commit to living in the same city for 5 to 7 years, you should put your money into your own home.

All in all, the experience of buying a home through Centex (now Pulte) has been absolutely incredible, and I couldn't have wished for it to have been more pleasant. They treat you truly like a valued customer every step of the way.

Post number 2 on this subject! "Post-Closing" :)

I have spent the majority of today shopping around for medical benefits for myself and my family. Only it wasn't very much like shopping; not at all. It was more like going through a divorce, or a death, or some other traumatic event that causes the rest of life to be put on hold while you do lots of typing, talking, researching, worrying, counseling, fretting, waiting anxiously, and spending money you didn't have to begin with.

Some of the other "required" industries (those things that everybody needs and has to have) have figured out how to actually be a positive experience in people's lives, like (in my opinion), the real estate, auto, and shopping industries. But the healthcare industry as it exists today...they know that you need them and therefore aren't all that concerned with simplifying the process or making it a pleasant experience anywhere along the way. Simply applying for benefits can nearly bring a person to tears. They scrutinize every aspect of your life and make summary judgments and assumptions about your future health, demand their giant premiums UP FRONT before they'll even CONSIDER approving you (don't worry! If you're denied, they'll return them to you as soon as they've earned a wee bit of interest off of your money!), and arbitrarily DENY you benefits on what I consider to be a discriminatory basis.

Take Assurant Health for instance ( NYSE:AIZ). Today I called them up to ask their help choosing a medical benefits plan that was right for my family and I. I spoke with a nice gentleman named Brian who graciously offered to walk me through the process. So he begins asking me the usual questions about mine and my wife's height and weight, our tobacco usage, and then about my dependents. My oldest son is 24 and autistic. I had the understanding that any dependent over the age of 18 had to have a good reason for being covered under my benefits, so I voluntarily told Brian that Joshua was autistic. There was a brief pause, and then a somber "oh no" that suddenly had me a bit worried. "What kind of autism is it?", Brian asked me, "can you tell me more about it?". Knowing full well that autism has no connection whatsoever with physical health, I volunteered "well, he's non-verbal". Before I could give him any more detail whatsoever Brian told me that I had been summarily judged and that Assurant would not be able to offer me medical benefits for my son. "But, we can proceed with adding your other dependents if you would like", he gleefully added. I had to laugh, and asked Brian to please help me understand the correlation that Assurant Health (NYSE:AIZ)had made between AUTISM and PHYSICAL HEALTH.  He stammered a lot, and like most under-paid customer service reps do, retreated to the safety of his pre-written script, chanting it like a mantra in response to each of the analogies I drew and asked him to enlighten me about. In a nutshell, he hadn't a clue, nor was he ever once regretful, but staunchly stood his ground and told me repeatedly, "the Assurant Health (NYSE:AIZ)underwriters will not approve dependents with autism".

Let me tell you, my son Joshua is as healthy as a horse, and among all his siblings doesn't get sick any more and probably even less. He's non-verbal, yes, but not one time in his 24 years on earth has that ever equated to an increased risk of contracting influenza, heart disease, cancer, or any other condition that would require tight fisted Assurant Health to outlay cash unecessarily. In a word, Assurant Health is blatantly discriminating against my son, and how can that be permitted in today's society? I wouldn't then be surprised at all if some of the screening questions Brian had not gotten to had to do with my family's eye color, hair styles, or preferred sock heights, as perhaps they may have managed to also draw correlations between THOSE unrelated facts and their risk of having to pay on a claim! Assurant Health, congratulations, you have joined the ranks of those corporations whom I consider to be guided and directed by individuals with a much less than average IQ, and I do not intend to stop calling you out publicly in every forum I have access to until you put an end to your corporate-supported discrimination. On my side is the fact that you are a publicly traded company, and I believe and hope that your "owners" will see my point of view and empathize completely.

Back to my original theme, though, then there's the whole process of actually trying to USE the benefits you pay so mightily for. Making your visit to the doctor, supplying your benefit card only to receive a bill for amounts that should have been taken care of by your provider, only they decided to judge the item "out of scope" and defer it back to you to pay. After taking precious time out of your life to show them obvious facts from their OWN POLICY, they concede that it's their responsibility and eventually pay it. In the meantime, your credit suffers while their slow motion bureaucratic gears leisurely fulfill the obligation you paid them to. Bah.

I'm very frustrated right now, completely drained mentally, and am out $468 while I wait to find out if the mildly retarded underwriter sitting comfortably in their air conditioned office at one of these monolithic conglomerates will be merciful enough to accept me into their broken system and add me to the masses who posess what amounts almost to vaporous benefits. In terms of monetary costs, costs in time, and pain and mental suffering, I do believe I'd almost be happier investing the time getting a degree in homeopathy and just leaving the whole Gordian mess behind. Unfortunately, on occasion I do need the medical expertise that exists out there, and since it's priced way beyond the reach of the average family, I have very few choices in the matter, as do we all.

I guess I have no solutions to offer, I just want to immortalize the discriminatory actions of good ol' Assurant Health against my autistic son, and to vent with the rest of my good citizens who I know are having to endure the same frustrations as myself. I do not believe that we should just accept it all because "that's the way it's always been", nor should we learn to be okay with it simply because it appears that we have no choices. Systems, like little children, will live up to the expectations placed upon them. Sometimes it takes a long time, but change can happen if enough people are consistent in the pressure they apply and the stands they take.

UPDATE

It's been about three weeks now since my highly unpleasant encounter with Assurant Health, whom I consider to be nothing short of blatantly discriminatory. I thought I'd let my readers know that I DID find a healthcare provider who was more than willing to insure my autistic son, no questions asked. In fact, it wasn't that hard to find...seems Assurant Health hasn't managed to infect all of the rest of the health care industry with their discriminatory practices after all. I hope that others like myself who have found themselves under Assurant's prejudiced magnifying glass will speak out and spread the word. Perhaps a little fiscal pressure may get them to reconsider what they're doing with regards to our autistic citizens. If not, then I hope perhaps public awareness will caluse them to slowly drown in red ink as their true nature is manifested and investors see them for what they are: purveyors of prejudice.

I also notice (from reviewing my site's activity logs) that Assurant Health themselves have been visiting this blog post, from their Minnesota and Milwaukee offices. Keywords they used to find my post were very specific, using phrases such as "Assurant Health denies autistic", and "assurant health autistic brian". Good. I hope they continue to spread the word around their virtual office. Perhaps whatever semblance of humanity resides within their managerial hierarchy will take it upon themselves to actually back me and suggest that perhaps equating non-physical handicaps with the potential of physical ailments is indeed absurd and discriminatory. Besides that, adding to a person's already stressful burden of shopping for health benefits should be something a company strives NOT to do, shouldn't it? Assurant made it clear to me and therefore the entire nation that they do NOT care what we think, and if we don't like being grilled and pressed and summarily judged, then we can just take our sorry arses right on down the street. 

Keep on reading, Assurant, cause I'm surely not going to stop writing.  

Health Benefits and the costs thereof. I won't even pretend to be anal enough to have managed to have wrapped my head around the unnecessarily over-complicated subject of health benefits, but I did just go through an experience regarding that topic that I feel is worthy of sharing.

The Scenario
I am the non-custodial parent of several children for which I provide support and medical benefits. Since my ex spouse had the children covered under her plan at work, I opted not to purchase benefits through my present employer in order to save several hundred dollars a month. Well, the Texas Attorney General's child support branch recently mandated me to procure health benefits for my children, despite the fact that I provided them proof that my ex spouse already had them covered. Since I had no choice in the matter and since a legal mandate qualifies as a life status change event (enabling a health care provider to allow someone to enroll in benefits outside of their normal bogus "open enrollment" period), I decided to just go ahead and cover the whole family. I submitted my application and waited for a response. Finally after several days, I was told "no, we will only allow the mandated children to be covered". Hmmm. Okay, so I'm going to have to pay the already high premium to cover children, but Blue Cross and Blue Shield is only going to allow me to put  the non-custodial children on? Not my other children for whom I am the primary custodian? In a word, that's BS, and a senseless, arbitrary, judgment-less decision made by some heartless BCBS bonehead in a padded leather chair somewhere.

My Plan 

Refusing to give Blue Cross and Blue Shield one dime, I then decided to explore the alternative of purchasing my OWN health insurance as an individual. Now, I had always been brainwashed to believe that purchasing insurance on your own was so outrageously expensive that it couldn't possibly be affordable, so prior to this I had always just opted to tell my employer to "give me the works" and pay whatever I had to. But after inquiring among my peers and family, I found that there were LOTS of affordable options out there, none of which cost me any more than my employer was charging me, and all of which were comparable in coverage benefits! I finally settled on using United Health Care (www.uhc.com), and in so doing was able to speak directly to a rep who helped me design a custom benefits package that fit my budget and my needs to a tee, and at an EQUAL cost to what my employer was charging me! I lost nothing and I gained freedom from the "group" by which healthcare providers judge employees when deciding their rates.

Employers: Consider This

Here's food for thought, too, for any of you out there who have employees and who provide company sponsored benefits: Stop doing it. Instead, what if you simply told your employees to go out and get their OWN benefits, and then you reimburse them half of their monthly premiums? Let's look at some numbers.

My employer currently graciously covers a full 50% of what they are charged to provide me health benefits. If they're charging me $450 a month, then they are paying $450 themselves. Times the twelve employees we have, they're dropping $5,400 a month on us AFTER factoring in what they deduct from our paychecks. If instead they allowed each of us to go out and get our own, and let's say between us all (some single, some healthy, some ill, some old, some with families) we all managed to acquire a premium that averaged $600, they would spend only $3,600 a month, and each employee would only spend $300 a month. The employer saves $1,800 a month, the employee saves $150-200 a month...win win, right????

So then why isn't this happening? Why haven't more employers caught on to such an approach? Am I missing something? I know my nature is to simplify things, boil them down to their true core...but is it really this simple, or am I just incapable of "appreciating" an overly complex scenario? Is the emperor naked, or does he really sport a gorgeous new wardrobe? lol. Actually, I think it's the whole "herd" mentality prevailing in this industry, where every employer does it the way they do because every other employer does it that way too. Bah.

Bottom line, I don't think I'll ever elect employee sponsored benefits again, unless of course they are picking up enough of the tab to make it the best deal for me. I encourage all of you to at least explore the option yourselves, too, and approach your employer about adopting a similar reimbursement policy for their company.

 

My wife and I have recently been involved in the search for and procurement of a new home. It started one Saturday this past April when we were driving down the hiway and on a whim decided to stop in at the Centex office in a newly developed subdivision, just to "check it out". By Sunday afternoon we had already selected the model and all of the upgrades for our new home, and were embarked upon the journey of having a house built from the ground up.

It's now nearly July. The house is framed, roofed, wired, plumbed, and is on the verge of having the sheet rock installed. The whole experience thus far has had its ups and downs, but the majority have all been "ups", and I attribute this to two people: my realtor (Terri Russo), and the sales person for Centex (Linda Wilkins).

My wife and I didn't know it, but when you are having a home built, you can and should still have a realtor to represent you during all phases. The initial deterrent to doing so is the thought of adding an extra expense to a probably already tight budget, but (at least with Centex), the realtor's fees are paid by the builder! So with that in mind, I called up a long time friend Terri Russo, a realtor with Russo Group here in San Antonio. Terri is a woman of infinite energy and charisma, with such a thorough knowledge of the home buying/building process that she can (and will) easily translate it into terms that a new home buyer can comprehend. She has accompanied my wife and I on almost every meeting we've had with the builder and has been invaluable when it comes to ensuring that no detail is overlooked or goes unexplained. She always answers her phone (even when on vacation visiting family in Chicago), proactively communicates, and is an invaluable resource when it comes to answering questions like, "Hey, know anybody who does new construction inspections? Tiling? Sells appliances? Gives a good massage?" Terri Russo knows at least one person in nearly every profession there is, I'd say, and will never steer you wrong.

Now let me talk about our Centex sales rep, Linda Wilkins. Linda is THE sweetest woman I've ever met (next to my grandma ). She was recommended to me by a co worker who also had a Centex home built, and from the first time I spoke with her on the phone I was immediately set at ease by her gentle voice and absolute desire to simply help us fulfill our home needs. Not for one single moment in all the months now that we have been working with her have I ever felt like I was talking to a sales person. In fact, I would say that the title doesn't even fit her, as she doesn't "sell" anything; she merely educates you on what your options are and then lets you decide. She, like Terri Russo, is always responsive, caring, empathizing, and leaves no doubt in your mind that your concerns are just as much her own. My wife and I...well, I will admit that I think we have been a wee bit more challenging to work with than probably most new home buyers. But even when we were in her office expressing (in a not so controlled manner) an issue we had regarding the trees in our new yard, she never once reacted negatively and only made it a point to relate to our point of view and then get us a speedy and acceptable resolution. Linda Wilkins, you rock! You can contact Linda on her cell at (210) 336-4522 or by email at linda.wilkins@centex.com .

At this point, I'd like to interject just a few things my wife and I have learned that I feel may be useful to anybody reading this who is considering buying a new home.

1. DO get a realtor. If you already know one personally and trust their abilities, by all means have them represent you. If you don't know one personally, then I highly recommend Terri Russo here in San Antonio. Her cell phone number is 210-385-0305, email address is terri@russogroup.com, and her web site is www.russogroup.com.

2. DO have a home inspector lined up. This is very important, because even though Centex does inspect the work along the way, a third party set of professional eyes looking at it again can't hurt. We had an inspector come out just before the foundation was poured to make sure all pipes, spacers, etc. were right. He found a few things that needed corrected, and Centex was more than happy to address it all. We had him come in again just before the sheet rock goes up, and Centex is also addressing everything on that report as well. The final inspection will be just before closing. Having these inspection reports will also make your home more appealing when it comes time to sell, because the new buyer will know for certain that there were no defects allowed to slip through the cracks.

3. DO take lots of pictures throughout the entire process. Again, this will help potential buyers to feel much more at ease about the house itself, and it will provide good references later on as to where cables are, pipes, etc.

4. DO get as many upgrades as your budget will allow. Remember, the home is an investment and, unless you just plan on NEVER selling it, you'll want to try and make it stand out among the rest as much as possible. My wife and I got every upgrade available, and are already planning on immediately doing some custom flooring the day we get the keys (tiling the entire downstairs and all bathrooms). Home builders like Centex do offer a lot of choices, but they ONLY offer those choices; if you want something truly custom, you'll have to do it yourself once the home is yours.

5. DO include the entire family in the process as much as possible. We visit the home site a couple of times a week, at least, and take the kids so they can walk through it too. I tell ya, the kids do get real excited when they imagine how they will decorate their new room and of just living in the new house.

Buying a home and moving to a new location is a major event, tantamount to giving birth to a new baby (though hopefully you won't require Demerol to get through this process). So, celebrate it as a family before, during, and after! And, if you happen to be wanting to buy a new home in the San Antonio area, you should definitely look up my friends Terri Russo and Linda Wilkins. They will not steer you wrong.

Doug out.

Continue following our new home saga! "Closing Day" post here...

For twelve years I dedicated myself to Christianity. Not the casual, “add it to your collection of good things you lay claim to” style of Christianity; I rather gave myself to it, immersed myself in it, surrounded myself with it, and spent every waking moment working hard in one fashion or another trying desperately to achieve my understanding of what it meant to “become a new man”. When the Book said that I was supposed to become like Christ, I left nothing out of that definition and sought for all those years to rid myself of every dark feeling, every lascivious tendency, and every desire for the things I had learned were not to be desired. I studied my Bible almost daily, and when I wasn’t studying it I was meditating in its precepts, searching for the understanding of them and their application in my own life, certain that if I could only bridge that gap between the words on those pages and the heart that beat inside of me, I would be able to escape the bondage of this flesh and transcend my own weaknesses, flaws, and ignorance.

 

To some, what I describe as the mission I dedicated myself to may sound fanatical. To others it may sound like precisely the thing we should all be engaged in. Whatever end of the spectrum one might see it at, one thing I’m sure all would agree on: what I describe must have been a heavy, heavy burden for a young man to bear. After all, what I was trying to accomplish goes against everything that human beings are, and my “from the heart” dedication to this ideal and these goals would not allow me to give less than my all to achieve it. It was a burden, however; a heavy one, filled with discouragement at my own failings and with fear of what those others who I supposed held to the same standards and ideals would think of me if I could not carry it. Because “my” Christianity was so heavy to me, one precept that I always struggled to understand and could not manage to fit in with everything else I knew were the words of Christ in Matthew 11:30 when he told us that “his yoke is easy and his burden is light”. Nothing could have been farther from the truth for me, nothing, and I never understood how he could say such a thing and what he could have possibly meant by it. Until yesterday.

 

In 2001, the discouragement of continually failing to achieve the unachievable took its toll and I abandoned my quest altogether. Of course, in the years between then and now I have found my way back to a more proper median and have returned to the process of self-improvement of my inner man. The faith I held to for all those years: it was as real as the day. It did not allow me to rest on my laurels, but rather moved me to once again  seek for the truth I know must exist, and I have attended classes and worships here and there, read a few books on subjects that can be so abstract sometimes, and I have returned to my own personal study of the book as well. I have not drawn any conclusions on any subject as of yet, but put my efforts into keeping my mind wide open and the information flowing in. I also put my efforts into practicing those things I know to be good and right, which brings me to yesterday.

 

The recent death of a dear uncle of mine shed a whole new perspective on time and life for me. Being at a place that must surely be near the halfway point in my own lifespan, I cannot but be constantly and keenly aware of the brevity of it all and of those things that matter and those that do not. My own grandparents, whom I love dearly, are well into their 80s, and so I purposed that I would spend more time with them. This can be a challenging thing to do when you work all the time to support a boatload of children and when so many other souls look to you for support, love, and attention. But, I came up with the perfect plan, and so packed up my laptop yesterday morning and headed for the Silver Tree nursing home where my grandma stays. Every day my grandpa goes up there and spends several hours in the middle of the day with her, so since Silver Tree has wireless internet, I decided that I could just work from there and be able to spend time with the both of them. It was as I was driving to the nursing home yesterday, thinking about how well the whole thing was working out, feeling really happy in anticipation of seeing them, being so glad that I was going to be spending time with my beloved grandparents on a weekly basis, that a thought occurred to me: “You know, it really is not hard at all to do good.” And that is when the words of Christ came back to me, too: “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”.

 

I could be way off on my understanding; but then again, I could be spot on, too. It makes perfect sense to me, and I do believe that NOW I understand what he was talking about. Doing good, giving of yourself, loving one another...it is SO easy to do! It’s also well worth the investment of time and energy, and the rewards that come from it...immeasurable. In the whole process of just doing what you know is right, you not only give and receive, but man, you change just a little bit, too. Do it often enough and consistently enough, and the good deeds you do will become who you are. Want to be a good man or woman? Want to truly become a new creature, or put on Christ, or any other phrasing that means the same thing? It’s your actions on the outside that have the ability to change who you are on the inside. Knowledge is a first prerequisite, but the doing of it is what actually accomplishes true change. Like the weather can carve stone, doing well will carve a new man, one grain at a time. And the beauty of it: it’s not a hard thing to do at all. It’s easy, and the yoke, it really is a light one to bear.

 

Just my take.

 

Doug

"Sorry", the word itself,  is so very often misused and abused. 99% of the time, "sorry" is thrown out in the midst of a disagreement more as a mockery and gesture of pure loathing for the other person rather than the healing, fulfilling word that it was intended to be. Though no expert on the subject, living life and being observant along the way has resulted in some relevant insight, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to share some of my personal philosophy on the matter. Feel free to adopt it as your own.

"Sorry" by itself NEVER constitutes an apology, so don't go deceiving yourself into thinking you fixed what you broke when all you said was "sorry"; uh-uh, that ain't gonna cut it Bud. Delivered all alone, it is an empty, meaningless word without context or connotation, and does absolutely NOTHING for the other party involved to begin the healing process. If you truly are sorry for something, there's a little bit of homework that has to be done before true mending can take place.

First of all, you MUST understand exactly what it is that you did to hurt, offend, or wrong the other person. To gain this insight takes something that I fear too many people lack: introspection, or self-examination. In many senses of the word, you have to step outside yourself and the situation and look at it from a new perspective to really size up the deeds and damage. One tip that tends to work well is to simply imagine that the exact scenario had taken place between two friends or relatives of yours. If THEY had gone through the exact same situation, how would YOU judge the matter? However you would judge it between two other parties, that's exactly how you should judge yourself. Call the Spade a Spade, man, don't be sugar coating it.

Once you understand what precisely your wrong was, you must then don a mindset of humility. Pride won't allow you to be sorry, but man, humility will promote the sincerity and repentance that the other party must see in order to have a hope of forgiving you. So humble yourself down, dude(tte), eat a little crow pie, and be determined that if you're gonna do this that you're gonna do it right.

Now, deliver the apology. Beg (not literally) an audience with the other party, and in all the true humility and sincerity you can muster, you tell them exactly what you did wrong and how truly sorry you are. If you want to make it really complete, share a little bit of what you learned during self-examination and tell them what fault in you actually precipitated the misdeed. By doing this, they will be getting one of the vital pieces they need to grant forgiveness, and that is the knowledge that you really do understand the harm you caused. Speaking of forgiveness, asking for this is also a necessary part of the apology. I did say ASK, not demand. You don't have the RIGHT to EXPECT forgiveness...that in itself is a gift granted at their discretion, not yours. They may or may not grant it, but the truly repentant person will remain so regardless.

If you happen to be the person who was wronged (aren't we all?), there are some things you can do to help the other person achieve repentance. As with forgiveness, repentance and true sorrow can only be achieved by the individual and there's no magic button to push that makes it occur. You can, however, do things to help break down their main barrier to making it right (their pride). This may sound a little strange or off the wall, but I know for an absolute fact that it is true and it does work with even the hardest, coldest of individuals: be soft. That's right, soft. Speak gently, not harshly or provokingly; show kindness even though you know (and most importantly THEY know) that no kindness is warranted; break down your OWN pride and put on an air of humility. It is nearly impossible for an individual to maintain a posture of defensiveness and pride when their opponent (friend, better half, other) is doing absolutely nothing to fuel such things. We tend to mirror one another, ever notice that? You be nice to me, I tend to be nice to you. You smile at me, I smile at you. You frown at me, I frown back at you. What you are doing in many ways is showing them the behavior they themselves ought to mimic toward you, and lo and behold, they most likely will! Once their pride is down, that dark self-destructive veil, THEN they will be able to see their own true colors clearly and get on with the business of fixing what they broke.

Hope this helps!

Doug out.

Let me begin this post by telling you the moral of the story you are about to read: DON'T GET SICK IN ARKANSAS.

That is not to target ALL Arkansans (because I haven't met every single one of them), but the ones I and others I know HAVE encountered have convinced me that the Arkansan stereotype came AFTER the Arkansan, not before. The following account is further substantiation of that stereotype. It is completely factual, and in fact some specific names and places are mentioned in order NOT to protect the guilty.

It's September 22nd, late in the evening, when my brother (who is an over the road trucker) calls me with an extreme sense of urgency and pain in his voice. He has parked at a truck stop near the Rudy exit on Hwy 71 in Arkansas (ten miles north of Van Buren, Arkansas) and is suddenly struck with excrutiating pain in his lower abdomen. I recommend that he go inside and have the attendants call for medical assistance, which they do, and he is soon taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital: The Summit Medical Center in Van Buren, Arkansas.

Upon arrival at the emergency room, the nurse on duty almost immediately diagnosed his symptoms as being a kidneystone that was making its way to the outside world and gave the man his first taste of morphine to help quell the pain. A CT scan soon confirmed her diagnosis and he was admitted in order to monitor him during the "birth". After reaching his room, his nurse Olga the Russian skillfully and painlessly drew his blood and told him a doctor would be in to see him in the morning. At 8 am, Dr. Stephen Carney (aka, "unicorn" due to his almost mythical existence and rare appearances) popped in to the room for ten seconds and told him that they were going to run some more tests and see if they could get the stone to pass. Meanwhile, the morphine continued to freely flow. A night and a day passed, and Tuesday arrived. He was being given fluids via IV as well as drinking water on his own in an effort to flush the 3mm stone out. Urination was always done into a container so that the nurse on duty could strain it and catch the stone if it had arrived. When his container was nearly half full, he was promptly attended to by a Venezuelan nurse who quite routinely emptied his container into the toilet. "Hey, aren't you supposed to strain that?", he slurredly asked her. "Oh, are we straining it?", she replied quite surprised. "Well yeah, it helps to catch any kidney stones I might have passed. That's why I'm here."  This was where it began to be apparent just how lacking common sense was in this institution. The remaining events that transpired served only to confirm what was at this point only a suspicion.

Tuesday, noonish. A "nurse" comes in to take my brother's blood pressure and for several minutes fumbles to try and connect the sphygmomanomoter (fancy word for blood pressure device...I'm sure the nurse wouldn't have known it by that name) to the IV MACHINE. After watching this for several minutes, my brother kindly offers assistance. "I don't think that plugs in there...that's my IV machine". "Uh, oh yeah, I know that", the nurse stutters as he briskly walks out of the room never to be seen again. "That's right Toto, we're in Arkansas now!"

Tuesday, 4 pm. My brother is very congested, so much so that he can only breathe through his mouth. He calls the nurse's station and requests some decongestant. "We'll get right on it", they replied. At 7 pm he calls them back because apparently "getting right on it" meant something different to them. The nurse on duty comes into the room and he asks her politely, "did you forget my decongestant?". She replies apologetically, "Oh, I'm sorry. The pharmacy closes at 5 pm. We'll have to order it for tomorrow." "Well why don't we just order it for Saturday instead then and see if we get it by then", my brother replies. "I asked for it an HOUR before the pharmacy closed!". Without responding to his comment, she asks him inquisitively if he has sleep apnia, because she noticed that he was breathing through his mouth while he slept the night before. "oh my god", my brother said, "I'M BREATHING THROUGH MY MOUTH BECAUSE I'M CONGESTED". Exit yet another of Arkansas' finest medical professionals.

Wednesday morning arrives and my brother is told he can't have breakfast because Dr. Carney has ordered some tests on his gallbladder. "WTF?!?!? My gallbladder?!", my brother asks, more than a bit concerned. "Why the hell are we doing tests on my gallbladder?". "I don't know", the nurse responded, "that's just what the doctor said".  So, no breakfast. Doctor never comes. No lunch. Doctor never shows. Nine and a half hours later, they wheel him down to get a sonogram on his gallbladder, despite his emphatic assurance that he was NOT paying for it since his true dilemma was a KIDNEYSTONE. They returned him to his room at 6:30 PM that Wednesday evening to what he thought would be a welcomed meal after an entire day of starving, only to be told by a nurse that he wasn't able to eat because the Urologist was coming in the morning to see him and he might want to perform a procedure that precludes eating. MIGHT want to perform a procedure??? For another night, my brother was starved AND dehydrated (couldn't drink anything, either, for some reason). At FIVE P.M. THE NEXT DAY (Thursday), the Urologist saunters in and tells my brother that he wants to run some tests the next morning. It turns out that the Urologist, one Dr. Bell, was the first person he had met after the first day who actually seemed to know what he was talking about and had a decent amount of common sense about him. My brother relayed to the doctor all that had transpired, interrupted only by an occasional "my my" from the doctor's wagging head. Dr. Bell assured my brother that he would make sure he was tested early the next morning. Turns out at least he was good to his word.

It is of note here that my brother's soon to be ex wife (we'll call her Jules (which is a nickname for her real name) out of respect for my brother, not her) text messages him from Ozark, Missouri to find out when he's coming to pick up his kids. She always plans her weekend getaways with her boyfriend around my brother's visits with his children (convenient babysitter). He writes her back to let her know that he's in the hospital, on morphine, and doesn't know when he'll be able to make it. Her one word response: "bummer". That's love for ya.

Still Thursday evening. My brother has had enough of the Summit Medical Center diet plan, and shuffles his way down to the cafeteria to get some food for himself. He let the nurses know his intention to violate their "certain death" care plan on his way past their desk, interrupting their gossip and solitaire, only to find that the cafeteria was closed. He raided the only vending machine available and returned with an aging sandwich and a cupcake. By the time he reached his room, there was a tray of something resembling food waiting for him. Hmm. Fancy that. After that meal, because of the tests ordered for the following morning by the Urologist, he was again not allowed to eat anything. 7 am the next morning, just like Dr. Bell said, they wheel my brother down for another sonogram. But this time, hallefrickinlujea, they actually looked at his kidney! Miracle, or just chance? You be the judge.

It's Friday morning, my brother is in bed waiting for his test results. The amazing, mythical Dr. Stephen Carney, MD (wonder what that really stands for?) comes in and actually holds a conversation with my brother. They discuss the fact that my brother declined to participate in the gall bladder fiasco. "I came to this hospital because I have a kidney stone, not because of my gall bladder", my brother tells him. "When you take your car to the garage for a blown motor and they also notice that you have a hole in your muffler, YOU FIX THE MOTOR FIRST [moron], NOT THE MUFFLER". "I'm not stupid", the doctor replies, taking great offense at the analogy though it's doubtful he actually followed it. They discuss the fact that my brother removed his IV himself, which was left in his hand yet unattached to anything for the past two days. "Why did you remove your IV"?, the doctor asks him, "I really think you should keep it in". "Why?", my brother asks. "So that you can stay hydrated", Dr. Stephen Carney replies. "Oh, you mean like drinking water so I have plenty of fluids to help wash out the kidney stone, LIKE I'VE BEEN DOING WITHOUT AN IV?", my brother asks in frustration and unbelief at Dr. Carney's total lack of common sense. "Uh, yeah", the doctor replies sheepishly. My brother then vents on Dr. Stephen Carney, relating to him all of the acts of utter STUPIDITY that he has had to endure. The doctor, as with every other employee of Summit Medical Center in Van Buren, Arkansas that he had the displeasure of trying to reason with did, DEFENDED the moronic actions and judgments (or lack thereof), and in very specific words, called my brother a jerk to his face. He told him that he had done nothing since he arrived except become a bigger and bigger jerk, and since this wasn't a prison, he could leave anytime he wanted to. In fact, he encouraged it sooner than later. "good lord", my brother replied, "welcome to Arkansas". "What's that supposed to mean?", Dr. Carney asked somewhat offended. "Nothing", my brother said. "Hillbillies". Exit one moronic Dr. Stephen Carney, MD.

Soon after the good doctor left the room, enter one nurse Debbie Pike, RN. Ah, now here was a piece of work. All of the feedback my brother had been providing to the good staff at Summit Medical Center had made its way back to her, including a visit my brother had with Debbie Pike's supervisor, and she was more than perturbed. As with everyone he encountered, my brother gave her the benefit of the doubt and explained the fiasco that had been taking place since he arrived FOUR DAYS ago. The bright and shiny gall bladder that had, as a new toy to a child, not only attracted the attention of the entire staff and Dr. Carney, but had utterly erased from their memory the real reason he had come in; the nurse who had admitted that it was his very first day on the job who could not for the life of him manage to plug a blood pressure machine into an IV machine; and the pretty Venezuelan nurse who (also admitting it was HER first day on the job!) had non-chalantly emptied the urine my brother had been diligently collecting into the toilet, bypassing the strainer that would have captured any passed kidney stones. "I have been your nurse every single day", nurse Debbie Pike retorted, "and I know for a FACT that your urine was never emptied directly into the toilet". "Really?", my brother asked her, "were you here 24/7?". "No", she replied.  "Is it possible then that when you WEREN'T here that a Venezuelan nurse working her first day on the job might have dumped half a container of my piss down the toilet?".  Nurse Debbie Pike was more than angry at being called out, and, as Dr. Carney had done only with far more emphasis, told my brother he could leave right now. She highly encouraged him to get his stuff and go find medical help someplace else, in fact. "I'm not leaving until I get my test results from this morning", he said. "I need to know if the stone is still there or not". "Fine", she said heading out the door, "I'll get your paperwork ready for you". A few minutes later Nurse Debbie Pike called his room to tell him that his test results showed that he still had a kidney stone and that he should go to Springfield to get it looked at. "I need to talk to the urologist myself", my brother replied, "THEN I'll leave".

A while later he got word from the urologist that the tests looked good...there was NO kidney stone, apparently he had passed it at some point. What? That's right. Nurse Debbie Pike completely FALSIFIED the test results just to rush the exit of my brother from their fine medical establishment. At that point my brother began planning to leave, and waited for the nurse to finish up the discharge paperwork. Even when he was their top priority (they really really wanted him out of there), it STILL took three hours to get his paperwork. In the meantime, the hospital administrator came to have a talk with him to find out what had been going on. He relayed it all to her, in great detail. As with the urologist Dr. Bell, this individual seemed to have a good degree of common sense as well and was apalled at what she was hearing. Nurse Debbie Pike was relieved for the remainder of the day, and who knows what actions will take place when she returns. The good administrator then found my brother a shirt (the one he had come in with had puke on it...he had vomited repeatedly because the pain was so great) and had the hospital pay for a taxi ride back to his rig at the truckstop. Finally, the ordeal was over.

For any Arkansans who read this...I know that ALL of you aren't to blame, I really do. It's the majority of your brethren, though, that are giving the whole lot of you a really, really bad rep. People hate stereotypes. I even hate them. But man, stereotypes don't come out of nowhere. They are based on the behavior exhibited by the average individual in any given group. Arkansans are dumb hicks? Not all of you... but oh my gawd, enough of you are to tarnish the reputation of the whole lot! You Arkansans who CAN read and cipher, PLEASE, make it your life cause to rehabilitate your brethren and share a little of your book lernin with them (if possible). At the very least, when you mingle with the rest of society, make it a point to SHOW us that you're not all like that!

Okay, I'm done venting. No matter what you think of the opinion that is definitely laced throughout the account above, don't ignore the facts of the matter. Folks, if you're in Arkansas and find yourself ill, head for the nearest border and cross that line before you check yourself in to a hospital (especially Summit Medical Center in Van Buren, Arkansas)...otherwise you may not survive it!

Okay, I just have to boast a little bit about the great success my family and I had this past month with our energy conservation, evidence being our electric bill. Grand total for the month of April: $96.

For context's sake, here's the scenario:

We live in a two story, 2500 sq foot home that is half brick. It is situated east-west, so our back porch area sees the sun all day long (thus making the southern most rooms warmer). Currently, there is a minimum of five warm bodies occupying the house and using the resources at any given time, this number expanding up to ten and twelve bodies every other weekend or so when my kiddos stay with me (My wife and three of my step children live with me full time, I have seven kids and she has one more who comes over periodically as well). As you can imagine, in a typical scenario like this every light in the house would be on, the tv would be blaring, the fridge left open, water running and toilets flushing constantly...moderately managed chaos. Ah, but in our house it doesn't quite go that way. Here are some of the things my wife and I did to achieve such a monumentally tiny electric bill...

First, we both became electricity nazis, in more ways than one. Not only are we tenacious about making sure no electrical appliance is ever in use unnecessarily, we're also expert brainwashers and masters of persuasion (or coercion, whichever you prefer ;)  ). So now, even with as many kids as we have running around, it is indeed a rare occurrence for ANY of them to leave an empty room with the light on, or a radio playing when they are finished with it, or even the computer monitor on after they're done updating their Myspace. In addition to making sure that the rules of the house are keenly observed, I also installed the alternative fluorescent light bulbs throughout the house. Fact is, they may NEVER actually pay for themselves, but for some reason it gives me peace of mind knowing that for every hour of light a person uses, I'm only using up one fifth of the electricity to do so.

I think the most effective thing we did, however, was when I took on the addition role of AC/Heat nazi. Living in south Texas, we are blessed with some fairly moderate weather for a good portion of the year between winter and summer. So, I made myself king of the thermostat and when people complained of being cold, I did the most OFF THE WALL THING: I told them to put some more clothes on or grab a blanket. When they got too hot I made yet another unique suggestion: take off some clothes and put yourself under the ceiling fan or go outside. When taking off more clothes wasn't an option (we don't subscribe to the nudist philosophy), I went out and bought everybody their own personal floor fan. Here's my logic: You as an individual are either hot, cold, or just right when it comes to the ambient temperature surrounding your current location. So where is the logic in spending the electricity to drop an entire house three degrees when you will only ever be occupying one spot in that house at any given time? All you really NEED is for the place you happen to be in to be comfortable for you, temperature-wise. So, put yourself in front of your fan. It's at least 10 degrees cooler in the low breeze of a floor fan, and perfectly comfortable. So, by taking this approach we've managed to only use our AC probably three times so far this year, and each time only for a couple of hours (when even I said, "DANG, it's HOT in here!").

Let's see...besides that, I think the only other thing we actively do to conserve is to also be fridge nazis (figure out what you want in there BEFORE you open the door, then get it and close it as fast as you can!).

So, the consistent, collective effort of a family to help bring their bills down to manageable amounts DOES pay off! It also helps lend cohesiveness and a sense of teamwork to the family unit, and you can't get too much of that stuff, eh?

My lovely lady and I love to nest. That is, we are always looking for ways to make our home our favorite place to be. Lately, (since we south Texans are privileged to an early onset of GORGEOUS weather), our attention has been on the backyard. We have several projects in the works, all of them on a shoestring budget, so I thought I'd share one with you all in the hope that it will inspire you, too; a little bit of effort goes a long way to making your little piece of the world an enjoyable, relaxing place to be.

Okay, so I already had a bird feeder on the back porch hanging on a plant hanger. The other day I saw our first visitor in a long time: a male house finch (looks like a sparrow, but his head and chest are red). "Well, if I'm feeding him", I said to myself, "I ought to be watering him, too", so I set myself on getting a birdbath. Unfortunately, I also have a strong frugality about me, and could NOT bring myself to pay the price for any of those offered by home depot. Instead, my lady and I made our own! It was simple, cheap, and turned out better than those we saw for sale. Here's what you do:

Go to Walmart and head toward the garden center. You're looking for sets of cheap, plastic pots with matching designs and varying in diameter. Grab one of each size, and then grab the largest matching pan they have. Next, head over to the hardware section and grab a tube of some sort of glue (Gorilla Glue, Rhino Glue...anything that looks like it'll be strong and withstand the elements). Here's what we bought:



I'll just show you the finished product...I think assembly instructions will be self-explanatory. :)



There you have it, a gorgeous, ECONOMICAL, and perfectly functional bird bath. Oh, and since it's hollow, I think I may put some sort of nice looking rock in the very center on top to help hold it down. In addition, I'm going to dig a hole at the base of the bottom pot once I have it out in the yard so that the toads can find a safe haven there. You want toads in your yard as they do consume a LOT of unwanted pests at night.

Happy nesting!

Doug  :0)

Okay, it's been exactly 14 business days since I became a free agent, and by my estimation, I have officially been working ten times harder than I ever did at a "real" job...at least it feels like that. For some reason I had it in my head that I would have eight hours a day now to purely dedicate to coding; my bubble has been burst, however, as I find that, unless I'm willing to put in extra hours in the evening as well (which I am and have been doing), I really only have about four hours of coding time, at best, during the day. Of course, every day is different, and there have been a few where the phone was quiet, I was disciplined enough to stay logged out of Meebo and gmail, a nearby relative who equates working from home with not having a job didn't try to hit me up for a ride, and I actually got FIVE hours of work done. But typically, it's four or less.

I do realize that there's always going to be a "settling in" phase where I get into a routine, learn my way around a self-employed day...stuff like that. But man, I've got to tell ya, at this point I find myself LONGING for a regular day job again! Ah, the comforts of being salaried! The peace of earning money even while "seeing a man about a horse" (colorful metaphor my ex coworker used when referring to quality restroom time)! These days the old truism "if a man will not work, neither shall he eat" holds absolutely valid, as my livelihood is dependent on precisely how many billable hours I can churn out in a day. But no matter how hard I try, it seems I always come up just a bit shy of what I hope to accomplish. I am not discouraged, however, and have been consistently improving on when I begin my daily commute up the stairs, when to pencil in nature's call, and how to organize my tasks. Eventually I'll have it all down pat, but for now I feel like I'm just working constantly. I have even started to DREAM about my projects! (consequently, I'm considering billing for a portion of my REM time as well as any other miscellaneous technical meditations).

So, working for myself so far isn't the life of luxury and ease I thought it would be. On the other hand, however, I do get to choose which robe I will wear to work on a given day and shaving is an option (as long as I do it before Jen gets home).

It was a blustery day in the Hundred Acre Woods…no, wait. It was actually a gray, cold, rainy, overcast Sunday afternoon in San Antonio. Well, cold for us south Texans, anyway. I had five of my children with me and we were looking for an economical way to entertain ourselves, so we settled on one of our “old reliables”: The Dollar Theater.

Now, I love the Dollar Theater for two reasons. The first and most obvious is that tickets to any movie only cost a dollar per person, so I can take the whole family…me, my five or six or seven children (depending on how many happen to be with me at the time), my fiancée Jen and her four kids…out to the movies for less than twenty bucks! The other reason I love the Dollar Theater is that the majority of the people who go there are Hispanic. I am 5’8, and the average Hispanic male at the Dollar Theater has got to be 5’4 or shorter, so that is the one place in town I can go and actually be looking over other men’s heads. ;)

So this past Sunday the family and I saw “Dan In Real Life”, with Steve Carell, and I have to say that it was a great piece of art. Dan is a widower with three girls, two of whom are teenagers. He’s still very much in love with his late wife and has zero social life. The movie opens with Dan and his daughters preparing for their trek to Dan’s parents’ house for the annual fall family reunion. We begin to see immediately the manifestations of the rift between a parent who cares and children who are in their “terrible teens” as the older daughter is always vying to drive the car and the middle daughter is madly in love (at least two years premature, according to her father).

Dan and the girls arrive at his parents’ home…and here’s where my attention was immediately drawn to and remained with the details of the scenes and settings until the very end of the movie. Dan’s parents live in a large, rustic home on an island in the state of Rhode Island. Dan’s two brothers and assorted children and spousal units also arrive, and everyone gets settled in to spend a long weekend together doing something somewhat rare these days: spend quality time together. Not one time does a TV set appear in this movie; not one time does anything occur in private. Even in a scene where Dan’s brother’s girlfriend is about to take a shower, Dan’s older girl remains in the bathroom, discretely turning her head, in order to continue seeking the older woman’s sage advice on a matter. None of the children are fighting, the adults plan family activities that include mental exercise (team crossword puzzle challenges, a family talent night), physical exercise (planned morning aerobics, afternoon walks as a group along the beach, football, bowling), and just “hanging out” in the living room making up songs on the piano. The parents are wise and observant, being quick to hear and slow to speak but always speaking words of wisdom to their children (especially Dan, who has fallen quite lovesick in this movie); the brothers and wives all “just get along”, even when there arises a matter that would surely become headline news down here in San Antonio (one brother killing another), the animosities don't last long and recovery quickly occurs. This movie was the illustration of what family and togetherness is supposed to be, and even though the odds are that finding such an example of family existing in the real world are not very good, I for one gave myself over to believing that it can be so, and allowed myself to be inspired by its simplicity and wholesome beauty.

I do realize that I’ve nearly completely neglected to reveal the plot of the movie with its twists, turns, and scenes that will make you laugh out loud as well as become a bit teary-eyed. The plot isn’t anything extraordinary or new, and is one that anybody over the age of 25 can likely predict with a high degree of accuracy as the movie progresses. But what I would like to convey most of all in this review is, first of all, SEE the movie…it’s well worth the time invested. Secondly, see it with your family. Watch for the nuances and “family moments” that I have pointed out, and when it’s all over, talk about it with your spouse, children, mother, brother, sister, friend…whoever watched it with you…and make it a point to adopt one or two of the old-fashioned family nuggets that the writers used to give us a refreshing glimpse of what family really can and should look like.

Doug out. 

As I traversed the route I always do from my Jeep to the entrance of the office building where I work, I glanced at the now empty nest that lay in the ivy bed under the oak tree. Pin feathers and empty, broken egg shells decorated the area as scavengers had left it somewhat disheveled in their search for any of the ducklings which may not have hatched. The raccoons found nothing in the nest, however, because all of the ducklings had hatched; all except one.

Two weeks ago when I passed the nest at the end of the day I noticed that the mother had taken a rare reprieve and had gone down to the creek for a drink and a dip. It was in that moment that a great conflict arose in me and my good sense battled my selfishness for a moment as I debated taking one of the eggs for myself. I reasoned with myself: “I’ll keep the egg warm, faithfully and carefully incubating and turning it as its mother was! I’ll be mother and caregiver to the little duckling once it hatches! My children will love it, I’ve been wanting a pet, and it would be a wonderful experience for all of us for a long time to come!” Compelling arguments to a man who suddenly and impulsively set his heart on something. Ah, but the voice of reason could not be silenced, and it gently but firmly reminded me of a time many years ago when I had been faced with a similar choice and learned a difficult lesson from it. Allow me to elucidate.

It was a humid summer evening in San Antonio. I was living in a small, humble house in a part of town not known for its high income demographic. The sun had already gone down and I was just arriving home from the grocery store. As I approached the front door, there on the screen was a cicada, still dirty from having only just emerged from its earthy cocoon. It had apparently made its way directly to our front door and climbed up the screen to find a safe place in which to go through the final molt of its life. In my life I had seen thousands of empty cicada shells stuck to the sides of trees, to car tires…nearly everywhere. I had also found adult cicadas that had newly emerged from their subterranean exoskeletons and were drying their wings. But, I had never witnessed the entire process of their emergence, and so I gathered my kids and we all sat down on the front porch to watch this miracle transpire before our eyes.

Thirty minutes passed, and the cicada had managed to split the skin on its back and was partially protruding, its eyes still inside the brown skeleton. By this time, the excitement I had imparted to my children had waned and they went back inside. I, however, being the patient and curious adult that I am, decided I was going to stick it out and watch this beautiful emerald creature complete its molt. An hour passed, and the cicada was almost totally out of its skin with only the tip of its abdomen and the ends of its legs still inside. My curiosity got the better of me at that point, and I approached in order to study it closer and (and this is where the real lesson began) to assist it in its escape. As I “gently” and “carefully” (as much as a man’s giant fingers can do) plucked the cicada from the screen and began to lend it the aid of my human strength to pull free, one then two of its still very soft and delicate legs broke off. I immediately ceased all of my efforts and hooked the cicada’s empty front claws back onto the screen door, backing away from it with an overwhelming feeling of horror inside of me at what I had inadvertently done.

I never forgot that incident, and now as I pondered the question of taking one of the duck eggs home, the feelings of that moment there in the porch light came flooding back to me, transforming itself into an echo of the conscience that told me in no uncertain terms to keep walking toward my Jeep. My selfishness and vain confidence, however, won out and in a moment I was walking to my Jeep, a very warm duck egg held against my fatherly chest.

It took the entire ride home to quiet my conscience and re-convince myself that I could certainly succeed at this endeavor. I took a flannel blanket and formed a nest on the floor beside my bed, placed the egg in the center, and covered it over. I then placed a heating pad on top of the nest on its lowest setting to simulate the mother duck and began monitoring the temperature inside the “nest”. Having researched the subject on the net, I knew that the internal temp should ideally be 98 degrees, and I did pretty good at maintaining just that. The hiccup came, however, when it was time for me to take my three day trip to Missouri with my children to visit relatives, something I had known about but not thought about during the deliberation to take the egg. So, I employed the services of two young ladies I know who volunteered to house sit for me. I showed them how to monitor the temperature, how to turn the egg, and took the time to impart a sense of urgency to them about the matter. When I left, I had all confidence that Huey, as the unborn duckling came to be known, would be fine. Well, in all honesty I didn’t have all confidence…there was a nagging worry in the back of my mind that I worked hard to quiet since I had no choice in this situation but to leave Huey in their care.

When I got back in town, I immediately asked about the egg and how things had gone, and was informed that the temperature had dropped and they couldn’t get it to go up. I candled the egg to check for movement inside and saw a shadow moving around, so I thought all must be well. I thanked them for taking care of things and proceeded to get the nest’s temperature back to optimum. Every day that followed, I candled the egg and saw no movement. My heart began to sink as the possibility that Huey was dead grew. Since I passed by the nest every day on my way in to the office, I knew that all of Huey’s brothers and sisters had hatched two days prior, but I hoped that perhaps due to the lowered temperature, Huey was just a bit behind in development. Not the case. Three days later and still no movement, I decided to extract Huey from the egg in case he was just too weak to get out himself. I found a perfectly formed little duckling inside, folded up in an amazing pattern that allowed his entire body to fit into the space of an egg, but completely lifeless. Huey had died, and once again that old sense of horror flooded in as I considered the life I had, in all of my best intentions, taken.

What compels us, as human beings, to harbor such vain thoughts as to believe that we can do everything better than nature itself? Sometimes, we view a scene and judge it through eyes clouded with the pride of life, telling ourselves that nature is “just getting lucky” and that it would do much better with our intelligent assistance. What we find, though, is a lesson in humility as we are reminded, sometimes via dark consequences, that we are, alongside these creatures great and small, the Creation and NOT the Creator. As such, we have no right nor ability to do nature one better and to even consider such a notion is vanity and deceit. The lesson then, that I have now had to learn in at least two separate, life-effecting sessions is this: nature is here for our viewing pleasure, and in all our observations and partaking of it, we ought to always leave it just the way we found it.

The other day a very close friend of mine IM’d me, quite distraught and looking for input on a situation he had at home between he and his two young daughters. The situation was that his wife’s father was terminally ill and so she was out of town, spending as much time with her father and family until he passed away. So my friend, we’ll call him John, was left to tend to all of his usual burdens as provider and dad as well as the responsibilities as primary homemaker and caregiver that his wife normally fulfilled. John is a young guy, full of energy, charismatic…every time I picture him I see him smiling. This particular day, though, even though our conversation was purely textual, John wasn’t smiling at all and was carrying a massive burden that he didn’t know how to move.

The burden began the morning prior, when he had instructed his girls to clean up the room they shared. After some time when they hadn’t reported completion of their task, he went to inspect and found that they hadn’t even touched it. Wrong morning, wrong side of the bed, missing his wife, burnt toast…all of the little things that he had been working hard to deal with had accumulated and his daughter’s lack of effort or obedience became the final straw. Emotions got the better of him, and the correction he dealt to the girls, especially the older, more responsible one, was completely (this is his assessment, not mine) out of line and unproductive. In fact, it was downright mean and ugly…picture a grouchy father bear roaring at his cubs. He felt guilty, but knew his daughters were in the wrong, so he maintained his position as “Dad” and stuck to his guns, withdrawing none of the harshness he had dealt earlier. The girls got on the stick and cleaned their room, but bearing the stinging mental wounds of a harsh, emotionally charged correction.

The next morning was Monday and the girls had school. The majority of yesterday’s scene had distilled down to just the parts that were still relevant: the guilt he felt for his lack of control and judgment. This in itself added to the normal burden he was carrying, and thus made him more sensitive to any disobedience on the girls’ part. As John describes it, he had asked his older daughter several times the day before about her homework…was it complete, did she have it, each of which time she assured him all was well. As they approached her school that morning, he asked her one more time just to make certain, and the response she gave was NOT what he wanted to hear. She had forgotten the homework at grandma’s house, and in fact, hadn’t done it at all. Rightly so, he judged her to have lied to him and the scene became once again one that I know afterwards broke John’s heart to even recall.

It was later that day that he contacted me, elucidated on the details of it all, and asked me for advice. Having literally spent over half of my life so far raising my own seven children, and being part of that “Village” with many of my close friends and their children, I have stood in John’s shoes more times than I care to recollect. I’ve always put a lot of energy into making it a point to learn from my mistakes, as much as my ability to do so is, and so shared with him what I believed would help. Knowing that such a situation is not nor has ever been unique to only he and I, and knowing that a lot of fathers (and mothers) out there have and will deal with the same burden of having made the wrong choice when correcting their child, I now share my advice with you as well. Take from it what you will, leave of it what you will, let it work in you as you will. The first thing I did was to remind John of some very basic, yet extremely important truths; truths that are so simple that in the tunnel vision we have in the midst of such a situation, we absolutely cannot see them at all.

Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. The Creator Himself tells us this, that children are not created wise, informed, or with good judgment, but rather are almost completely void of anything we adults would call common sense. It’s not their fault, they aren’t accountable for these lackings, and they were given parents to help weed out the foolishness and impart the wisdom of living. It’s when we forget this and hold them accountable for things they cannot possibly fulfill that we set ourselves up for such a fall as John took. Of course it goes without saying, that as children age and learn they slowly become more and more accountable for their actions, but careful attention to who they are as people and using our best judgment in individual scenarios will help us to decide where that accountability lies.

Children are people. Yes, they wear a size one shoe whereas we wear a ten; they eat half a bowl of oatmeal whereas we eat a whole one; but miniature though they be, they are as whole and complete a human being as you or I. Their little hearts can be broken or be filled with joy; their little minds can be captivated or bored; they have their own little individual personalities, quirks, and habits; they can be provoked to anger and grudges; they can feel sorrow and repentance, humility and pride, stubbornness and irrationality. Even when our child first comes into the world, did we not marvel at their every little detail and comment out loud and to ourselves continuously how incredible they were and possessed everything that we did? “Look at his little fingers!”, everybody exclaims, as they can’t help but see that this tiny, tiny, swaddling bundle is EXACTLY like us. Children are people, minus judgment and wisdom, and when we deal with them we should deal with them as we would have ourselves to be dealt with. Children are taught to honor their parents…but a parent should first behave honorably toward them, with the same respect you would give any other adult. Not leaving off the fact that you are the authority, but rather letting the fact that they ARE completely in your hands be the thing that keeps you walking uprightly toward them.

YOU are a person, a human being, who, although you may have managed thus far to take tens of trips around the sun, are and always will be in a constant state of growth and learning. As such, my friend, you will make errors in judgment and you have to accept that about yourself. As I told John and as was once shared with me by a dear mentor and friend of mine, “everybody falls; just make sure that you fall forward”. Just as holding on to unrealistic expectations with your children can only result in a negative outcome, so too will holding unrealistic expectations for YOURSELF keep you from ever being able to “fix it when you break it”. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that everybody should set their standards and expectations just out of their own reach in order to excel, but don’t make the mistake of somehow believing that you won’t make a mistake. I reminded my friend John of this. I had to, because the man was beating himself up in the wrong way and not giving his own self the opportunity to do what I know is the next most important step of all: repent.

After reminding John of these basic things, I then told him what he had to do to fix the situation, both with the girls and with himself so that everybody could gain from the situation. He had to go to them, either individually or together, and the man had to ask their forgiveness. Not just an “I’m sorry”, but a genuine humbling of himself before them, an admission of his guilt and lack of judgment in how he dealt with the situation, and an assurance that he would do his best to learn from this and not repeat it again. Oh the incredible and almost miraculous healing that takes place within every heart involved when a child’s parent, those whom they rely on and love with all their being, comes to them and, figuratively speaking, bows before them in an act of such contrition! Oh the incredible lifelong lessons that are taught in the example of that one single act! And lessons, not only for the child, but for the parent, too. Asking for your child’s forgiveness is absolutely the only right and productive thing that can be done when you or I or John have left love, patience, and judgment by the wayside in correcting our baby.

Asking your child to forgive you is far from merely an act of contrition: it is a lesson that is given without ever  directly giving it. Your sincere apology will not only be giving them what will help them in their own struggle to forgive you, but you will be SHOWING THEM how an adult behaves when they have wronged another human being, and you will teach them how it is that they will be able to perform the same healing process on themselves when they too one day become a parent and make the same age-old mistake. Humbling yourself before another person, especially your own children, is in every single way the best example you could ever set for them.

So, this is what I shared with John, facts and lessons that I absolutely know to be the unequivocable truth because I have stood in his shoes more times than a man should, in my opinion. I still make mistakes; I still sometimes feel like I’m unsuccessfully grasping in the dark for those glimmers of truth that would help me to deal with a situation with my children properly. In more ways than I care to admit most times, I am far from being as mature as I believe a man my age should be. But I keep on trying, and when I wrong my children or any other person, most of the time I find the good judgment to go to them and ask their forgiveness for it. That same beloved mentor I mentioned earlier also once told me this regarding the summation of what repentance should be: “Admit it, Quit it, and Forgit it”. You will make mistakes, accept that, and when you do, admit it, try harder not to do it again, and then take the most important step of all, my friend, and forgive yourself.

“There’s one more waffle if anybody wants it!”, called mom from the kitchen. All around the dining room table the kids and dad sat looking quite full, with only syrup and crumbs on their plates. “I think everybody’s full, Sweety”, dad called back, the children’s nodding heads confirming his observation. Mom appeared a minute later with her glass of orange juice and sat down between Amber and Meghan. “So what shall we do on such a fine Saturday?”, dad asked everyone. “What do you think, Honey?”. “Well”, said mom with a smile on her face, “I was thinking that if everyone gets their chores done and then helps give the van a bath that maybe…just maybe we could go to the movies”. “Hoorahs!” and “woohoos!” came from all around the large, wooden table. “That’s an awesome idea!”, said the two younger boys Ethan and Andy, almost in unison. “Alright then, kiddos, you guys clear your places while your mom and I decide what chores need done”. Ethan, Andy, Jeremy, Meghan, and Amber quickly scooted back their chairs and began to carry their plates and silverware to the kitchen. “Here, let me carry your plate for you, Amber”, Meghan said. Amber was only six and still had a little trouble when trying to carry too many things at once. With the kids all down the hall, dad rubbed his full tummy and said “Okay mom, what do we need to accomplish before we go out today?”. “Well”, replied mom, “I have to go pick Chrissy up from her friend’s house later. Besides that, let’s get three of the kids to do the dishes and the other two on the bathrooms, then they can all work on the van together”. “Sounds good to me”, said dad.

 After the chores were finished, the kids found dad outside with the garage door open. He had a large orange plastic bucket, two small buckets, a long handled brush, and several cloth gardening gloves. “What are the gloves for, dad?”, asked Andy. “Those are for you to wash the van with”, dad said smiling. “They’re left over from our gardening earlier this year so I figured you could use them instead of rags. Just dip your hand into the bucket then start rubbing”. “Sounds like fun”, said Meghan, and dad tossed everybody a glove. “Andy”, said dad with a wink, “you’re in charge of the hose, but no squirting your brothers and sisters, okay?”. “You can count on me”, Andy said, winking back. The kids went to work and had already surrounded the van, soppy white gloves rubbing the soapy vehicle all over when mom appeared with her purse and car keys. “I’ll be right back”, she told dad as she kissed him goodbye, “I’m going to get Chrissy now”. The children were too busy washing the van and ‘not getting wet’ to notice when mom left in the other car.

 By the time mom got back, everybody was gathered around the computer looking over dad’s shoulder at movies and times and deciding which they wanted to see. Chrissy walked by on the way to her room to put her overnight bag away. “Hey dad”, Andy asked a bit distraught, “is SHE going to the movies?”. “Who, Chrissy?”, dad inquired, “I don’t know; I think we should see if she wants to”.  Andy’s face suddenly changed from his usual cute, slightly pudgy smile, to a dark scowl, reflecting the twelve year old’s displeasure at the very idea of Chrissy going with them. “But that’s not fair!”, Andy exclaimed.  The other children, some of whom were already being affected by Andy’s sentiment, were listening intently. Meghan spoke up next: “She didn’t help us clean OR wash the van!”.  It was obvious now that all of the children were questioning to one degree or another whether or not Chrissy should be allowed to go the movies with them. “Alright now”, dad said sternly while shutting down the computer, “that’s enough of that talk. I want you all to go wait in the living room for your mother and I”. The children did as they were told, grumbling all the while about how unfair it would be for Chrissy to get to go when she hadn’t helped with a single chore.

 “Momma, we’ve got a small rebellion on our hands”, dad said to mom, stealing up behind her in the kitchen. “Seems some of the kids think it wouldn’t be fair for their older sister to go to the movies with us because she didn’t help with the chores. I’m thinking they need a quick reminder about personal accountability”. Mom and dad had been raising kids for a long time and made a good team, so very little pre-discussion was needed. They walked into the living room together, sitting side by side on the loveseat, facing the children. “Nobody else speak unless you raise your hand and I call on you”, dad began. “Okay, now Andy, explain why it is that you’re upset”. Andy looked around at the others, then said “Well, you and mom said that if we did our chores and washed the van that you would take us to the movies, and Chrissy didn’t help at all so she shouldn’t be able to go!”. A soft murmering of agreement came from the other children in the form of head nodding and whispers. “Jeremey, do you agree?”, mom asked. “Well, she didn’t help”, he shyly answered, not seeming to be sure of his position on the matter. “Meghan, what was our agreement?”, dad asked. Like a lawyer who knew their case inside and out she thoroughly and concisely replied, “That if we did our chores and washed the van, you and mom would take us to the movies”. “and ARE we taking you to the movies?”, dad asked the children as a group. “Yes”, came the unanimous answer. A moment of silence ensued, mom and dad allowing the children time to consider things up to this point, then mom shifted slightly in her seat and said in her firmest mom-voice: “Every one of you are being rewarded because you fulfilled your part of an agreement with us, but I think that you are all also forgetting that the privilege and right to give and withhold rewards belong to your father and I, to use as we see fit. Now, does anybody disagree with that?” All heads shook in the negative. “So then”, dad interjected, “if your mom and I take into consideration all of the times that Chrissy does the dishes without being asked, or folds a load of you boys’ laundry, or never complains when we ask her to check the mail or walk Amber to her bus stop, are we wrong for deciding to reward her by inviting her to go along with us to the movies today?”.  The look of animosity that had been on nearly every child’s face had now turned to one more so resembling shame, as they all shook their heads in unison; they understood exactly what mom and dad were saying. Seeing that they were obviously feeling repentant, mom spoke up to help them work with it,  saying “It’s alright, kids. Feeling that things are unfair at times is perfectly natural. But, we have to learn that we should look to ourselves when it comes to getting rewards…ask yourself if you did what you were supposed to, did you do a good job, are you worthy of a reward...and don’t worry so much about what other people do or do not get”.  The children sat silent, taking it all in and feeling ashamed at how they had thought about their sister. “Hey, did you guys know that 2,000 years ago someone else was angry about the exact same thing you were?”, dad said. He knew that the subject had been sufficiently covered, but just for good measure he thought he would end the lecture with a quick lesson from the Bible. At hearing his words, the children looked puzzled, trying to figure out who in the world could have been upset about their sister going to the movies 2,000 years ago. “Yep”, said dad, “in the book of Matthew Jesus told the story of a man who agreed to work all day in another man’s field for a penny. As the day went on, the farmer kept hiring more and more people to work in the field, and at the end of the day everybody showed up to get paid. Every man was paid exactly what he and the farmer had agreed on, but when the first man who was hired went to collect his pay, he expected that he should get more money than all the rest because he worked longer. How many of you think the farmer gave him more money because he worked longer?”, dad asked the children. Three hands went up. “How many of you think the man got only a penny?”. Two more hands went up. “Well, I tell you…that man got exactly what he had agreed to, a single penny, and it didn’t matter how much or how little anybody else had worked. The whole point was, it was the FARMER who had the right to decide what to do with his money“. Smiling faces could be seen amidst the children now as they considered the fact that this their Saturday moral dilemma had already been a discussion held so long ago. “Okay now”, asked mom, “who wants to be the one to invite Chrissy to go to the movies with us?”. All hands immediately rose enthusiastically. “You can all go ask her”, dad said smiling. Dad pulled mom closer and hugged her, while the sound of urgent footsteps hurrying to Chrissy’s room boomed up the stairs. “We have good kids, momma”, Dad said. “Yeah”, replied Mom, “we sure do”.

The plan materialized late one night over sweating glasses of White Merlot when Jen and I did the budget and weighed out our options.Camping was up there on the list, and fared well with regards to the budget; but even at night up in the south Texas hill country, it's STILL too hot to sleep comfortably outdoors, so we opted to postpone camping until late fall. Neither she nor her children had ever been to Mustang Island, Corpus Christi is only two hours down the road from San Antonio, the state Aquarium is there, and the budget allowed it, so we decided we'd host one last summer fling for the kids at the coast.

When I was a kid and my mom planned a vacation of any sort for my brothers and I, we really never had any say or part in it. I do believe that a chld will get more out of a trip like this, however,when they actually play a part in the decisions that will affect them,and and so Jen and I were careful to include the kids in as much of the actual logistics as possible.

First we informed them all individually (as opportunity presented itself) of our intentions to go to the beach as a family. Their enthusiastically positive responses were quite refreshing, as I had braced myself for at least one or two mutterings that never came. With everybody's buy-in, Jen and I invoked the aid of "The Negotiator"(Priceline) and booked two hotel rooms for the weekend. The plan was to have a girls' room and a boy's room since each gender was fairly evenly represented, yet another recommendation that was embraced by our youngsters.

As our weekend of sunshine and sand approached, Jen had already gathered her brood and employed their input to put together a grocery list of things we would need to stock the coolers. The house had been cleaned, laundry done, groceries procured, and some bags packed.Earlier that day I had gotten the Jeep outfitted with a trailer hitch so we could use our cargo carrier for the coolers and such, then headed over to pick my babies up. Two of my kids had birthdays this same month, so I made a pit stop at the mall to get each of them the 'cool shoes' they wanted. By 3 o'clock on Friday we had the kiddos all collected and present at our house, and so all gathered together in the living room for a briefing and then a question and answer session.

First, we gave them an overview of what our itinerary would be while in Corpus. I'm not too anal about having a plan (in my opinion; others may disagree  ), but I do think it's important to have at least a general idea of how we were going to spend our time to ensure that we made the most ofit. We would leave the house at 4 pm, arriving in Corpus around 6 or7. After checking in, we would chillax and have dinner out of the coolers. Saturday we'd get up early, partake of the hotel's continental breakfast, then head to the beach. We told the kids we'd stay at the beach until they didn't want to be there anymore, so Saturday was allotted to nothing but that. After the beach, we'd drive up the Island to Port Aransas so they could experience the ferry. Then we'd head to the hotel, clean up, and go out for a fancy dinner somewhere. Sunday the plan was that we'd again have our continental breakfast, then spend the bulk of the day at the State Aquarium. After that, we'd get a snack, get home in time for an early dinner, and spend our $25 Papa John's Pizza gift certificate to feed everyone.That was the plan, and it was immediately ratified by the congregation.

Next we shared a short checklist of things that everybody had to have packed. Toothbrush, two changes of clothes, three pairs of underwear,and some kind of footwear to use at the beach. Anything else was optional, but, everything they were taking with them had to be packed up and sitting by the front door in thirty minutes.

The last thing we did in our family meeting was to have a lottery to see who would ride in which vehicle. The lottery was our attempt to thwart any kind of polarization and natural segregation by making the seating arrangement random. The lottery results, however, didn't do a very good job at this, and most of her kids ended up riding with her except for her thirteen year old daughter. On a side note, as the weekend progressed and we let the kids choose what vehicle they wanted to ride in, it turns out that the polarization I feared was due more so to the quality of the Explorer's radio compared to the Jeep's than any family ties. Fancy that!

We adjourned the meeting, having given the children a time limit in which to have their luggage deposited by the door. In the meantime, the boys and I put the luggage carrier on top of the Explorer and the cargo carrier on the Jeep and began loading them. I was careful to make sure that everybody had a role to play, even Joshy (my oldest who is autistic). It was quite like watching a colony of ants work, with kids marching in and out of the house carrying items, others of us congregated at the vehicles practicing our puzzle-solving skills by making everything fit into a finite amount of space. At last we were all loaded and ready to go. By this time I was soaked in sweat (remember, we're in south Texas!), so the kids watched the Disney channel while I took a cool shower. Only a single hour later than planned we all loaded up according to our lottery and hit the road.

Not one minute after pulling out of the driveway, the wide Texas skies let loose the residue of the latest Gulf hurricane. Through the deluge we made our way to Sams' Club to gas up the vehicles. Since we had left an hour late, it was now straight up five o'clock on a Friday...rush hour, and we had to traverse the entire breadth of the city in order to reach our destination. Since it had been a few hours since anybody had eaten (and I had forgotten to feed my kids lunch...bad daddy! bad!), we decided to make our way to Jack in the Box and have a bite while letting the traffic die down and hopefully the rain subside. It wasn't in our budget, but we ate off the dollar menu, drank our own bottled water, and ended up only spending $24 to feed all eleven of us. Not bad. While we ate, the rain did subside and the traffic did die down, so it turned out to be a good choice after all.

Bellies full and kiddos happy, we loaded up again and hit the road.With only one emergency pit stop to drain a bursting bladder between San Antonio and Corpus, we checked into our rooms at seven thirty Friday evening. After jumping on the beds for a few minutes in the typical celebratory fashion of youth (mine included), we all donned our swimsuits and went down to the pool. Nothing beats the relaxation of laying beside a south Texas pool under a palm tree in the balmy breeze of evening, sipping Coke Zero, eating Cheezits, holding hands with your sweety, and watching your kids do cannonballs. I think I even fell asleep for a few minutes, it was so relaxing. At eleven o'clock we ushered all the kids back to the rooms (though some of the girls had opted to stay in the room and watch the Disney channel from bed rather than swim) to put on their pajamas and hang their wet items from the railing to dry. I don't know what exactly went on in the girls' room, but we boys laid in bed till 2 am telling dirty jokes(the kind dad's let kids tell, like the one about the doctor and the tapeworm) and exchanging funny stories. It was a blast.

Bright and early 10 am the next morning we rolled out of bed and headed to Mustang Island. We backed the Jeep and Explorer up as close to the water as we dared, and before we could get the hatches open, the kids were headed to the surf. We intercepted them long enough to cover them in SP 40 and to give them a briefing on jellyfish and syringes (the syringes part was just to scare them), then we let them go. Jen and I went last, meandering our way hand in hand down to the water's edge to do the romantic thing...you know, take a walk together with the waves lapping at our feet. For the next FOUR HOURS everybody played in the waves and the sand and the sun. Lesson learned here: take the time to reapply waterproof sunscreen every half hour or so...briny waves tend to wash it off as we discovered that evening as we carted several tender young lobsters back to the hotel. I also was given a harsh reminder of the aging process when I discovered much to my dismay that I had BURNED MY LOVE HANDLES! Not only that, but I also found that I had received a sunburn right smack on top of my head in the area where my cowlick has grown somewhat sparse. Eegad, man.

We left the beach and stopped in at a Valero station for some much needed gatorade, then went over to the ferry at Port Aransas. The wait in line for the ferry lasted three times longer than the actual ferry ride itself, but I was glad to have given them all the experience. We got out while the barge was crossing in hopes of spying some of the dolphins that frequent the area, but didn't see any. After reaching the opposite shore, we drove back to the hotel and just laid in our dimly lit, very cool rooms for an hour while mustering the strength to get dressed for dinner and reminiscing about our day. It's interesting how it is that individual waves can be so unique, because the kids must have discussed at least two dozen different specific individual waves and how they had hit them a certain way, or dragged them enough to fill their pants with sand. Every word was spoken through the exact same joyful smiles they had worn all day long, and it made me very satisfied as a provider to see them so happy.

Jen and I were completely whipped, but we managed to find enough strength and zeal to load everyone up and take them the the Outback Steakhouse for dinner. Yes, as you may be thinking, it was expensive. But as I told the kids after one of them snatched the bill from me and read the total aloud, they were well worth it. Jen and I had mandated that everybody drink bottomless water with lemon; that didn't go over too well, but it was the right decision since they were all sun-baked and several of them were harboring headaches from it. They all ordered whatever they wanted, and afterward we split a single "Chocolate Tower" dessert between us. Four of the kids couldn't finish their food so we bagged that up and took it home...though I accidentally backed right over it with the Jeep the next morning. Full tummies and tired, red faces found us at the end of our wonderful Saturday at the beach. We went back to the room and slept like rock (lobsters).

Sunday! Today was our visit to the State Aquarium. I woke up, saw that the clock said 9:30 and immediately called the girls' room to wake them up only to be informed that my clock was wrong and it was really just a little before 8. Oops! Oh well, nothing wrong with getting up early, so we all got up, packed up our stuff and checked out. The kids were absolutely wonderful about helping out with things, and were even proactive enough to act without being asked. By the time it was REALLY 9:30 we were checked out and headed down the road to find a place to grab some breakfast. Whataburger satisfied that need and kept us content for the next FOUR HOURS while we wandered around the aquarium and saw the sights. I think I absolutely made their weekend when, after we had paid the entrance fee, I told them that they didn't have to stay with us if they wanted to go off in groups. Scarcely had I finished uttering the words before the girls had gone one way and the older boys the other. So, Jen, Joshy, Amber, Jeremy, and I took our own sweet time checking out the sights and making sure not to miss any details. We had given every child their own disposable camera for this trip, so everyone was busy finishing up what they had left over from the day before, including Amber and Jeremy who really warmed my heart by asking to take pictures of their family in front of various tanks of fish.

A dolphin show and visit to the gift shop later and we were all gathered at the exit ready to hit the road for San Antonio. Nobody complained, and in all my life I've never gotten SO many unsolicited "thank you"s and "I'm having so much fun!"s. Jen, we did good, babe, and I do believe that we managed to give our kids and ourselves some memories that will affect us all in a positive way for the rest of our lives. We may have also promoted a little bit of that family unity we were shooting for, too. And, in the words of the kiddos, "we gotta do this again next year!"

Promoting family unity is an ongoing process, one that can be extremely complex, fragile, and always requiring constant vigilance and purpose. The process can be even more challenging when the family you're unifying was once two separate ones. Enter if you will into the realm of "The Steps": Step children, step parents.Not only are there the normal human social hurdles to overcome when blending lives in this scenario, but there is also the inescapable issue of the emotional fallout left over from the split of the original families.Sometimes painful, never pleasant, but a fact of life that must be faced and worked with. As challenging as they can be, though, they are not insurmountable and it is entirely possible to find smooth sailing in the wake of a divorce.

Jen and I are near the beginning of such a journey, almost seven months into it. Both of us have come somewhat bitterly out of a lengthy marriage that we entered into while teenagers, both of us have children who are the most important thing in the world to us, and both of us are deeply in love with each other and determined to blend all of these lives and souls into a family. I have seven children, she has four. Of those eleven children, two are adults and living outside the home, two live with she and I, two with her ex, and my remaining five live with their mother. The ages and sexes are as follows: 22/m, 21/m,18/f, 14/f, 14/m, 13/f, 13/f, 11/m, 11/m, 8/m, 6/f. Oh, and on top of all of this, my 22 year old son is autistic and my 18 year old daughter made me a grandpa this past January. Sounds complicated, eh?!It is, and nothing has settled down yet into anything you could call routine...it's still a very fluid situation, with bridges needed between her children and I, my children and her, and among the children themselves. I'll tell you this, though, there's a whole lot of love flowing all kinds of directions that has the tendency to allow us all to overcome the polarities and loyalties that often try to encroach upon the beautiful thing Jen and I are attempting to build for everyone. Though the going does get tough and we do suffer the occasional setback, overall we're very happy with the progress being made. To facilitate this process, Jen and I try to come up with family activities that promote unity. So, as we go through this process of evolution and growth and weaving together the lives of so many beautiful souls in our care, I'm going to make it a point to try and share some of what we learn in hopes that it might help others who are in the midst of or considering being in the midst of a similar situation.

Related posts:

Promoting Family Unity: A Weekend at the Beach!

It was a moonless, black, rainy night in the heart of the Texas Hill country as I hugged the hairpin curves of the two-lane blacktop, earnestly striving to make it to my appointment on time. Fall had descended a month ago and the black silhouettes of the dormant mesquite trees were the only thing outside of my truck's narrow high beams that I could discern. That is, until I rounded yet another sharp left bend in the road and saw, there on the right shoulder, standing half in and half out of the brown weeds, a chicken.

I'm cruising at between 50 and 70 mph depending on the length of my straightaways, I'm fifty miles out into the middle of nowhere, the windshield wipers are at full throttle and still I'm squinting to see the road, my mind is already at my meeting with the client, rehearsing the whole thing beforehand: and then suddenly there's...this...chicken.

For the next single second, everything went in slow motion. The chicken was as startled to see me as I was him, and if it's at all possible to do, his already wide open eyes opened wider. His head cocked slightly upward and for a millisecond I'm sure that our gazes met and We both mentally uttered a startled "wtf"? And then it happened. In the heat of the moment the chicken judged that the best thing he could do was run for it, and run he did. With the perfect timing and course of an ICBM he launched himself from the wet brown grass and out onto the pavement. His head low and chicken legs flailing wildly, he managed to hit the gravel on the other side of the road just as I reached him, and was swallowed up by the dark, wet scrub without having lost a single soggy feather.

It's at this point where my entire view of my very existence was altered, with everything I thought I knew and understood brought into question in one gleaming singularity. It was at this moment when a question formed in my mind and then asked itself of me before I even had a chance to evaluate whether or not it was valid: "Why did the chicken cross the road"?. What I had been utterly conditioned to regard as nothing more than a silly childish joke suddenly held deep philosophical meaning and actual, serious context in my personal existence. What should have been a joke was now sobering, and became the first falling domino within what I thought was a very secure, stable, and understood state of being. "If this isn't a joke, what else isn't a joke"? "If this isn't a joke, what things considered to be serious actually ARE jokes"?

I have since recovered from that moral dilemma that came upon me suddenly at the bend of a dark rainy curve several years ago, but the lesson learned has always stayed with me: question everything. Never just accept a thing because it appears to be one way, but always maintain a certain amount of reservation that other possibilities are just as relevant.

And the answer to the question of "why did the chicken cross the road"? Dude, he desperately wanted to get to the other side! No joke.

Doug out.

I'm an observer. Not only do I look at what's in front of me while I drive down life's highway, I take note of the ever changing landscape on either side of me. One of those landscapes that seems to be "evolving" is my body. I can think back to my senior year in high school when I was a wrestler, weighing in at 129 pounds of pure muscle and sinew. My waist was 30 inches, and my height...well, it was exactly the same as it is right now! My 20s were spent in mild but socially acceptable debauchery as far as my eating habits and "the drink", but I frequented the gym and catered to my craving for outdoor activities, so "the bod" stayed fit. I became a bit bulkier and began to get close to being able to "pinch an inch", but when my shirt was off I could still solicit a hoot now and then from a carload of passing girls. My 30s ushered in a career change from disarming bombs to programming, and thus 40 hours a week where the only thing moving were my eyes and fingers. I was dead center in the midst of my "family man" days, with seven kiddos ranging from 12 down to a few months, and the gym became non-existent to me. My only real exercise as I recall were the slow walks we took around our block with kids in tow and every other month when I had to replace a part on my very aged Chevrolet suburban.

It was February of 1994 when I really took note of "my paunch". I had been truly enjoying my immersion in the world of technology and was absorbing it quite successfully...but I was growing, physically. I blamed it mostly on home cooking (which means I told my wife at the time that it was her fault!), but in fact it was a combination of my sedentary lifestyle AND my age. From that epiphany onward I have been fighting what I believe may be a losing battle in the end: staying skinny. I've dieted enough now to know that that doesn't work for most people (including myself), mostly because it just requires too darn much resolve! The greatest successes I've had came at those times when I made room in my schedule for good old fashioned exercise. After all, staying skinny is a simple equation, right? Burn more calories than you take in and you'll lose weight. Exercise not only burns more calories, but there's some added benefits that come afterwards by way of endorphins, an awareness of feeling stronger, and a sense of accomplishment. Plus, I could still indulge in the occasional Corona or White Russian. Or Apple Martini. Or Long Island Iced Tea. etc.

My latest attempt at staying skinny has been going on for just about exactly one year now: I joined a gym. Not the first time I joined a gym, mind you, and there's nothing magical about having a membership that shrinks your waistline. This gym had something I learned to love in the military: racquetball, and I figured that by getting back into that I could also accomplish the whole shrinkage thing. I had finally found a place in my life where I could truly apply what I consider to be one of the wisest proverbs ever spoken, a proverb I very OFTEN cite to my children when they grumble about an assigned task. It was Mary Poppins who graced the world with what has to be the truest truism ever spoken when she said "In every job that must be done there is an element of fun; find the fun aaaaaaaannnndd....SNAP! The job becomes a game!" (Yoda is a close second when he said "Do, or do not; there is no try"). So, I made working out fun, and played racquetball till my waist began to shrink, and shrink it did. I lost my racquetball partner a few months later (don't worry, she didn't die; I told her to hit the road), so started diversifying my routine to include 20 to 30 minutes on the treadmill followed by another 30 minutes of abusing different muscle groups on the weight machines. Doing this between once and three times a week, to date I dropped about 20 pounds. Not nearly where I want to be, and I seem to have hit some kind of plateau which I'm attributing to my inconsistency, age, and love of apple martinis. Give up, however, I am not. I now have a new gym partner who helps make the job a game again, so I'm confident I'll be able to drop at least another 15 pounds before spring.

As far as progress at the gym, I went through some phases of discouragement where I'd work real hard but when I got on the scale I didn't see what I was looking for. Although it isn't new knowledge, let me share and reiterate a few things that may help you manage your expectations and stay encouraged during your own journey back to skinniness.

What are the signs of progress? A shrinking waist, being influenced less and less by gravity, and the way you feel, both physically and mentally. The mental benefit of working out was one of the first I was able to reap. There were times when I was feeling a bit blue when I went to the gym, but by the time I left it was as if I had taken some kind of anti-depressant. There's also the overall feeling of "being strong" that you have after a workout on the weight machines that in itself is a strong source of self-confidence, progress, and hope of achieving your goals. Less stress on the scale and the shrinking waistline...these are effects that will come somewhere between two and four weeks of consistent work, typically, and even then you won't notice a lot of difference. For me, it took almost a month of consistent work to get to a place where I could actually see some significant weight loss and feel my pants getting looser. Why did it take a whole month to "see" progress? Because for that first month, the progress came in ways that we can't see outwardly. Here are a couple of things I wish someone would have told me when I first embarked upon my journey.

First of all, you must be aware that bulk isn't just on the outside: it's inside, too. All around our organs and even in the midst of our muscle itself we have fat. Ever cut into a thick prime rib, All marbly with fat? Well, human meat gets marbly too, and that fat is part of what will get used first during your journey to skinniness. You won't see it being used up, you just have to trust that you are becoming leaner.

Another thing to bear in mind is that being overweight means that a lot of things are out of sorts. Not only are you having to wear larger pants, but your metabolism is at a certain end of the spectrum, your internals are all cramped and embedded in fat, your habits are not conducive to a healthy lifestyle, and likely your very mindset and opinion of yourself are probably not very encouraging. Working out regularly WILL get all of these things back in order, but it will take time.

As with any worthy project of substantial size (no pun intended!), results come as you exercise patient continuance and will not be immediately visible. This fact is what you need to bear in mind as you begin and continue on your journey toward skinniness in order to remain encouraged. Manage your expectations, do your part to make this happen (be consistent), and without a doubt there is NO WAY that it CANNOT work! You will lose weight, you will get skinnier, and you will feel a thousand percent better both physically and mentally. Remember too those immortal words of Mary Poppins...find the fun, my fellow fat friend, aaaaaaand...SNAP! The job becomes a game!


Doug out  :0)

We just moved into a new house. Fairly large, 2,500 square foot, two story house nestled (very tightly!) in a new subdivision in north San Antonio. The back porch is extra large and shaded by its own roof from the cruelly hot south Texas sun. This provides an absolutely lovely place to set up the hammock and relax on a breezy evening with a cold glass of white merlot and some tuneage; but, for fear of scorching the underside of the porch roof, it provides us no place to put the grill!

Anybody who knows anything about Texans, especially south Texans, knows the absolute imperativeness of BBQ at least once a week. Grilled skirt steak (fajitas), corn on the cob, asparagus dowsed in olive oil and lemon pepper, brauts, and all the other fixins that accompany such a cornucopia are as much a requirement for us as the thick humid air that keeps our terrestrial gills in working order. Now, you may wonder why we wouldn’t just put the grill right out there in the yard somewhere like people in places such as Missouri or Michigan do. What are we afraid of? That we might perspire if we have to stand in the sun? Do we have a phobia of grass? Nay, my foreign brethren (everybody NOT from Texas is a foreigner); The thing that deters us from spending too much time standing in one spot in our yards down here is a little thing I like to call Fire Ants. If you go to any house in San Antonio, step into the yard and stand still for more than a couple of minutes, a Fire Ant WILL climb onto you, find a bare piece of skin, and with great purpose, sting you repeatedly until you put it out of your misery. Though we South Texans have learned to live side by side with them to a degree, it has only been by accepting that the grass, any and all grass, is their territory. Hence our family’s need for a place to put the grill. The solution we came up with was to build a patio.

HOW TO BUILD A PATIO

Items Needed

• One Long-Handled Flat Blade Spade
• Two each 40 pound bags of course sand
• One each 40 pound bag of crushed (or decayed) granite
• Thirty three bricks
• Your spousal unit, if applicable, and all the kids you got

Directions

1) Gather your family together and discuss the idea of making a patio for your BBQ or outdoor fireplace. If you don’t own a BBQ or outdoor fireplace, discuss getting one. As the father, husband, and guide of your household, ensure that the conversation ends up as all in favor of the project by using your experience, wisdom, and skills in gentle persuasion.

2) Set goals for the project. Procurement of the items can be a separate task from the actual building of the patio if need-be, due to time constraints.

3) Take all or as many as possible of the family on the outing to procure the needed items. Make sure to include the kids in on the process of deciding which sand, spade, and granite to purchase. Also, make sure you ask them if they can think of anything else you might need for the project (suggest gloves, bottled water, and other such amenities if no one else thinks of them  ).

4) Upon arriving home, enlist the aid of the family to transport the items to the construction site. Be sure to feed everyone’s anticipation and excitement of the final product.

5) Upon undertaking the actual construction, assign tasks. You will need:

• A waterboy/girl and general purpose gopher or two;
• Someone to provide and maintain the background music;
• Mud puppies (kiddos to help remove mud/dirt from the hole and to dig through clods already removed to find worms and grubs to study);
• A surveyor (someone to help you measure and layout the patio boundaries)

 Set all assigned personnel to accomplishing their tasks as needed

 6) Using stakes (or screwdrivers, or any other item you can hammer into the ground), mark the corners of your patio. Once marked, re-measure to ensure that each side is 40 inches long.

7) Using the spade, dig the entire border of the patio’s foundation. Remove all dirt/clay to a depth of about 4 inches. Be sure to keep the entire hole’s bottom level so that as few dips or humps are present as possible. If need be, task the Mud puppies with putting some dirt back into low areas to even it out.

8) Once the hole is prepared, pour in both bags of sand and level out.
 Place bricks into the hole, ensuring that each brick placed is level with the ones adjacent to it. More than one person can perform the brick placement simultaneously, and in fact, this is recommended in order to lend a greater sense of accomplishment and participation to the group. Here is the pattern for the bricks:


9) When all bricks are in place, pour a large pile of the crushed granite at each opposite corner of the patio. Have all available hands rub and roll granite around on top of the patio until all crevices appear to have been filled. Save the remaining crushed granite for another time when the fill will have settled, revealing the need for another round of “filling the gaps”.

10) Instruct the waterboys/girls to bring refreshments to the other workers and themselves. Make sure the radio station selected is one that the majority enjoy, and break out the chilled blush for you and the spousal unit.

11) Chillax for a half hour, making sure that everybody gets praise for a job well done. Talk about how the patio will be used, imagining scenarios out loud and even planning as a group your first usage of it. Also, plant the thought of coming up with a next family project.

CONCLUSION

Few things promote such sincere togetherness and family unity as do joint projects, and this was no exception. So many good things came from this task...the cooperation, the sense of accomplishment, the planning and procurement skills, the practicing of the mindset to not be afraid of hard work, the sweat equity that everybody contributed and thus a stake in seeing it succeed, the exercising of love and patience, the overall feeling of ‘togetherness’ that was promoted; And more than that, the hope that this patio represents: the future memories we’ll all make out here BBQing as a family.

A design pattern is a recurring concept, arrangement of things, and/or repeated process. Life is composed entirely of such patterns. From the patterns found in the genetic blueprints of even the simplest form of life to the consistent and measurable rising and setting of the sun: life is a beautiful matrix of overlaid and interacting patterns. Ah, but more than simply random patterns, these are patterns in the very design of how everything works, including human behavoir. I want to expound upon one such pattern in particular, and that is the pattern that exists between two people who are at odds with one another and what I have observed the pattern to be that leads to resolution in almost every case.

I was once conducted through a phone interview for a technical job and, as interviews will go, I was presented several questions which were nothing more than scenarios, with my response to be the approach I would take in resolving them. One question in particular involved the situation where I was project lead and had two separate groups between which I was liaison. The two groups had opposing opinions as to what decision should be made on a particular aspect of the project. The question posed to me: "How would I resolve it"? It didn't take me long to come up with an answer, because what I imagined in the scenario looked exactly like other scenarios I had encountered in life, and I recognized the pattern: that of two (or more) people who had opposing viewpoints, with each refusing to budge from their position and yet both having the need for agreement. My answer: to make sure that both sides were heard by the opposing side.

It may seem by all outward appearances that conflicts of viewpoint are all about whose viewpoint is better, and that resolution can only be had by compromise or relinquishment of one or both views. This is not true. In scenarios between my children where I have played diplomat and in scenarios between myself and my significant other (where I WISH I had a diplomat!), I have seen the same recurring pattern, and it was never one side managing to out muscle the other side that resulted in peace and accord. The true answer in mending discord lies in something so much more simple: fulfilling the need to be heard.

I type those words slowly, I say them in my mind slowly and with reverence as I read them, because they are so fundamentally important. Hours, days, years even of stubborn silence can be avoided if the parties involved would just recognize what the true need of the opposite side is and fulfill it. The other side really only wants to "have the floor", if you will, long enough to have expressed their opinion fully and, (this is the MOST important part, O Best Beloved) to KNOW that they were truly heard. Once a person has been given opportunity to speak uninterrupted and they are made to know that their side had truly fallen on open ears and an open mind, the fire amazingly just fizzles out. They still have their opinion, of course; but the ire that drove them and their inability to see beyond their own cause just melts away, because the true root need has been satiated. Ah, and the doors to communication that are immediately opened in a nearly miraculous way! Suddenly, whereas this individual was seemingly incapable of hearing a word the other side had to say, now they can hear with clarity and attention, and truly consider their opponent's viewpoint.

Simple enough, right? Just be quiet while the other side talks! Not so, O Best Beloved. A simple stay of the tongue does not a truly hearing opponent make. You see, once one side does agree to give the other the floor and hold their tongue while the other speaks, the speaker now will be examining every minute detail of everything that is occuring while he or she is laying things out. When I say 'everything', I mean absolutely EVERYTHING. It likely won't be done consciously, but without a DOUBT they will be noting every twitch of the listener's facial expressions, the movement of their eyes, their body posture, movements, shifting of body weight, and most of all where their attention is at all times. What they are doing is looking for the one thing they need, evidence that they have been truly heard. Now, although how a person listens is vital, even more vital and necessary to this process is how the listener then responds. The very next thing that comes out of their mouth will either make the exercise a success or total failure. Remember, it isn't agreement that fulfills this pattern in human behavior, it's listening, so it isn't required that one's response be to the effect that they agree. Anything along the lines of "I can see your point", or "I hadn't looked at it like that" can suffice. Be warned though: truly listening is an impossible thing to fake. I can't tell you the innumerable times I've been involved in this scenario and the other side, though seeming to have listened and even responding with something like "I see your point", IMMEDIATELY blew the whole thing out of the water by adding on the word "but". Look at this: "I really do see your point, BUT...." What just happened there? The speaker's viewpoint was instantly invalidated and minimized. What follows the 'but' is irrelevant, and the other person isn't going to be able to hear it anyway, because that 'but' told them that their honest outpour had fallen on ears that never intended to hear them in the first place. Back to square one for everybody.

Learn to recognize the human conflict pattern. It comes in many forms and has varying degrees of intensity, but it's always the same. When you DO recognize the pattern, just remember that the true key to resolution lies in you making sure that you give your opponent the opportunity to fully express himself, you truly open your ears and mind and hear him out, and above all cause him to know that you heard him. Do NOT allow yourself to let the word 'BUT' be part of anything you respond with, or you will have exposed yourself as someone who pretended to hear but really had no interest at all, leaving your opponent's one true need yet unfulfilled. There really is something to the phrase we've heard throughout our life, that 'communication is as much listening as talking'. Practice your listening skills, thus fulfilling your opponent's true need, and you'll find yourself spending a lot less time immersed in life's daily dose of human conflicts.

Doug out.

On every Tuesday and Thursday evening in the month of June, I have been taking a sign language class. Of course the first question that tends to come to mind is "why?", so let me address that first. If you've ever read Kipling's 'The Elephant's Child', then you've caught a glimpse into the mind that drives one who is plagued with "insatiable curiosity"; they do odd things, like travel to the great, grey, green greasy Limpopo River to ask questions that to others seem unworthy of being uttered. I am plagued with a similarly insatiable curiosity (although I DO know what the Crocodile has for supper, O Best Beloved), and in particular am insatiably curious about languages. How one idea can be thoroughly communicated in so many different ways fascinates me, and so at any given point in my life since about the age of 16, I have been in the process of exploring some new language. Some stuck rather well, like Spanish, French, Albanian, and Hindi; Others linger in the form of a few words or expressions, like Mandarin, Hebrew, and Russian. American Sign Language is a language in its own right, with its own syntax and word form, so it too fell into my sights. I first learned a portion of it several years ago when I desired to do a Bible study with a deaf couple I had met. I spent several hours creating a list of all the potential vocabulary words I might need, then went to the library and looked up each one, drawing myself little pictures of how to form the word. I spent many hours practicing the same, and finally did have that Bible study. Presently, I'm in love with a woman who happens to have two profoundly deaf sisters and a deaf brother in law. Last month we went and visited her family in Chicago, and I felt myself to be quite handicapped when it came to communicating with them. Fortunately, they all read lips well and even speak, so their skill set made up for what I consider to be MY handicap in not knowing Sign Language; but I did resolve within myself that the next time we meet they wouldn't have to carry so much of the burden of communication. And so, I'm making Sign Language a part of my daily regimen!

Last night, as part of our class, I attended a performance of "Annie" put on by the San Antonio Deaf Dance Company. It was mandatory, as our instructor had made it part of the curriculum. I took my fiancee and five of my seven children. We arrived early and got into our seats amidst several of the kids' grumblings about how boring this was going to be. But an hour and a half later, after all was said and done, none of us had a single shred of regret that we had come, not even the kids! Everything was done in sign language, with interpreters for the hearing provided, but even though I know very little sign and my kids know even less, we all learned something about human communication, that there is so much more than words to it all, and of the incredible amount of information that can be transferred accurately by a simple raise of an eyebrow or a facial expression. So what appears to be at first glance a language that would severely impair one's ability to communicate deep thoughts or detailed feelings is actually probably more robust and alive than any spoken language ever could be.

The performance itself was amazing. As you know, "Annie" is a musical, so there were several songs, both solo and with chorus, as well as several dance numbers that required coordination among the dancers themselves. Most of the time, music did accompany those numbers, though once or twice they were done completely in silence. It was mesmerizing when, without song or music, the troupe performed flawlessly and in beautiful synchronicity. For those of us who are hearing and who are able to realize a different perspective on the challenge that such a thing can present, it was inspiring and impressive beyond words. I'm extremely glad that I took my kids, and I'm very happy at the final reactions that came from them. Whereas at first they thought it was funny...not the people's handicap, but the way signing appeared...by the end they were impressed, themselves, and had even managed to learn some signs just by watching the audience interact during intermissions.

Don't know any Sign Language yourself? I highly recommend that, the next time your local school district offers adult education classes that you sign yourself up and partake of the benefits that come by delving a little bit into the world that our non-hearing brethren live in. Empower yourself a little, become capable of doing your part to bridge the communication gap the next time you encounter someone whose primary language is visual. You won't regret it. ;)

Doug out.

My mind swam as I drove the thirty minutes to the hospital, my thoughts wandering back and forth between the cares of my day and my love and concern for my grandpa. I had just walked in from a pleasant lunch with one of my fellow Masons when the front desk lady flagged me down and handed me a scribbled note that read “grandpa – hospital – emergency – call mom”. Sometimes I really despise the way I always analyze things. Rather than allowing the naturally occurring emotions of such a surprise scenario to run their course, I immediately and instinctively subdued them, opting rather to convince myself that there was no cause for alarm or concern at this point since I had no real information upon which to base a judgment. But c’mon…with keywords such as those scrawled on that yellow piece of paper, how many conclusions could there be that don’t end in a situation where emotions are absolutely appropriate? I do believe that it’s more from fear than strength that I do that to myself…that I throw logic at myself in order to postpone the inevitable. Others look at me and see me as the strong one, the reasonable one, the one who is really able to think clearly and rationally. In reality, I am the one most afraid, and only do it as a self-protective measure. I tend to equate crying with vomiting…both are natural and healing reactions that our humanity thrust upon us when necessary, yet I find myself going to the greatest of lengths to utterly avoid them at all costs. I believe it’s because both of them are involuntary, and nothing frightens me more than not being in control of my situation. Well there, I’ve done it. I’ve just auto-analyzed my own psychology in a public forum. But I don’t care. I’m only writing about this in order to provide some sort of relief for myself, a vent for the anguish I kept bottled up as I helped my grandpa…no, suffered with my grandpa, through the stroke he had had that very morning.

 

I love that man, so very, very much. One of my greatest regrets is that I never put forth the effort to get to know him better in my younger years. He was always traveling here and there with my grandma, living what I envisioned as a very exciting and lavish life. Their home base was Texas, mine was Missouri. I married right out of high school and immediately had my life swept up with responsibilities I was trying to grow into. Our paths crossed only on occasion over the course of thirty years, and even when it was that I eventually ended up living in the same city as he and grandma, I still never seemed to find time in my schedule to invest in our relationship. How sad. What a rich and meaningful relationship I robbed myself and my children of by not being more determined in that.

 

In the past year, I had finally made up my mind to turn over a new leaf in that department, and I embarked upon an endeavor that gave grandpa and I some common ground: Masonry. I didn’t do it just for him, but I was glad that we now had something to ensure we would spend time together. Entering into Masonry necessarily involves the requirement of spending one on one time with other more experienced Masons, and whenever possible, I chose my grandpa. In what Masons refer to as esoteric work, I began to finally get to know who my grandpa was. How smart he was, how even tempered; his wit, his sincere care for his wife, myself, and family (even those of the feline persuasion). He wears his 84 years as though he were just barely entering retirement age, always smiling, laughing, helping with something.

When I finally completed my brisk walk of the hospital’s length (I parked at the wrong end of the facility…fancy that) and entered the room where they were still examining him, it was a completely foreign way to be seeing my grandpa. Whereas he was always the active one, the one helping somebody else, now it was his turn to receive the attention and assistance. And oh, how it grieved him so! I saw my beloved, strong grandpa weep multiple times that day. Not out of self-pity, but for the worry that others had over him and the time they were taking out of their own schedules for his sake. When he cried, I would be strong for him, put my hand on his shoulder, smile at him so he could see that I was there to fill in for whatever strength the stroke had temporarily taken away. My mind was set, and I told him so, that we would all overcome this together and press on as the happy loving family that we were no matter what it might require of us all. I was so glad for my own youth and strength and health so that I could lend it to him, that my abundance could be supply for his lack at that time, as his has been for me in past situations.

 

My grandma…she who is always so beautiful and elegant and graceful in every way; she really rose to the occasion as well, impressing me mightily. The love I always knew was there between them was more evident now than ever, as she tirelessly held his hand from her wheelchair, looked at him so lovingly and dear, smiled at him, and kept him energized by her amazing love for him. He reciprocated, and though few words were spoken between them, the air between their mutual gazes was alive. Her stamina, which normally is quite short due to her progressing Parkinsons, was as good or better than my own; her speech, which is normally not more than a whisper (again, due to her Parkinsons) was quite audible and clear. Though my grandpa may not see it right now, his unfortunate illness has brought out so much good and strength in everyone around him…his weakness, his lacking, has given those around him who love him so such a blessed opportunity to give back…there honestly can be so much beauty in tragedy, such that the tragic event itself is paled in comparison and appears as nothing more than an insignificant thing that should soon be forgotten.

 

This is the second day since my grandpa realized he was having a stroke when he couldn’t lift his spoon of cereal to his mouth, but the sadness that plagued him yesterday has been set aside, and he even walked a couple hundred feet today down the hall of the hospital wing. Tomorrow my mom and Aunt will arrive to see their father and perform the happy duty of a child to their aging parents, and I am excited to see them as well. I was my mother’s eyes, ears, voice, and arms while she couldn’t be here, and I feel very privileged to have fulfilled that role for her. I’m glad I was here when my grandpa got sick, and I will continue to offer myself to them all for the love I have for them, most especially grandpa.

 

There is nothing more beautiful, satisfying, nor purposeful than to give yourself for the sake of another. May I encourage everyone who reads this to consider those who are nearest and dearest to them, and even those who aren’t but should be, and take advantage of the precious moments you have so that when all is said and done (and it will eventually be), you will have no regrets.

One day a man caught two little fishes while hunting for crawdads in a small Texas stream with his two children. “Come see what I caught!” he called to Lilly and Brandon. They both looked up from their own crawdad hunt, and wading out of the creek and onto its rocky bank, ran to where their father was. “Come see,” he said again, and the two slowly waded back out to look into the plastic cup their dad held. “Wow!” they said at once while peering into the cup, their excited eyes discerning the two small fishes swimming in the murky water there. “What are they?” Brandon asked inquisitively. “Texas cichlids,” his father quickly replied, “they were hiding under a rock.” “How do you know they’re cichlids?” asked Lilly. “See the little black stripes on their backs?” said dad, “That’s how you know it’s a baby cichlid.” Both children were still watching the little fish swim around and around. “What are we gonna do with them?” Lilly asked. “Well” said dad, “I reckon we can take them home and put them in the big tank. I’ve been looking for a reason to get it cleaned out and set up, and I think it’ll make a fine home for these two little guys.”

 They gathered their gear and made their way up the steep creek bank to where the Jeep was parked. Brandon carried the seine net, dad carried the orange plastic bucket that had the crawdads they had caught in it, and Lilly carefully carried the white plastic cup, making sure that none of the water spilled. Dad let Lilly carry the cup in her lap on the way home, too, showing her how to hold it up when they went over bumps so that no water splashed out.

Once home the kids couldn’t wait to get the two little fishes into their new home, but dad said that they would have to stay in the small tank until tomorrow. “When can we set the big tank up, dad?” asked Lilly. “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” dad said, “so we’ll make it our project of the day. For now, go ahead and put them into the small tank with the guppies. We’ll give them a little breakfast in the morning and then get started on their new home.” Lilly and Brandon couldn’t wait till tomorrow, and thought about their project even as they lay in bed that night.

 The following morning, after everyone had gotten ready for their day and breakfast had been eaten, Brandon asked if he could give the cichlids some breakfast, too. “Sure” said dad. “Just take some of the flake food we have and crush it up real good between your fingers over the water. If they’re not too shy, they’ll come up and get some of it.” Brandon followed his dad’s instructions. The guppies, who were quite used to life in the small tank, immediately began sucking the tiny pieces of fish food off of the water’s surface. The little cichlids, however, just stayed near the bottom in a back corner of the tank, apparently quite shy and skittish. “They’re not eating, Dad” Brandon said. “Well that’s natural, son. They’re so used to having everything trying to eat them that they’re too afraid to come up and eat. They’ll get used to us soon enough though; I ain’t never seen an animal that would let itself starve to death.”

 While Brandon was putting the fish food away, dad and Lilly began gathering the things they would need to set up the big tank. First, they went into the garage and got out all of the large rocks that had been in the tank from before when dad had Oscars, and carried them outside and onto the front porch. “What’s this?” Lilly asked when dad handed her something black and plastic. “That’s a filter” he told her. “It hangs on the outside of the tank and sucks in the dirty water, then lets the clean water fall back in like a waterfall.” “Aw, cool”, said Lilly. Brandon joined them now and carried out the items dad had given him. He didn’t recognize any of them except for the green fishnet, and so asked him what they were. Laying them all out neatly on the front porch, dad began to point out items and explain what their role would be in the tank. “That large flat plastic thing with all the holes in it is called an Undergravel Filter, and it helps keep the tank’s ecosystem working.” Lilly and Brandon grew puzzled. They had heard the word ecosystem before, but had no idea what it meant. Dad set down the bucket of brown gravel he was carrying and began to assemble some of the pieces of the filter, elaborating on what he had already said. “See, we put these fat plastic tubes here in the undergravel filter, then we’ll run some air tubing down into them like this, with a bubbler inside. What happens is that the bubbles rushing up the tubes will actually be sucking fresh water down into the filter.” Dad made a gesture with his hands, showing the water flowing downward toward the plastic grating. “What that does is make sure that the bacteria living in the gravel…oh, forgot to tell you that we’re going to bury this under the gravel first…anyway, the fresh water flowing down through the gravel will keep the bacteria that live there healthy.” The children were very satisfied at the explanation dad was giving them, but they still had more questions. “Well, what’s a bacteria?” Lilly asked. “Ah, excellent question, Pumpkin”, dad said. “Bacteria are teeny tiny little guys whose job it is to clean up all of the things that could dirty up a tank, like food that the fish don’t eat and the fish’s bathroom.” That answer seemed to satisfy the kids, so dad disassembled the filter and laid the pieces back out again. “Alrighty now, it’s time to clean these things up real good so we don’t put anything dangerous back into the tank. Wouldn’t want the little guys to get sick and die.”

One piece at a time dad, Lilly, and Brandon scrubbed them with old toothbrushes and salt water from a blue plastic bowl. After a piece was scrubbed, dad rinsed it off and laid it on a towel in the sun to dry. “What about the gravel, Dad?” Brandon asked. “How are we gonna clean that?”. “Not to worry, son” said dad, “watch this.” Dad uncoiled the green garden hose a few turns off of its holder on the wall of the house and put the nozzle down into the bucket full of gravel. “Can you turn the water on for me Lilly?” Dad asked. Lilly ran to the spigot and slowly opened the valve until he told her to stop. The kids watched as the bucket filled up and up and finally started overflowing. Once it was overflowing, dad pushed his arm down into the gravel as far as he could and started swirling it around and around. Immediately dirt and debris started rising and the water became muddy. The constant flow of the hose, however, pushed the dirty water out and out until finally, in just a few minutes, the water ran clean no matter how much dad swirled the gravel. “Alright, it’s all clean and ready for the tank!” dad exclaimed. He put his hand over one side of the bucket and tipped it that way, letting the water run out while keeping the gravel in.

With all of the parts and the gravel and rocks now clean, they carried them into the house and laid them in front of the fifty five gallon tank that sat on a black stand in the dining room. “Whew!” said dad, “you guys ready for some lunch yet?” Both Lilly and Brandon had worked up quite an appetite, and so dad made PBJs for everyone. The kids had a sandwich in one hand and a glass of milk in the other while they stood in front of the small fish tank and watched the tiny cichlids. The kids could see them clearly now in the clean water of the little tank. They were a grey color, like the rocks in the stream they had found them in, and they had tiny black stripes like a tiger. The most prominent marks on them, though, were two large black spots, one near their tail, and another in the middle of their bodies. To the kids, the fishes seemed more at ease now. They weren't nearly as skittish, and they were exploring the dimensions of their temporary home, picking for food amongst the white gravel. “Dad, they’re not afraid anymore!” Brandon happily exclaimed. “I didn’t think they would be for long,” dad said; “fish adapt pretty quickly to their environment.”

 After they finished their lunches, they set to work putting everything in place for the little cichlids. First, dad put in the undergravel filter and set it up just like he had shown them on the front porch. It covered almost the entire bottom of the tank, and at each end a thick clear plastic tube stuck straight up out of it. Next, they took the bucket of gravel and cupful by cupful they put it in on top of the filter. “We need to make sure there’s a good thick layer of gravel over this,“ dad said, “’cause that’s where the bacteria’s home will be.” With most of the gravel in place, dad started asking for some of the larger rocks. “Hand me that one with the big hole in the middle,” he asked Lilly. She handed it to him and he carefully set it into one corner of the tank, pushing it down into the gravel. Several rocks later dad had created what looked like a small cave in one corner of the tank, with other rocks of curious shapes protruding here and there throughout the rest of the space. “Hey!” the kids said, “That looks like a cave!”. “It is” said dad, “’cause those little guys are gonna need a place to go where they can feel safe; it’ll help them be happier and healthier.” While dad was adjusting some of the other rocks and pouring the remaining gravel here and there to form decorative mounds and slopes, Brandon noticed one more item still left on the towel. “You forgot something, Dad” Brandon said. “Oh yeah” replied their father “the other filter”. Dad opened the door underneath the black aquarium stand and took out a plastic packet. He opened it up and took out something flat and fuzzy looking. “This is what lets this filter keep the water clean”, he said. “All the dirt and other things that come in with the dirty water get trapped right here and only clean water comes out.” “Cool” Lilly said. Dad put the fuzzy thing inside of the filter, assembled the rest of the pieces that went with it, and hung it on the outside of the tank just above the cave. “Well, what do you think we should do now?” dad asked Lilly and Brandon. “Ummm…put the water in?” they said. “Absolutely right!” said dad, and they took the empty gravel bucket into the kitchen and set it in the sink. Dad started running water in it, and while it was filling up, took a small yellow bottle of something and put a few drops into the bucket. “What’s that?” the kids asked. “This will take out anything in this water that’s poisonous to the fish,” he said. When the bucket was full, dad turned off the water and carried it to the tank, where he ever so slowly and carefully poured the water in, making sure that it landed directly on a flat stone he had placed near the end opposite the cave. “I’m pouring it in like this so that we don’t mess up the beautiful landscape we just made.” It seemed like forever before they had the tank full, but it had really only been twelve buckets. The tank was already looking like a cool, magical place to Lilly. The light through the water’s ripples made pretty designs over the gravel and rocks, and let just a little bit of light into the cave. Dad worked inside the area under the tank’s stand for a few minutes, until suddenly to the kids’ pleasant surprise, the soft hum of the pump was heard and silver bubbles streamed upwards in the tubes like pearls. “Oh!,” the kids exclaimed. Brandon loved the sound that the cascade of popping bubbles made; he just stared as they did so, trying to see patterns in the way they came out of the airstones at the bottom of the tubes. At this point dad stopped and sat in front of the tank, Lilly joining him on his lap. None of them could look away as the pump’s hum and the bubbles’ silvery streams and gentle pops made each of them smile. “Oh, forgot one” dad said, and reached inside the stand door once more. At once the soft sound of something clicking underwater was heard as the hanging filter came to life. They heard the water in the filter rising, rising  rising until finally a lovely flowing fall of water fell from its perch and into the tank. “Now this is how to really relax,” dad said as they sat their admiring their handywork. “Sure is” said Brandon, with Lilly echoing last. “So when can we put the fish in, dad?” Lilly asked excitedly. This was, after all, the moment they had been waiting for. “Well, let’s just let everything run for a few hours first, just to make sure the water is good and clean when we put the little fellas in.” The children were perfectly content with that answer, and they both sat there in front of the tank for another half hour, imagining that they were little fishes, riding down down down on the waterfall’s deluge, going in and out of the dark but inviting little stone cave. Before they knew it, it was time for their baths and dinner so they left the tank to run in peace. Even from another part of the house, though, they could still hear the soothing stream of the bubbles and loud trickling sound of the waterfall; even without being able to see the fishtank, just the sound of it made them feel happier.

 With their dinner finished, their teeth brushed, and their pajamas on, dad called Lilly and Brandon into the dining room. “Okay,” he said smiling, “I think it’s time now.” He picked up the green fish net from beside the little tank and slowly and gently put it down into the water. The guppies quickly hugged the surface of the water and moved to one side, while the little cichlids huddled at the bottom in one corner. Dad skillfully moved the net over the little fish, not scaring them at all, until he was able to lift them slowly out of the water. Only after leaving the water did they begin to flip and flop, but not a moment later dad had them in the big tank and swimming free again. The kids sat down in front of the tank, as did dad, and watched to see what the little fishes would do. Immediately they both made their way to the bottom and, staying close together, just hovered there, not daring to move an inch. “They’re getting their bearings,” dad said, “trying to figure out where they are, where the dangers are, and what to do next. It won’t take them long though, just watch.” Almost on dad’s cue, the two little fish drifted quickly over toward the cave dad had created and slipped into its dark recesses. From the right angle, the kids could see their tiny eyes peering out from the shadow’s edge, their little mouths and gills pumping water fast. “I’m so glad you made them a cave, dad” Brandon said. “You were right, it does make them feel safe.” For another half hour they all sat there, just watching the beautiful, disorderly stream of bubbles and listening to the pump’s hum and the sound of clean water cascading into the tank. Finally dad said it was time for bed and told the children that tomorrow sometime they’d see if they could get the little guys to eat something. Happy with anticipation and very pleased with themselves for making such a wonderful and safe home for their new little fishes, Brandon and Lilly went to bed.

Happiness of the family as a whole generally comes from strength in two main areas: Order and Stability. Each of these areas can be broken down into a few sub areas, all of them as important as the other, and all lending to the success of the whole and achievement of a truly happy family. Order comes by addressing self-discipline, having good and fair rules in place, and having consistency in enforcing those rules. Stability itself is composed of a stable predictable family routine, financial stability, and emotional stability. And most importantly, you as the leader of your household cannot neglect your own needs. You must be happy, you must be healthy, you must spend time with yourself reflecting and thinking.

 
The remainder of this document addresses all of these areas and lends suggestions as to how to work with them.

 YOU SPEND TIME WITH YOU

For yourself and by yourself, summarize the state of the family union every so often. Take a good look at where you are, how you got there, and where you want to be. Write down comments and suggestions for getting it where it needs to be, then prepare to talk to the family about it.

 

Get the family together, without distraction, and address them with your state of the union. Then, in a very ordered fashion, get their feedback…their perspectives, on each very specific area you covered. Keep the order, have a heavy hand if need be to keep people taking turns and waiting to be called on to talk, because the survival of what all of you love and need is at stake. Be firm, but gentle, but firm. As much as the world thinks it distasteful to say, the husband is the ruler of his house in many ways…that’s order, that’s the way it should be, and people are happier when everything is in order. The same way every successful company has a hierarchy of authority that makes it successful, so does a family: it requires leadership, and YOU my brutha are president for life.

 ORDER

THE PARENTS’ PART

KEY: husband and wife working together. Supporting each other and each other’s decisions. Being sure to both be doing things toward the common good and goals. The children will see if the union is strong or weak, and behave accordingly. You must agree on standards of discipline (what will and will not be tolerated), when to talk about a matter before setting out on your own to make a command decision, etc. Just lots of talking, and that means time specifically set aside for that.

 

LEAD BY EXAMPLE. Do as I say not as I do does not work. No hypocrites allowed.

 

Remember and remind each other of what is most important.

 

Do not talk about private matters in the presence of the children. Use good discretion in this area. Some things are none of their business and they should not be privy to the discussions that take place as you arrive at decisions. They may attempt to use such knowledge to undermine your rules for their own gain, or at the very least the hearing of such discussions could erode their morale.

 

THE KIDS’ PART

Their part is to follow the rules of the household, keep good attitudes (cause they’re catchy), and do their best to be good kids. Pretty easy stuff.

 

Some Rule Suggestions…

 

• NO TV when there’s something else that needs to be done. It’s a life killer, for sure, and will WASTE your very precious time. That means no tv for anybody when there’s something else they should be doing.

 

• NO WASTING ELECTRICITY. When you leave a room, you turn off the light and anything else that is on and doesn’t need to be. This includes hot water. If they don’t learn to turn the lights off QUICKLY, and take shorter showers, light bulbs will be removed and the hot water heater will be shut off at the panel except for certain hours. They’ll just have to use candles and take cold sponge baths. Period.

 

• Install power saver bulbs.

 

• Chores will be assigned. Not slave amounts of chores, but chores. Everybody has to pull their weight. That means animals taken care of, lawn mowing, rooms cleaned, laundry where it should be, dishes done, kitchen cleaned, trash taken out. Period. Anybody who doesn’t do their chores WHEN THEY ARE DUE loses privileges for a time, like after school activities, TV, and earlier bed times.

 

• SET BEDTIMES. Based on age, and exceptions made on occasion when justified, heads will be on pillows and lights out by 11 on school nights. Period.

 

• HOMEWORK WILL BE DONE BEFORE BEDTIME. PERIOD. So make sure you budget your time wisely, because except for VERY good reasons, no exceptions will be made to this rule.

 

 

It is VITAL that there be consequences for violation of the rules, including not doing chores when they are supposed to be done. Give a kid an inch, they’ll take a mile, and you’ll soon lose all control of the situation.  It is JUST AS VITAL that these consequences be doled out with judgement and compassion, bearing in mind that the goal isn’t to inflict pain as much as it is to help them learn self-discipline. But the order of the house as a whole depends on the order of the individuals. They must understand that their lack of self-discipline affects everybody, not just themselves.

 STABILITY

 FINANCIAL Stability

Read and execute Dave Ramsey’s book “Total Money Makeover”

SELF-DISCIPLINE

Self-Explanatory. Don’t spend if it violates the budget; Don’t waste gas on unnecessary trips; Plan outings with gas in mind. Don’t waste things at home (food, etc.).

 

INCOME

THE PARENT’S PART

Sign up for any and all services that you qualify for. WIC, Foodstamps, Unemployment, training programs, utility bill assistance…EVERYTHING. Typically this should be done by the wife (assuming she isn’t working outside of the home) since she has more time during work hours to do it. Small towns nearby have very short lines…it isn’t that much of an inconvenience. DO THIS IMMEDIATELY! Do it. Do it. DO IT.

 

Actively seek a job, every single day without fail. Read the paper, make calls, go register with temp agencies, register with the Unemployment office. DO YOUR PART. Some things are outside of your power to affect, others are totally within your power. Prove you are serious about wanting to provide for your family, and not proving it to anybody else except for yourself. You’ll sleep much better at night knowing in your own heart that you did all you could that day to address this area of financial responsibility.

 

Identify and FILL UP as many financial drains as possible. Some possible suggestions are:

• Put the house on the market and sell the sucker. Right now, a mortgage and utility bills of that size are far beyond your means. If you don’t sell it, you will lose it and have nothing to show for it at all.
• Work towards physically moving closer to those parts of town where you spend the most time to reduce travel distances.
• If it’s best for the success of the family, dictate that they will all go to school locally. It’s a given this will generate rebellion and complaint, but necessity dictates. You yourself went to a different school every year of your life almost. You lived, you got educated, you didn’t cave in and cry about it. It isn’t like you would be sending them to some prison-like inner city school.
• Implement strict electricity usage policies at home. Set a goal of reducing your monthly bill by $100 by doing nothing more than simply turning off what is not in use, including the heater/fan.
• Shorten showers/hot water usage.
• Turn off unneeded circuits at certain times.
• Replace bulbs with money savers

 

 

THE KIDS’ PART

Their part is to comply with whatever decisions you come up with in this arena and to fulfill their obligations at home (chores) so you can concentrate on more important matters.

BUDGETING

THE PARENTS’ PART

 

Make a budget…a plan. I realize that there isn’t usually enough cash to go around where it’s needed, but at the VERY least make a list of who is owed how much and when, then nothing can go unnoticed. I also realize that sometimes it “seems” easier to deal with it if you just don’t think about it. But experience has taught that you ALWAYS feel better having faced it, even if only on paper, than totally avoiding it. Trust me on this. Make a list of bills.

 

After a budget, or a list of bills is made, make phone calls and see if arrangements are possible. When things are tight, the saying “robbing peter to pay paul” is reality. Reality also dictates that some things will not get paid; that’s life, just be sure to prioritize them, and make the ones absolutely essential first. My own personal order is this:

• Food, water, and clothes;
• Roof;
• Utilities;
• Transportation;
• Everything else

Remember, you are surrounded by woods full of good things to eat if it comes down to it. Pigeons and doves taste good, squirrels taste good, rabbits taste good, turkeys taste good. Make a couple of throw lines for the river across the street and check them every afternoon. Fish tastes good too.

Say “NO” to the kids when the request is for something that isn’t needed and you cannot afford. JUST SAY NO. They won’t die, and you’ll still be a good father looking out for their best interest.

 

 

THE KIDS’ PART

It never hurts to ask for something, but do NOT complain and rebel if the answer is NO; there are good reasons for the judgements parents make when making a decision.

 

Follow the rules regarding conserving resources. DO turn off lights and other electrical items when not needed; DO take shorter showers to conserve hot water;

 

EMOTIONAL STABILITY

COMMUNICATION

You’re already very good about communicating with the family; very good. Just be sure to continue to weave in communication about family priorities, praise for doing well, and keeping your finger on the pulse of how the family’s morale is doing. They need to lean on you a lot at times for encouragement, and you are very good at encouraging people by your example. Just be mindful of how important the communication, reminders, and encouragement by example in word and deed is to everybody’s happiness. In 50 years when they all look back on their lives you want them to think of you and say “he was a damn good man and father”. But do also remember that you yourself don’t seem to have any issues in this area…NOBODY has a bigger heart than you, and nobody could ever deny that.

FAMILY TIME

Rather than it happen on a whim or the spur of the moment, pencil in planned family time once during the week, and on the weekend. And be sure that you do not allow the TV to be the central gathering point, except on few occasions…things have to stay balanced. Instead, do things like board games (scrabble, monopoly, risk), go for a walk down the road together, do a bbq outside for dinner, use that picnic table and nice yard while the weather permits, have a tailgate party, use your deck upstairs and just sit in lawn chairs and listen to music and talk. Shoot, start a new tradition, like family poker night or something…get creative, but make it time that everybody can participate in. Use that fireplace of yours…move the table, lay out blankets in front of it, and have a fireside chat.

ONE ON ONE TIME

It’s important to try and get one on one time with everybody here and there…ask them how they’re feeling, if they have any suggestions…let them participate and feel like a part of everybody’s success. Most especially, give the wife this one on one time. Re-institute date night, even if it is on a low budget at times, and don’t let it fall through the cracks. You could do things like take a walk around town, go to the city park, walk around the square. One on one, make them feel special, and work hard to keep it equal, even if one or two do tend to squeak more.

We went yesterday to see the potential new member of the family. There were lots of others there, but she was the one that caught our eye. We spent about an hour getting to know her, talking to the administrators, and just taking it all in, trying to imagine what it would be like to have her as a member of our family. I mean, we already had one, so how much would our lives change if we added one more?  And besides that, she is black, so how much of an adjustment would that be for everybody? We thought about it over night, talked through different scenarios, and finally decided that it was just too right. So this morning we called the administrator to let him know that we wanted her to come home with us. We met with them at 10:30 this morning to go through all of the red tape, and now are just waiting on a phone call to tell us we can come pick her up. I'm so excited! (squealing like a little girl....) More later.

All went well, and Shiniqua is now officially part of the family. She is 12 years old and has had a very good life as far as a Jeep Cherokee is able to. Her previous owners apparently took very good care of her and didn't even put the average number of miles on her. It's been two days, and so far no buyer's remorse, so I think this was a good purchase.

Shiniqua, welcome home!