Hunting

So it looks like I will be going back to work soon. olivia is off for the summer and since Ru will be starting kindergarten she'll go to school, Sailor will go to full time daycare and I'll get a job and go back to a daily grind. Job hunting is no fun. If your employer or someone you knows employer is looking for people, let me know. I have experience doing a lot of different things and anything I don't have experience with I can learn. Many thanks in advance for the help.

Bright Side

In the past few years, I have yet to come across a sorrow that a little time with my girls could not drown. No matter how bad I can feel or how bad things seem, a warm heart is only a hug and a kiss away. I pray that everyone in this world could know the tranquility I know when I look in to the faces of my children.

Morning Window

Every morning I have a brief window right before my day truly begins. Between 6:00 and 6:30am there is a small moment for me to sit and drink espresso and it is almost like I have the world all to myself. Behind the door in the picture, all of my girls sleep tight, kind enough to grant me a little peace before they awake and the wheels really have to start moving. Right before breakfast cooking, lunch packing, laundering, cleaning, dressing and taxiing I can just sit and enjoy a little silence. It is a welcome contrast to the other twenty three and a half hours of every day.

Thank you!

Over the course of our fundraising for the Brenda Ladun Conquer Cancer Run we hit both of our goals coming in at a total of $505! I would also like to note that during this time we have consistently been in the top ten of all fundraising teams. At the time I am writing this we are #9 but at one point we were at the #3 spot. Thank you so much to everyone who joined the team and to everyone who donated, it really means the world to us. Your friendship and generosity are a blessing. Ok team, see you Saturday...let's do this!

Brenda Ladun Conquer Cancer Run

So if you ever read my other blog and you read this post, you'll remember that my mom is a breast cancer survivor. When given the chance, I try and do things to benefit cancer research. This is such an event. My race buddy Kellet and I were itching to do another run after the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Dash and this is it. We formed a team, Running for Grace, and if you are free Saturday March 1st at 8:00 am, we would enjoy having you run, jog, welk, etc with us. We had a great time at the last one so we figured the more the merrier. Come have fun with us and support a great cause at the same time.
Even if you can't make it or this isn't your thing, you can still donate through that link.

Snow Buddy

     In case you haven't heard, we had some terrible issues with snow and ice earlier this week. A good Reader's Digest would be that we got more snow than expected, it stuck and froze, tons of people were stranded trying to get home and chaos ensued. We were lucky by comparison and while not together, all of us were warm and safe.
     I was at the rec center in Hoover when I got the call from my wife that the roads were starting to get bad. I had dropped Ruby off and Sailor was at the care center and could see the snow out the window. At this point the traffic outside was still moving fine. olivia called again and said her schools were shutting down and I needed to go get Ruby. I dashed out and quickly realized it was way worse than I could have expected.
     We decided the best course of action was for me to head home and for her to get Ruby, try and make it to the house and if she could not she could fall back to my mother's place. Those plans were best case scenarios. After a couple hours in traffic she was stranded on 31 just a couple miles away from the interstate. Mom ended up with Ruby and a friend from school. Sailor and I had a jump on the situation but in the end, it didn't matter.
     With road conditions rapidly deteriorating, the most direct route given our location was blocked with cars that could not climb what was essentially a gradual rise up a hill. This would be the first in a large series of pileups I would see over the next several hours. Doubling back we tried 6 additional routes home and all were blocked. This included a daring attempt up a steep climb that resulted in narrowly avoiding getting stuck by anchoring my rear tires on a curb and purposely spinning the fronts to right the vehicle and begin the descent post failure.
     Sailor was a champ throughout the entire ordeal. During the first half hour she slept quietly but after that she was wide eyed at the snow and asking tons of questions about what was going on. She never complained about being cold or hungry (thanks to the supply of bank suckers I keep in the center console) and was great company. The only time she seemed scared or concerned despite my increasing stress was during our backwards slide after the failed uphill climb.
     We made it back to 31 and began a slow crawl in an attempt to reach my mother's condo. With the roadways clogged and no progress being made I stopped for food and to get us a little break from the confines of our SUV. There was quite a line inside but we ended up with a hot meal and a nice break. Back outside 45 minutes later, it was plain to see as the traffic crawled and the sun started to fall that I would not make my intended destination.
     I phoned a friend nearby and we found a place to stay the night. Thankfully I was able to navigate to their place, passing a handful of cars who had not been so lucky. Again, my hosts deserve a huge thanks for the hospitality and thanks for all the people they sheltered that night. My main contribution was a cobbled together country fried steak chili, so good I might even make it on purpose sometime.
     My friend was kind enough to take us home the next day in his Jeep. He literally had purchased it in the week prior. In just under an hour we managed to make it 6 miles. I could tell he was pleased when we crested a hill and there were no cars at the top. Smart purchase, that Jeep. I found our dog and cat out of water but no accidents. Chopper is always happy to see us but he was extra excited this time but did whimper a bit that only half of us were accounted for. The above picture is Sailor napping on the couch after we got home. I almost couldn't believe we really made it and walking in the door has never felt so good.
     Throughout everything that happened, we were sure to count our blessings. There were many, many people who were not as fortunate as us. While our leadership and meteorologists failed, our strength as family, friends, and community shined. To everyone who helped us, we are forever in your debt and to those who helped others, thank you as well. This is certainly an experience that will stick with us for quite some time.

USS Flagg Revisited

While doing a little Christmas prep work this weekend (more on that later this week) I was reminded of this post. I really enjoyed talking with my Mom about it when I wrote it and doing so brought back some great memories. Well, for some of us that is. Here it is as it first appeared on December 23rd, 2011, posted in its entirety. Enjoy.

Christmas Eve and The USS Flagg

So it's Christmas Eve, the kids are asleep and the first of many beers have been opened. It is time to start Operation: Fit Plastic Into Plastic aka Operation: Shit, We Don't Have Enough Batteries. There is a decent amount for for me to assemble this year but it could never compare to The USS Flagg.

The Flagg was the GI Joe Battleship playset. The retail cost was $109.99 in 1986, roughly $215.00 today. This was the largest playset available at the time and was over 7.5 feet long. I was eight or nine according to a credible source who was interviewed for this entry (thanks Mom) and I wanted it for Christmas. My parent's hope was that I would lose interest over the span of a year but when I asked for it again, they caved. What followed was a harrowing experience...

The picture at the beginning of this entry is of my father early on in assembly. He started the night before Christmas and continued until it was evident that a single night would not get the job done. The process continued into the following day and covered a span of over eight hours. From my online research, the instruction manual was six pages long with thirty-one steps, each of which may have had as many as four steps unto itself. Two of these pages were dedicated to sticker instructions. You can see the sticker sheet in the photo above. There were two additional sticker sheets of this size to apply.

Mom remembers that my father complained about the quality of the directions. I've looked that them online and they don't seem too bad but I also realize that is easy to say twenty-five years later when I'm not sitting in front of literally hundreds of little plastic parts that I have to make a seven foot aircraft carrier out of. My father also had to work on Christmas, the last thing you would want to do after a night and morning like this one. Dad said if he knew the trouble it would have been he would not have bought it for me. He listed this as his worst Christmas ever...

To me, this was the most awesome Christmas ever! Other kids in the neighborhood could have cared less about what was under their trees...we wore this thing out. It was so big we kept it on a bed in a spare room. That's right, this toy had it's own bed in our house. It's kind of a bragging right to say that you had it, some people don't even believe me (kind of like when you say you beat Ghosts 'n Goblins on NES, but that's another story). A cook at a restaurant near the house I grew up in has made reference to the Flagg when talking to Mom about times he came to the house to hang out as a child.

At some point the fun wore off and the playset, which broke into sections, was moved to the basement. It was later sold at a garage sale for $25.00. Mom says that Dad joked that there was a thousand dollars of labor thrown in for free. It had to be loaded into the buyer's station wagon in pieces, an event that a part of me seems to remember after talking to my mom about it. On a side note, this toy has become a Holy Grail of sorts for collectors. A bad example with missing pieces and no box will sell for $500.00. A complete set, in the box, may go for a thousand or more.

Parents will do damn near anything to make their kids happy. I'm not looking forward to the assembly I have to do this weekend but I know how much it meant to me as a kid to have those things on Christmas morning and I want to give that feeling to my children. I also want them to know the REAL meaning of Christmas and the feeling of love and family. I hope you are able to share all of these things with your children and loved ones this weekend.

 Merry Christmas!

Photodump

Memok

Taken quickly and stealthily from the entryway, the three peas in a pod wake up with cartoons and off-brand Cheerios. From the first minute pulling away from the suburbs towards the downtown bus station to the moments last night as they closed their eyes to meet their dreams, the girl's week was made just by her being here. I am tempted to say "Damn Texas" but as she is loved and family is everywhere, it would be selfish to keep her all to ourselves. Proximity is so unfortunate but we'll squeeze every ounce of life from our 52 hours and if by some miracle we were gifted a 53rd, it still would not be soon enough.

Veterans Day

More With Less

Since we moved both the girls into a single bedroom and made the spare into a playroom, we struggled a bit with how to get the most out of the space. This is the third configuration of furniture and toys and in my opinion the best. While I was gone for a weekend trip olivia took it upon herself to undertake the project alone. We did discuss my thoughts and she merged them with her own to create the best of both concepts. I am really happy with how it turned out. The space for play was opened up and we were able to move out a lot of the items and stuffed animals that were not being used anymore. I still think there is a bit to lose yet and I am hoping the purge will come before the holidays. Every Christmas we seem to need more space. Funny how that works.

Year Two

Just for those of you keeping score...hard to believe, isn't it?
Tomorrow will be the two year anniversary of the start of this blog. I appreciate everyone who gave it a fair chance and those of you who still read and everyone who has started reading along the way.
As has become tradition, I am going to take it back to where it all started. Here it is: the first Sidecar post from two years ago.

"It’s a daycare bill and it is larger than your mortgage. It always has been…but now it is even bigger. You look at it and it seems to swell in front of you as if your anger is feeding it, making it grow like some evil creature from a black and grey b-movie.

So you shift, do less for yourself so you can give more to your kids. This is the core of being a good parent. Then you have to ask yourself if you can keep this up, scraping by paying someone else more than your pickup truck is worth each month to watch your children.

There are people who have jobs that pay enough money to cover all their bills and they never have to worry about debt or their expenses. I don’t know any of them personally but I have heard they are out there. We are not these people. We budget everything to the penny, try our best to flex and hold our self control so we can make it stick and most times we succeed. We’ve tackled a mountain of debt making it into a molehill and we manage…or we have managed…until now.

My wife makes more money than I do. There, I said it. It is kind of liberating. It is also sad that in 2011 it merits mentioning. Maybe it is just the South…or our parents. All the same, if you are a man in the south making less than your wife is something you should not do along with wearing pink, being a nurse, or staying at home with the kids.

That said, here we are. Night after night we stare at an excel spreadsheet. It is looking up at us plain as day. It might as well be waving a sparkler and shouting Yankee Doodle Dandy. I am working just to keep my children in daycare. We will do better financially if I leave my day job and stay home.

So what do you do then? You tell your boss you are out and you go home. This is where I find myself. Did I mention that I had never even held a baby until I started dating my wife, I am extremely skittish around bodily fluids and feces and I hate the sound of babies crying?

Am I insane? Perhaps a little.

This is going to be a learning experience for me, learning to juggle two girls with two different sets of needs: my oldest, deep into the terrible twos and a six month old just getting into solid foods. I ran this by my closest and best advisor, my mother, who cautioned me that caring for two children is a lot of work and I should not make the decision lightly. Basically I got the impression that she thought I was nuts.

Most people without kids probably envision sitting on the couch all day watching TV. The truth is you are dealing with changing or feeding a screaming six month old while the older child fights with the dog or the cat or gets into every danger you thought you had so carefully safeguarded. You pick up toys, wash spit-up pajamas, clean furiously and get yelled and cried at…all day. Maybe when they nap you have the TV on but if you are smart…you sleep yourself.

So this is where we are and what day my day to day life will soon become. This is my place to rave, rant, share and ask your advice. Enter your e-mail up top so you’ll be notified about updates. I encourage you to be an active participant and share your own stories. I need something to read, I’ve got nothing to do all day now anyways, right?"

Home Again

     After a few days in New Orleans for a wedding, we are back home with the girls. Ruby and Sailor were so stoked on their souvenirs, they put them to use right away. They both got a shirt and one each of our Hurricane cups from Bourbon Street. Rest assured, we washed them out well before putting them into use. We spent last night as a family watching Lady and the Tramp and eating pizza and bomb pops.
     Special thanks to our friends TJ and Amy who kept the girls all weekend so we could make the trip. Between their kids and ours, I can only imagine the chaos they endured. Also a big congrats is in order for our friends Christy and Davis who tied the knot. Best wishes on the new chapter. 

Happy Birthday Babe!

 

Happy Birthday Babe!

Mom was kind enough (thank you!!!) to take the kids last night so we started early with dinner at Ruth Chris', dessert at Steak and Shake and beer and DVDs at the house. 

Today she'll get to unwrap her gifts and get a breakfast at IHOP. 

If she ever wakes up that is... 

Ikea

     Thanks to the proceeds from our yard sale and a birthday gift card from friends, we were able to make a run to Ikea in Atlanta and get the last pieces we needed to complete the playroom. A trip to this city for me always includes a meal at The Vortex. This day was no exception. I opted for the Four Horsemen and olivia the Fat Elvis. Yep, thats right and the whole menu is stuff like that. Seriously, if you've never been, do yourself a favor and schedule a trip.
     Shopping at Ikea has to include a walk-through of the showroom so you can lust for things you want but don't need or just can't afford. There was a lot of this on our adventure and we both had to remind each other to stay focused. An inexpensive french press and a couple toiletry bags made their way into our shopping bag which is a miracle given our past impulse buys.

     The big ticket items were the sleeper sofa and the storage shelf and bins. This will help the playroom to double as a guest room and keep it organized. There is a ton of stuff here that needed good storage and while we haven't had a chance to run through it all and get it where it needs to be, this was a giant step in the right direction.

     My wife really deserves a pat on the back for the whole bedroom and playroom project. From concept to execution, she's nailed it and not been afraid to get her hands dirty. I didn't have to do anything during the painting of the beds and she did most of the assembly on the Ikea furniture. I'm stoked on the progress and even more excited to see it once everything has been gone through, the wall decorations hung and we can call it done.

     And since I can't hear the name Ikea without thinking of this song, I am going to bless/curse you with the gift also. You're welcome!

  

A little help...

If you have met Sailor, chances are you have seen this blanket as well. She is very attached to it...like Linus attached. We have worries about what would happen if anything were to happen to it so we've been looking to find another one. I have scoured the net and have been unable to locate it. We know it was store bought but the person who gave it to her can't recall where it came from. So those of you who find yourselves in places where baby things are sold, if if you recognize where we can grab a spare, please please please let us know.

Photodump-Pump it Up Party Edition

Loot

     I didn't talk about all the awesome stuff I got on Father's Day in my other post so here is a quick breakdown:
A framed photo of me and Ru from the girl's Baptism
A "Dad's Sippy Cup" tumbler
An excellent book about Bluff Park that is full of killer old photos
A Fahrenheit wrist thermometer for my watch
A hand colored and laminated tie bookmark (I guess, Ru made it at school so it is pretty rad no matter what it is)
A Bluetooth keyboard for my phone
Cash
An awesome lunch that yielded enough leftovers for an awesome dinner.

     I'm a lucky Dad. I hope all the Dad's I know had great days and fared as well as I did.  

Kids Say...

     We have a bit of a first today, a guest poster of sorts. My Mom was nice enough to watch the girls this past weekend during our yard sale. She sent me this e-mail after and with her permission, I am sharing it here.

 "Ruby never ceases to make me laugh -------- Three funny things she said at my condo yesterday:

 

She was most upset that I let a 'stranger' into the condo while she was here and talked about it at length.  Who?  The air conditioner repair man.  (In May she told me she would not talk to Miss Amy's substitute teacher because she was a stranger.  Miss Faye eventually told her it was ok to talk to her.)

 

I was trying to do some prep for the food I was making to take to a party last night, making the girls' and my lunches, etc.  The kitchen was a mess when I sat down to eat lunch with them, and Ru said, "GG, Mommy says you should always clean up after yourself while you're cooking."

 

I heard Ru in the living room while I was in the den playing with Sailor, and asked her what she was doing.  She said, "Setting up for my yard sale".  She had my figurines, paper weights, candles, etc, lined up in rows on the coffee table.

 

I can hardly wait until Sailor starts talking in sentences to hear what comes out of her mouth.  They are such a joy to me!!!"

American Motor Drome Co.

Took the girls out today to see the American Motor Drome Co. Wall of Death Thrillshow.
Man, what an amazing thing to see...the girls were riveted by the motorcycles and the riding.

This is by far one of the coolest stunt shows I have ever seen. The riding these guys do on old bikes and go-carts has to be seen to be believed.

 

Sailor seems to have a little crush on wall rider Charlie Ransom. He asked her if she would like to ride the wall one day to which she gave an enthusiastic head nod. Big thanks to all the riders for putting on such a killer show and for keeping old school American entertainment alive.

Seriously, I can't stress this enough, get out to Big#1 in Homewood this weekend and see this show. You will not be sorry!

http://www.americanwallofdeath.com/

http://www.bignumber1.com/