But since it was pouring all over the place to the amusement of my niece and nephew, I drug the ladder out of the garage to clean it out while nature was providing me with constant water. I cleaned out the obstruction and immediately noticed a gyser at the base of the downspout. That can’t be good, I thought to myself.

So, I went to the street to see if I could see where the water should be discharging. I found the tube, but as expected nothing was coming out of it. So I went to the garage and grabbed a small diameter piece of wood to see if I could reach the obstruction. Unfortunately, I could only get about 4 inches in and the blockage was very hard.

Plan B. I go to the shed and pull out the heavy artillery. One large spade and a hand trowel and back to the front yard I went. I dug up a smallish portion of yard about 1 foot wide by about 2.5 feet long. Immediately I see a problem. I find the end of the PVC that is sticking through the curb, but it ends about 8 inches behind the curb. Another 10 or so inches behind that is another piece of PVC. I am at this point assuming that this piece runs all the way back to the house but I’m also positive that it is totally full of dirt, leaves, seed pods and anything else that could wash down the downspout. This is definitely going to take a plumber’s snake and that is going to be a project for another day.

Oh, the blockage at the curb? Someone pushed a beer bottle into the end and it just happened to have the exact diameter of the PVC. How kind of them to make sure that the streets didn’t get wet.

Feel free to leave comments to let us know if we missed any events.

Fantastic! Pretty simple rules, the man carries a woman on his back by using whatever form best suites their team. You can even borrow a woman if you so choose. She must weigh at least 49kg. The rule being that she cannot touch the ground at any point during the race. The course is 253.5 meters long and has two dry obstacles and one water obstacle about 1 meter deep. To make it even more fantastic, the man must drink an entire beer before he can cross the finish line.

I find the Estonian carry the most hysterical. The woman puts her legs on the man’s shoulders hanging upside down, holding on to his waist. What does the winner win you ask? The winner wins his wife’s weight in beer. Awesome. Just one more reason to visit Finland.

Dr. Cull apparently did over $60,000 worth of damages to the police cruiser. Ouch.

In the end. Drunk driving, running from an officer, damaging a police cruiser and assaulting an officer. So sad.

Full details including video and audio are on the ABC web site, ABConYourSide

Lesson 1

1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2

Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their…

1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.

Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3

A really good way to discover how the nights might feel…

1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4

Can you stand the mess children make? T o find out…

1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5

Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.

1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.

Time allowed for this – all morning.

Lesson 6

Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.

1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 7

Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8

1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.

You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 9

Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you’re thinking What’s ‘Noggin’?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10

Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying ‘mommy’ repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each ‘mommy’; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 11

Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the ‘mommy’ tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

This is all very tongue in cheek; anyone who is parent will say ‘it’s all worth it!’ Share it with your friends, both those who do and don’t have kids. I guarantee they’ll get a chuckle out of it. Remember, a sense of humor is one of the most important things you’ll need when you become a parent!

1. Cake: One of the easiest recipes simply involves using traditional boxed cake mix. Take 3 tablespoons of cake mix and mix with one tablespoon of milk. Pour into greased pan and bake for about 15 minutes.  Average price for Easy Bake Cake mix is around $5.50. You can buy a full size cake mix for this price and can find cake mix on sale for a couple of dollars.
2. Children’s Cookie Mix
   • 1 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
   • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
   • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
   • 3/4 cup brown sugar — packed
   • 1/2 cup vegetable shortening

   Combine ingredients in a bowl until mixture is thoroughly mixed. Divide mixture by 8 and store in airtight containers for up to 12 weeks. One mixture pack will make about 9 cookies. To use mix, combine 1 mix pack with 2 teaspoons water.

3. Brownies
   • 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
   • 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
   • 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
   • 4 teaspoons chocolate syrup
   • 2 tablespoons flour

   Combine ingredients until batter is smooth. Pour into pan and bake for 12 minutes.

Here are few sites that have additional recipes. Have fun baking.

Budget 101
Easy Bake Over Recipes
The Fun Place
Kiddio

My journey started several years ago with several factors pushing me in this direction.

1. We were stuck facing ridiculous prices at day care at a day care center we despised.
2. We had responsibilities taking care of a mother battling late stages of breast cancer
3. I was in a high paying job but was absolutely miserable with the conditions at my employer

So, after a question posed to my wife about what she thought, we were off on the journey. My wife was working part time as a school teacher. We thought that would allow me to work on consulting type of projects out of our house. Furthermore, being a teacher, I thought that I should be able to work for a couple of months during the summers. Even the best laid plans sometimes fail. Although I had telecommuted with my previous job, we found it hard to maintain a balance. Any normal appointments like Dr visits, hair cuts etc, immediately fell into my days when I thought I would work. I also found it hard to bounce back into my work after maybe having 3 or 4 days away from my work. I’m a morning person. No doubt about it, but this also made my work more difficult. By the time the day was wrapping up, my wife was home, kids were back from school, I was exhausted and the last thing I wanted to do was look at my work outside of our family.

Stay at home dads can expect to handle all of the daily grind as well as those nitty gritty details that your wife probably never handled. So off you go with kids in tow, making sure that the kids are dropped off and picked up from school or other appointments. Laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning all slip into the gaps in your schedule. Or, if you are like me, I had to plan where in our schedule to get these things done. If you get these tasks completed, then you might be faced with plumbing repairs, painting, installing new flooring or any other household tasks that come up. For most families where both parents work, they complete a lot of these tasks at night. In your case, it is likely that your wife wont be happy about splitting up duties after a hard day at work, especially if they have the least suspicion that your day was much easier than yours. Unfortunately, this stereotype is almost impossible to avoid for any stay at home parent. Things like laundry and cleaning never get noticed, unless it isn’t done.

Be prepared to be alone much of the time. I moved from a job where I spent a great deal of time away from the office. Relationships with coworkers were fairly superficial if they existed at all. I also have never been comfortable with joining other moms in planned outings to get children together. You may believe that your relationship is really strong, but your wife will not see the benefit of you hanging out for a portion of your day socializing with mothers. It is guaranteed that she wont imagine an overweight  house keeper type of image. She is going to imagine the ex prom queen that now gets to stay at home because she married the Vice President of Wendy’s. Lack of social connections can really weigh on your mind when you feel that there is little escape from your daily grind. It was even more difficult in my case, because I have never been the “guy’s” guy. You know the one, the guy that plans his entire Sunday around football, that reads the sports page first, that still wants to get together at the bar with his friends. I love college football, but I don’t follow other sports. It is more likely that I would participate in a sport rather than watch it. I never really got it. So, put me together with a bunch of guys, it is likely that I have little to say, unless the topic turns to adding an additional to your house, removing a wall, creating a sculpture or something else where I can put my hands to use.

Here is another twist. You’re likely depriving your wife of a role that she thinks should be her’s. My wife is very well paid, her benefits are fantastic and she genuinely likes her job, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want to be the one staying at home.

Our family is approaching another transition point. Our kids are both approaching school age. While many women prefer to stay at home maintaining the home and taking care of all of the other daily details, I have no such intention. I want to be working in a traditional sense. I can work for myself, work for a new employer, it really doesn’t matter. I need to find the kind of satisfaction that comes from working to create something that you can call your own. That seems to rarely be the case when you are a stay at home parent. Cleaning, just doesn’t give me much satisfaction. Yeah, I manage to clean our clothes without having colors bleed onto the whites. This brings me to our last concern. I have been out of the work force for several years. Much has happened in my absence and it is likely that I will need to seriously catch up and educate myself before being able to pursue a new job. I am slightly better off if I choose a consultant type of role, only because you don’t have to prove your self worth before being hired. Learning as you go is possible in this context.

I have loved staying at home with my kids, but it hasn’t been all wine and roses. It will strain your marriage, be personally frustrating and will cost your family tens of thousands of dollars in lost income. Think hard about whether you can handle the strains that are commonplace. If you still think that you have what it takes, jump on board. It isn’t likely that you will regret it in the end.

My family would like to erect 3 Windmills on their property but have run into opposition. There is concern that tourists will be turned off from visiting because of the Windmills.

Show your support for Windmills, renewable energy and my family by signing our petition. Time is limited. Petition only runs through Monday December 6th. Signing the petition only requires name and email. Your email is kept private and is not shared.

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/WiAS/

Thank you for your support

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The results have been very surprising. The kids are very excited about their chore charts. My daughter is even finding new things to help with so she can fill in another square. My daughter was the first to ask about helping with laundry. At first she helped sort the clothes which she had no problem doing. Next she wanted to fold the laundry. This was a little more problematic. But, we had a solution.

A month or so ago, I saw a t-shirt folding machine. There are several places online that have instructions to make one. They are very simple to build (my 4 year old helped me) and cost next to nothing. They are fun to use and work quite well.

Materials

• Scrap cardboard or foam core
• Packing tape

The machine is made from 4 pieces. Since I was trying to involve the kids, I made the folding machine small enough for their clothes. They are both in shirts in the 6 – 7 size range. If your kids clothes are smaller or larger just size the middle section up or down accordingly.

Cardboard Pieces

• (2) 12″ x 22″
• (2) 8 1/2″ x 11″

Construction is simple, just tape both sides of the joints with packing tape. The side pieces are only attached at the top so the bottom of the center can flip up. To tape the seams, you will want to leave a small gap. The easiest way to leave the gap is to lay the pieces on top of each other and wrap the tape around the stack. When you flip the top piece back down, you can tape across the seam from the other side.

Using the folding machine is also easy. Just lay the machine so that the center portion that is not attached completely is away from you. Lay your shirt face down centered in the middle of the machine. Fold one side towards the center. Repeat with the other side and lastly fold the center flap towards you. You should end up with a cleanly folded shirt.

Have fun.

Here is the first video that we came across for a folding machine. This video also has dimensions for a folding machine that is sized for adult shirts.