I’ve made it no secret that I’m allergic to yard work. I enjoy having a decently manicured lawn and I’m most definitely quick to judge when my neighbors get a little lax with theirs, but when it comes time for me to gas up my Troy-Built, I’m apt to find any excuse to avoid my fate. It’s not that mowing is all that hard, but my lawn has a number of strikes against it before I ever pull a cord:
First, it’s St. Augustine, which by look and feel, is awesome. It’s thick, it grows fast, it heals itself, and it’s hearty. On the contrary, all of those great positives quickly become negatives when you have to cut it.
Second, I live in the southern US. My mowing season typically runs from March until late October and I can recall a few times where a February and/or November cut was necessary as well. The only ‘season’ I can safely assume longer than my lawn maintenance routine is the never-ending one known as NASCAR.
Finally, from late May until late September, it’s just plain hot where I live. Last year we set a record for most days over 100F in the history of our area – a record worth bragging very little about to say the least. This year has been slightly better but walking behind a gas propelled engine in anything over 90F is uncalled for.
First world problems, I realize. (more…)
Dads, photographer Jason Lee is making us look bad. Not satisfied with only being able to take good photos, he decided to practice his craft – and his craftiness – with his two daughters to be able to keep his sick mother up to date with the girls and how they are doing.
Great project, great photos, and a great potential of me currently throwing the Internet equivalent of stink-eye at Jason for setting the bar so high.
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Renaissance Man and dotcomrade Eric Hurst has been killing it with a series of posts he started called, Things I Want My Daughter To Know. His daughter, Mona Jane, is just a little younger than Cohen but will someday have a fantastic archive of notes on life from her father. I hope that either he or his wife are making sure these get archived offline and bound/stored somewhere safe for a day when she can actually read them. I need to probably start doing this myself for both of my boys.
Excerpts from a couple of my favorite letters:
You will never know a world without the Internet, so let me tell you a little bit about how it was prior to this incredible creation.
Everything was on paper.
That about sums it up.
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We had the fortune of visiting my grandparents this weekend to help them celebrate their 60th anniversary of marriage. They still dig each other after all these years. Impressive stuff.
While there, we were able to attend church at the congregation that my grandfather has preached at almost every Sunday for the last 40+ years. Another impressive feat. His congregation is as west-Texas rural as you can get. Their membership is doubled every time our family gets together and joins them. Great stuff all around.
The icing on the cake had to be when my uncle Thom invited my son Cohen to come up and lead some singing with him. Unfortunately, like most things, I ruined it for the most part but we were able to get him on video up there singing and swaying to one of his favorite old hymns, Heavenly Sunlight.
Four generations separated our song-leader from our preacher this past Sunday and I can’t imagine anyone more pleased than the big man upstairs. Though I’ll admit I’m a pretty close second…
Click through to watch the video (more…)
At the top of the list of things I don’t get used to, I would place stopping fountains of blood coming from my son’s face and subsequent trips to the ER to stitch up the gashes.
It isn’t a new feeling, I’ve been sick to my stomach like this before. While getting dinner ready for the kid and myself this evening, he took a spill climbing into his chair and we were off to the races again. I was able to get the bleeding to stop here at the house with some medical tape but knew the 1-inch or longer slice needed medical attention.
With his mother (and the family nurse) at work, Cohen and I were left to figure it out ourselves. I don’t know how to even describe what his head will look like after this but it will be his third scar on his face before the age of two, by far the biggest and probably most noticeable.
Even describing it, I want to throw up. Not because it grosses me out, but the fact that I can’t figure out for the life of me how this keeps happening. Every time in the forehead region. How about a knee or elbow for goodness sake? (more…)
