It's that time of year again - time to reflect on what I did and did not accomplish last year, and time to prioritize what I would like to accomplish in the coming year. I should preface this blog by saying that my resolutions are goals. I use them as guidance, but they are not law or reason to punish myself should they not work out. This works out better for me and my ego! So here they are.  My New Year's Resolutions for 2011: Get a job! Looks like we are good staying in the SW Ohio region for Shelby's work, so we're running with that. Which means I can seek employment, preferably teaching, or something somewhat in the education field. Get a house!! Oh, how we've waited for this! We should be ready and able to get our family farm sometime before the kids end this school year! We're forecasting our buy using Shelby's paycheck only, but we're definitely going to need to get my career going, as well, to keep up the pace.  Fruits, veggies, chicken...

In 2010, I would like to: Go camping more often. Did this - more often than the past few years, anyways. Partially thanks to the in-laws , who initiated with their RV at Arrowhead and then at their new RV home in Wilmington! Live in the city that will end up being our home. Right now it appears that we are doing that - Shelby is due for her promotion here, so we're planning on staying in SW Ohio . Graduate, become a certified teacher, and get a teaching job. I am a certified teacher :) But I do not have a teaching job...yet. My fault, really. I didn't want to commit to a job with the chance of moving looming over us, so I only just kinda looked. Now the search is on! Go on an out-of-state vacation once with the family, and once with just Shelby.   Went to New York (thrice), Pennsylvania, and New Jersey with the family , and Pennsylvania with Shelby. Mission accomplished! Write, or get a good start, on one of my books. Well... Make a plan and get started wit...

We're getting a home. Soon. Like, first half of 2011 soon! It all seems a little surreal and, as usual, I am cautiously optimistic, but very excited nonetheless. Extremely excited! We have been working towards this goal for so long and it feels so good to be so close to the dream. We have an idea of what we want, what we don't want, what we are willing to, and not, tackle to make our home...well, our home. The hardest part is telling people about this venture. Somehow the news turns on the lecture in people, like we haven't been discussing this for the past fifteen years. We are 46 and 36 years old, people - we value your opinions and advice, but what we really want is your excitement. We're happy to talk about our dream - we welcome the opportunity to share! But please don't try to give us a reality check by telling us how hard it is to own a home or what we should buy or how we should buy it. We don't care about resale. I know, it's crazy! We want this hom...

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It's the eve after a wonderful Christmas! We enjoyed our traditional at-home Christmas Eve with a nice variety of snack food (healthy and not) and Christmas movies - this year we watched our pick of favorites: Christmas Vacation, Elf, and our traditional end-of-the-night movie, It's a Wonderful Life. (We started this at-home tradition while living in Florida and realized that it greatly reduced the stress level of Christmas, compared to the running around to both families and then laying kids down and THEN finishing Christmas preparations that needed to happen before Christmas Day! So we decided that this tradition is a necessity, even upon our return to Ohio.) Christmas morning came fast, and it was a great beginning to Christmas day with all seven of us home, and each of us fully aware of the gift that our togetherness actually is. Our kids enjoyed this Christmas with giving as much as they enjoyed receiving, which is a wonderful thing to see in your children. The day foll...

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Christmas week is upon us, school break is here, and the kids are enjoying their mega extended weekend. I love this time of year for our family, but I'm finding myself more excited to begin the New Year and begin what I hope will be our transitional year to our new life. As the end of this year approaches, Shelby and I have developed our plan to make things happen...as we realize things may also change as we begin our strategy! #1 We have determined that it is most likely that we will remain in the SW Ohio/Indiana area unless some awesome twist of destiny is bestowed upon us. But the likeliness that Shelby's job will evolve and continue for at least a few years here is good, so we have decided that our best location for our home will be Preble, Darke, or Mercer counties. We are going to start our quest with open houses, and find a realtor that we're comfortable with and who can help us to do the things we need to do to make this happen. #2 Get a job. I have an appointment...

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Wow - it's been quite a while since my last post. We've been busy with Shelby's store visits, the apartment, events, and our sad trip to New York for Lynn's funeral. Seems like we're on the road or catching up with some chore, always... But here I am, finally, thanks to a long holiday weekend :) My biggest accomplishment this weekend was finalizing my Consortium application after several months of setting it aside for one reason or another. I finished my teacher preferences (whys and hows), added my certificate information, and attached my documents. Quite a bit more to finish up than I had thought! I am so glad that this is done, partly because it is off of my plate, and partially because it makes me feel like I'm more in the game now. Shelby and I decided at 7am on Black Friday to go shopping, and it worked out great! We had fun together and were able to score a few of the deals we had discussed on our Thanksgiving Day ad review. It was a cold but sunny day, a...

It seems like forever since I've written a blog, and it also seems like there has been a whirlwind of activity in my at-home-dad life. I'm not sure exactly where time goes, but it has been going fast. Shelby and I have been running store visits, which are nice drives spotted with trips to Family Dollars, Home Depots, WalMarts, and Ace stores. There are the never ending chores of dishes, laundry, cooking, and cleaning, which are...well, never ending. But nothing extraordinarily time consuming. We watched our son Drake perform in the Greenmont fourth grade play last Thursday, and hosted two school Halloween parties at school yesterday. Which, as a side note - what the heck was I thinking there? I'm an at home dad and want to help with school things, but being a homeroom parent for two classes means trying to be two places at once for EVERY school party day. Thanks to Shelby and Kait for helping! So, anyways, it has been busy-er, but feels like a can't-catch-your-breath ki...

Living in Clearwater, Florida definitely tops the list of places we have lived. The two years that we lived there gave us so many more memories than seems possible for that amount of time. Being water people, we know of nothing more powerful than the call of the ocean, more peaceful than toes sunk into the sand, water overlapping occasionally, and nothing more exhilarating than watching the sun singe the horizon as it sets in an explosion of oranges, reds, and purples. Spectators applaud these sunsets...literally. The Pinellas County side of the bridge is laid back with no worries, and there are always, always plenty of activities going on for everyone to enjoy, often for free. When I close my eyes, I can feel the humid and salty ocean breeze, the dried salt on my skin and in my hair left after from a dip in this endless pool, and the cool fine grains of sand surrounding my feet. So, why are we here? Why, oh why did destiny bring us back to Ohio? I've heard some say that Ohio is a ...

The hardest thing to do right now is wait...I'm kind of done researching and planning until we know what we're researching and planning for, and I'm ready to live life like we love to do. But...the benefit of limbo is the reflection  of who we are and what we want. Today is a dreary, hum-drum day, and I feel like doing nothing. I will, however, take a moment to sum things up. What I want for us: At least 5 acres Off grid A well Awesome vegetable garden - totally organic Berry patch started with the raspberry, blueberry, blackberry bushes and grape vine we have now Fruit orchard including the apple, peach, and nectarine trees we have now Lots of trees, including the starts we have now (sycamore, hickory, tulip, maple, and pine) Water gathering and recycling features Composting and recycling capabilities - I'd like our trash to be minimal Bees 2 Goats, lots of chickens, 2 sheep, a cow, and maybe a pig Lots of outdoor living space Space for living, workshop...

It's Monday morning and I'm hustling to recover from a weekend away with Shelby in Pennsylvania. We were only away for three days, and Kaitlyn did a great job of taking care of the kids and keeping up on house chores. So, a little bit of laundry to catch up on and some other odds and ends, including a trip to the grocery, is all I need to get back in gear. The weekend was awesome, once we got past the suck traffic jam on I-70, which added three hours to our trip because everyone was detoured off of the highway (eastbound and westbound) around some sort of an accident. The source of our trip was a work event of Shelby's with Duquesne Light. We were able to help with a bulb giveaway at Home Depot on Saturday, which was a lot of fun and happened to coincide with some beautiful weather. Besides the event, we were able to visit  with the Duqquesne and surrounding Pa. ECOS teams for pizza, a cookout, and drinks - everyone was awesome :) We also were able to  have a little "s...

Now, where was I? Oh, right - I was on a rant about my neighbors...snapped a little... Since then, the guy next door (same apartment of said rant) drop kicked a kitten into the yard after fighting with his girlfriend. My boys happened to see the kitten hit the ground, or it may have been just after it hit the ground, twitching and dying. He did it in an angry moment, and he apologized to me and my wife, who upsettingly let him now how horrible his action was. The kids were upset, and so was Shelby. The police were called, but of course the neighbor fled before they got here and the sister's baby daddy refused to help - he is now (legally) banned from the apartment. The guy next door eventually came home, and he is in jail. Lesson: killing is killing, and death is death, animal or human, angry or not. The abandoned apartment next to theirs is squatter free, for the most part, except I know that people have been in there, to sleep or hang or whatever. Animal control will be in to gat...

Unbelievable how some "parents" can behave and treat their kids. The neighbors next door have taken over the bottom floor, using an abandoned apartment across the hall from theirs as a boarding house/party room. There are any number of people staying there or hanging out with them, their sister, their sister's kid and baby daddy, the brother, random drunken strangers. This morning I got to hear them teach a two-year-old to say f@ck you...and it's not the first time that has happened. Feel free to join my 1901 Hazel fb page for more interesting info about the ghetto! Can't wait to get out of here! In the meantime, any ideas or contacts that might be able to resolve this situation will be greatly appreciated!

Dusk is approaching on our farm. Cool weather settles in on the clear evening, revealing a bright full moon and, already, the sparkle of many stars. I carry our coffee out onto the deck, where Shelby thanks me with a smile over her laptop. She finishes up her work as I tend to the fire in the pit, and settle into my chair. Blue runs around the yard, dodging chickens, and keeps Drake busy with the ball. Occasionally Drake stops to pick up something off the ground - his discoveries have not lessened since we moved here last year. Cora is tending to her garden and gives Rusty the attention he craves by petting his fat, feline belly. Gage sits under the apple tree, drawing the landscape of the land from his perspective, and Kaitlyn studies for her test by reading to Henrietta, one of our goats. Henrietta listens intently to Kait, making eye contact and occasionally bleating her comments. It's a strange relationship that has developed on the farm. Shelby closes her laptop, places it und...

I believe we'll have this weekend to relax and chill. The weather calls for rain later today, hopefully, because the plants need it desperately. Shelby is still feeling bad after a week of this bronchial infection, even with the meds that we got from urgent care last Sunday. Besides the cough, sore throat, exhaustion, and occasional fever, her back ache and sciatic nerve issues have gotten worse. We have a doctor's appointment set up for Tuesday, so hopefully we can get things squared away. Work-wise, it looks like gears may be turning at Ecos, which will hopefully bring about some changes for us. I feel like a broken record with the "hope something happens soon", and "waiting, waiting, waiting"...but our next steps are so hinged on making home in that new place, away from this apartment and hopefully Dayton. I have ideas in my head about ideal locations for home, but it's really all about the hand of fate. And, as far as locations go, I only know what...

Well, I am sitting in the lobby of the dentist office waiting for Shelby to get her teeth filled/refilled by our amazing friends at the Dayton Dental Collaborative . This will wrap up visits from me, Gage, Drake, Cora, Kait, and now Shelby...yay! This office is awesome and has made every experience very pleasant – SO glad we found them :) Anyway, I figure it is a good time to catch up after a brief time away from my blog. School has started for the kids. Today they are ending their second week and I've got to say that they've been doing very well getting up and going in the mornings, and doing their homework at night. So far, so great. Kait starts back to Wright State after Labor Day, and the fall routine will fully kick in at our household. Looking backward, we had an incredible week-long working vacation a few weeks ago in Philadelphia. The kids and I tagged along with Shelby to do many, many store visits, and we somehow managed to fit in visits to Hershey World, Historic Phi...

I received my diploma today, safe and sound, and put it in my new frame that Rue got me for my graduation. It looks awesome! I am very happy to have the official piece of paper to document the past six years of my academic life to earn this degree :) I've been a bit grumpy lately despite everything. I have been working on catching up with household chores and packing/storing/reorganizing. We finally got one of the bookcases out of the bedroom, which will go to Bess or Goodwill. We took four dining table chairs, a stool, curtain rods, and boxes (inherited books from Bess and Eve, Shelby's pitcher and bowl find, and other odds and ends) to storage - probably about the end of downsizing. We all have dental and doctor appointments set up, so all I need to do now is set up eye exams for Shelby and me. I've sorted through the storage totes and all the other stuff on our bedroom shelves, kinda, just to make more sense of it all. I feel comfortable with what's been done, and ...

July 22 Well, today I got "the letter" to post to the tenants, basically saying "pick up your trash, leash your dog, and pick up your crap", padded with "we want the place to look pretty and we'll be making improvements". We'll see how persuasive it is... July 30 I started the beginning of this post before we went camping with Pat and Dan and our tent and their RV. I had to stop short so we could get ready, but rather than scrap that post, I'd like to continue on with it now. Camping was great, and so was my week teaching four and five-year-olds at nature camp this week. More on that later. In our business, I have not been picking up everyone else's garbage, because family comes first, then work, then the ghetto. I'll just say that the letter mentioned earlier has had minimum impact. Some, but minimal. From both sides. People should be evicted, repairs should be done, people should be responsible. But I know that my next trash clean...

Monday - a new week, a new chance for opportunities! We finished packing a few boxes and pictures this weekend, while helping Bess UNpack. Saturday night brought the ghetto to a new low, and also brought the police...three times. Once during the day to door 4 for some unknown reason, once at night when we got home for a blasting front yard drink fest, and once later that night for drunken stupidness and our door 2 neighbor peeing in the street. Classy. Which in turn fueled our packing, which is our only outlet for getting out of here right now. On the bright side, we found awesome deals at Target for Acer notebooks and a portable digital tv, which will come in quite handy. And the kids got a bunch of stuff from Eve and their unpacking marathon. Come on, week of July 19, baby needs a new place to live (casino reference for Shelby)!

Yesterday we helped friends move into their new apartment. It is a big deal, and we're so excited for her and her daughter because this is the first place of their own since about nine years. She got married, they lived with his parents temporarily... which ended up being years, until they got divorced. Then they moved in with a friend, then they moved in with her parents, and here we are. Very long story short. Anyways, we helped her move her stuff out of storage units into their apartment. The larger storage unit was filled with boxes, bags, and furniture from nine years ago - a mini time capsule, if you will. The other storage unit had been used for about a year. Now it is all piled in the apartment, their new home, and the unpacking can begin. What this has to do with us, my wife reminds me, is that we have boxes and boxes of stuff in our own storage (Grandma's attic) that have followed us around from apartment to apartment (and a small house). They have stayed packed for...

Happy Birthday, Shelby! Today is my wife's birthday - a day to celebrate the creation of my best friend, my partner, my love. Shelby is definitely a people person, unlike me, and a water person, like me. We're an odd combination, but somehow we work. We've been nearly inseparable for the last fifteen years (this month is our anniversary, also) and our togetherness has sped up the wheels of time. Shelby has a glow that attracts all others. She is warm and positive and funny. She loves Wonder Woman and she is on a mission to save the world. We are fortunate to have Shelby in our lives as a friend or a mother or a wife or a daughter or even an acquaintance. You have done so much in your life so far, Shelby - you should be so proud of your mark on the world. And the future is going to be an incredible journey. Happy birthday, Shelby - thanks for making the world a brighter place for us to be in :)

Yesterday I took a trip to Kemp School, the school that I spent last year student teaching, to pick up a letter of reference and drop off a few school books that I inadvertently left in my bookcase past the end of the school year. I saw the secretary, the principal and a few teachers, including my CT, who just happened to be there for a data meeting (school = data...lots and lots of data). Suddenly I feel very unemployed. Not loser unemployed, just unattached unemployed. I guess it started with the trickling of back-to-school displays and sales that are appearing, but the trip to school did the trick. I know we have a plan - I/we still feel the plan. Shelby was nominated for outstanding employee, which she deserves so much because she is awesome. This nomination includes her efforts to grow as an employee towards a role of Program Manager and her capability to fill this role. We're on the right track. In the meantime, we're staying so busy with the day to day things that keep p...

It's Sunday. The end to a week that's seemed to have lasted forever. Hard to believe that we were in New York less than a week ago, and we were sitting on Oneida Lake having coffee. We're back, settled in, and more determined now that ever to get out of here. I completed my college exit interview (for loans) so I should be getting my diploma soon, and resolved a W-4 issue for my camp teaching, so I should get my paycheck soon. I have to do a background check for my teaching license, which I'll do tomorrow, and then I should get my Early Childhood teaching license...soon. We packed up a few boxes of stuff that is currently crowding our living room, but should make room once they make their way to storage. We have boxes to ship out Shelby's business packages, which will make more room. And we'll go from there...the more we can live without and temporarily relocate, the less claustrophobic we'll be and the more prepared we'll be for whatever move we are pre...

Yesterday was a bit of a hissy...for a little bit, anyway. I received mail from the Office of Licensure - yay! But no, it was not my license, it was a notice of a hold on my license until I update my background check. It is a check that school says has a five year life, but the Office requires an update within one year in order to obtain an initial license. Grr. Not awful - just $30 and a trip to school to get it done - but it was the straw that made me snap. I haven't been paid for the week that I worked my part-time camp job (first check, so sure, it may take time...but I live in the ghetto, so you never know), I haven't received my diploma yet (I did have to complete an exit seminar first, so I'm trying to be patient), I live in a ghetto with a bunch of people who refuse to grow up and who trash the place with...well, trash, and we so desperately want to start our farm, wherever that may be. I am better now. I did get past it. I paid for my check online and will go to...

We just returned to Ohio (last night) from a relaxing, fun week in Chittenango , NY. We stayed at Shelby's aunt's house on the lake, Oneida Lake to be more specific, and it was gorgeous! Chittenango was home to L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of OZ, so the town is full of Oz references, including its own yellow brick road. We woke up each morning to coffee on the deck overlooking the lake and ended the evenings with a campfire and marshmallows, or a drink on the deck, again overlooking the lake. Since this is Shelby's hometown, we visited all the things that make hometown memories, including Eddie's (mmm!), Sylvan Beach and amusement park, New York Pizzeria, Chittenango Falls , Jreck Subs, Gulf Road (scary!) to the top of the world, old home and school drive-bys, and, of course, visiting with family. I dare say that it was one of our best visits to Chittenango, since the kids are not babies any more and were able to brave the attractions we brought to the...

It's Sunday. We've worked the past couple days at outdoor festivals, so maybe it's the heat talking, but...we are SO done here! Our apartment is so small. So small that there's not enough room to change our minds. But seriously, folks, we've outgrown the space, and the neighborhood (of this sixteen unit building) is going downhill. Beer is a staple and it's an expectation to smell weed if you take a walk outside at night...sometimes during the day. I'm not against hanging out with a few friends, or partying, even. It just shouldn't be your everyday goal in life. And these people are not college kids - they're semi-employed adults with kids. Some days I pick up the trash on the grounds because I want the place where we live to look nice, at least. Some days I pass by and refuse to pick up the trash that these people so disrespectfully leave in the yard (and are teaching their kids, by the way, that this is ok). A lot of them hang out together, so they...

This is the first morning since before Memorial Day that we've woken up at the apartment. It's amazing how much stuff we accumulated at the in-laws house since we began our stay there! So, over Monday and Tuesday (yesterday), we brought back our stuff and de-Roberts their house :) Two busy days of packing, cleaning, and moving. It was an awesome stay, and made us realize how much we really, really want our own home...more specifically, our mini-farm barn home. The apartment is a harder place for us to be now, as more people move in - the type of people who want to party and leave the remains of their party in the front yard. The type of people who seem to have low expectations of themselves and their lives. Our apartment is even more temporary now, and we are more anxious to move on now than ever before. Destiny is pushing us into the ready position, against a door that has yet to be opened, making us claustrophobic and restless. We are hoping for an upgrade in Shelby's job...

Busy, busy, busy! Well, a relaxed kind of busy - no alarm clock and the days have lost their names, but not their purpose. We are on holiday at Shelby's parents' house, which is a wonderful break from not-so-homey apartment. We love drinking our coffee on the patio in the mornings, grilling out in the evenings, and not having to deal with the drama of our neighbors...for the time being. I am in the middle of getting my motorcycle on the road again, finally. I renewed my insurance and tags after letting them lapse over the winter (my bad), and my battery is getting tested and charged as I speak :)We're getting ready for my graduation on Saturday (Hoot!), and the picnic celebration on Sunday, which will both be awesome events marking this transition in our family's life! This is as much of a celebration for my family, the support and sacrifices that they have made, as it is about my accomplishments in obtaining my degree. Next week will be my first week teaching a camp pr...

I've always wanted to try the blog thing, so I guess now is as good of a time as any... Today is my last day of student teaching in my third-grade classroom. I am very excited - the excitement has been building over these last few weeks - but I am also a little sad. I've spent the entire school year with this class, learning more about teaching and more about kids than I ever could have in a college classroom. It has been an awesome experience, both professionally and personally, and now I feel that I'm really ready to try it on my own. I've made friends that I hope will be around after today, and I've built relationships with so many kids who will be moving on - hopefully smarter and more prepared for the lives ahead of them. I will miss them all. I graduate from Wright State in ten days - wow! ten days - after six years of my mid-life college experience. I am forty-six years and old earning my bachelors degree in Early Childhood Education, Summa Cum Laude, thanks ...