May 2015

“If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever.” A.A. Milne aka – Winnie the Pooh

I saw this quote recently and it reminded me of the first time that I had read it, which was after the death of a friend in High School and recently, my buddy and I were talking about my mother-in-law’s death. And it got me thinking about the impact on my son’s lives and would they remember me, if something happened to them? Would they keep me in their heart, when it comes a day for my death.

I’ve tried to do what is right by my kids and I hope that I’m showing them the importance of putting others needs before their own. Treating others with respect, and they will be respected in return. I hope that they would continue upon the road of a deepen faith. And I hope that they would take care of their mother and to always make decisions based on their gut feeling and to trust that feeling.

I know that when it is time for me to say goodbye to my parents, though I would be sad, my parents instilled in me values and respect and to have a deeper faith. But they also showed me what it is like to be a parent. To put your kids in front of everything else.

“If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever.” – Words of wisdom from Winnie the Pooh

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My wife forwarded this article entitled 13 Signs You’re a Parent of Twin Babies, which you can read here. But we had a good laugh, because this pretty much correct of our everyday lives.

And as we read the article, we took each one and added or commented on how true it was for us, so here goes:

1. Your house is starting to look like a daycare center.
Amen to that! We are forever cleaning up the living room, wiping toys down with Clorox and sweeping the floors.

2. Coffee is the new water.
This wasn’t something that I’ve really had a problem with. I’ve been drinking coffee for years, so I don’t know that I’ve increased my daily consumption?

3. You don’t want to hear about single-baby problems.
Every parent has problems, doesn’t matter if they have one kid or 12. To me, parenting is hard no matter how many kids you have.
For us, we don’t know any different, so we only are able to comprehend what we have experienced.

4. There is no such thing as running a quick errand.
This is true. I took the boys to church, then to get donuts and then to the grocery store and by and far the hardest of the trip was the grocery store.
And it was hard because, it was “Can we have this?” “We need chips!” “We need cookies!” “We need ice cream!” Ok, the last one was me, but point being,
that if it had been just me, I could have been in and out of the store in under 20 minutes. With the boys, though they helped, they do require a little longer.
And then the amount of time that it takes to buckle one in, then go to the other side and buckle the other up, put away groceries and then the cart, it takes longer.

5. Getting them to sit still at the same time is an Olympic sport.
We took the boys to the Memorial Day Parade over the weekend and all in all, they wanted to join the parade. I mean, who doesn’t, but sitting still can be hard.

6. You don’t remember what quiet sounds like.
The last quiet night that I had, was the night before the boys were born. And even that night, it wasn’t that quiet, as I couldn’t sleep waiting on the arrival of the boys.

7. You never stop doing laundry. Never.
I think that we did 4 loads this weekend and that was a slow weekend.

8. Your twins are a magnet for public affection and you can’t go anywhere without questions, oohs, ahhs and the dreaded baby pokes from strangers.
So very true. And as soon as the boys started talking, women flocked to them immediately. I have told my brother for years, just take the boys to lunch and you’ll
have no problem meeting women.

9. You’re going to lose it if one more person asks, “Are they twins?”
My favorite responses that I use are: 1) We have twins? Oh my God, who knew? 2) Nope, we had one, saw the other sitting on a park bench thumbing for a ride,
we figured why the hell not?

10. You don’t need to go to the gym anymore.
      So very true, but who needs to go the gym when you can take walks with the family, goto the playground, etc. Gyms cost way too much money and are highly
overrated. However, they do provide a little quiet time.

11. You have bags and bags of used baby goods that you don’t want to throw out.
      See, we don’t have that. When we are all about downsizing our lives and our house, etc. We are really focused on getting rid of the clutter. We have some things
that we have kept, but by in large, we are really focused on getting things out.

12. The other question you’re tired of is, “Which one is older?”
 After church each Sunday, we take the boys to get donuts and each Sunday, the same lady waits on us. And each Sunday, the lady always ask which is older.
It happens all the time, because wait for it, the boys are individuals and one is larger than the other. But they are their own individual person and at the end
of the day, does the 1 minute difference matter?

13. You’re the luckiest.
AMEN! People will ask, how do we do it? How are we able to afford twins? How are we able to chase after them all day? How are we able to spend time with both
of them? And it is simple, we are blessed beyond belief. We are blessed to have two healthy and wonderful little boys. We are blessed to be able to be the parents
of these little monkeys. We are blessed to have two little boys to love on and they love us back. So how do we do it? We just do and love every minute of it!

Being the parent of twin babies isn’t easy, but then again, being the parent of one baby isn’t easy either. There are constant worries and concerns. There is always the thought, are we financially prepared for this? How much will college cost? Are we doing ok as parents? Being the parent of twin babies isn’t a chore, it is a blessing! It is truly a gift and one that I am grateful to have been blessed with and I am just so happy that I have those little boys in my life.

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We have been trying to really focus on two things this year, 1) Paying down debt and 2) our giving of time and money to charity and to church and thus far, we haven’t done that bad, I don’t think. But what has really come out of the giving, is how great it feels to give to others.

Paying down debt – If we stay on track, we will have 3 cards paid off in 10 months and that will put us 1/3rd of the way to our goal. BUT and what is even more important than that, we will be able to start really putting a lot more towards down and finish up these credit cards a lot faster. In theory, we should be able to knock out all of our debt in less than 2 years. We have cut cable and that is saving us roughly $150 a month and then we have done a few other little things, like the Dollar Shave Club, we have started doing even more shopping at Aldi for produce and basic items and we are buying our meat in bulk from Wegmans, to name a few. But these savings should really start to add up and I was asked this week if I missed cable at all and I realized that I hadn’t thought about it, so no.

Giving – Giving to others is very important to both my wife and myself. We were both raised that it is better to give to others than to receive. So, in quickly looking over our finances, I realized that we are on track by the end of May to have already surpassed our giving totals for all of 2014. We have already committed $1,000 in extra giving, which does not factor into our giving to local charities and also to church.  And mind you, this is while we are paying down debt. But what is great about giving is that we are showing the boys that it is better to give to others, especially those that are less fortunate.

So far for our family goals, we are on schedule and actually ahead of schedule for our giving.

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Life is full of stress and some days, it doesn’t seem like you can get away from stress. Even in taking a walk or trying to relax, stress just seems to pop up.

Before leaving the house this morning, Baby B was walking down the steps and after he told me that he loved me, he said “good luck dad”. Man, that kid had no idea how true those words were today, because today has been one of those days. If it could have gone wrong, it has and things just haven’t seemed right. Meetings, more work, last minute requests, a to do list that is 10 projects deep and the last minute request to provide data that I should really take 4 days to gather and analyze, but have 12 hours.

STRESS!

Throughout the day, I have had several co-workers to stop by to say hello or just to see how I was doing. But today, I just haven’t wanted to really to be social because of all of the work. But as I have gone through the day, I have realized two important things about stress:

1) Stress is a pain in the butt, but it is a fact of life. But it is how we deal with stress that makes it easier to handle.
2) As bad and stressful as my day has been, there are people that are facing much worse things than I am right now.

Just at that moment, when I stopped looking at the stress and looking at the other factors, I closed my eyes for just a moment, put my ear phones in and put on a little bluegrass music. Stress will always be present in our lives, but it is how we choose to deal with it that determines if we over come the stress or we succumb to it.

 

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My obsession has quickly become my passion.

I’ve been working in Digital Marketing and Web Development for over 15 years now and I have literally written code with my eyes closed. Yes, everyday creates a new change and everyday some new technique or skill comes out to try. But it is just that, something that I’ve been doing for 15 years now. And don’t get me wrong, I enjoy what I do and I am very fortunate to have worked my way up in this industry and to have gotten to grow my career and implement a lot of changes for the organizations that I have been a part of. But, when watching Chef, this clip hit me hard:


When my mother in law died, I had two choices, learn how to cook or starve and that wasn’t really an option so I started asking questions of my mom and then I remembered my days in Texas and how much I loved grilling and smoking food. And I started off small and I talked with my Mom about her spaghetti recipe and I made that and realized that my mom was not the right person to ask for cooking advice. I started making the spaghetti recipe once a week and then I perfected it to a point, that I could make spaghetti almost the same each time and not look at the recipe. And while I was starting at the basics of spaghetti, I remembered how much I loved to be outside and grill. In church one Sunday, my wife’s grandmother asked if I wanted her Weber Grill, which might lead to one of the most honest responses in the United Methodist Church, which was a simple AMEN!

So, fast forward a few years and my obsession of cooking has become my passion.  My days of traveling to and from work now are often spent talking cooking and food with friends and giving them suggestions or ideas for recipes. I am often asked now to smoke or grill food for co-workers and when they want me to try new recipes. I am talking with chefs on a more regular basis to gain ideas, learn new techniques, pick their brains on pairings of beers and foods, seasoning of food and things of that nature.  And the importance of the clip above, is showing how excited he was and how he was expressing his creativity, something that I can relate, because when I cook, I get to use my creativity side. In my job, I am the least creative person that I know.

What I have found, is that as I learn more, my obsession continues to increase. My obsession for cooking has become a creative passion that I have never experienced before.  And not only has this obsession taking a life of its own, it has created an opportunity to show and teach my sons. Not only am I teaching them about cooking and exposing them to differently flavors and types and styles of foods, I’m bonding with them and spending time with them. So my obsession is just as much about spending time with them as anything. The boys know that on Sunday, we goto church, get coffee and donuts and the come home and spend the day at either the grill or the smoker.

While I am teaching the boys how to cook, I get to laugh and joke around with them. Teach them about the importance of food safety, but also the time that we are spending together and doing something that we love. Growing up, I didn’t have this type of relationship with my father, we do now, but not then. I didn’t spend a lot of time with him and know that every Sunday or Saturday or both days, that we would be outside cooking. I didn’t have him teaching me about things that he was passionate about. And my hope, is that as this obsession, not only mine, but the obsession that my sons are having with learning more about cooking grows, that they will share these same things with their children when they have them.

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It was bound to happen sooner or later, but tonight out of the blue the boys left my wife and I in tears. Literally we are crying like babies and it was over the most simple and innocent thing.  But the fact that it happened on Mother’s Day, might have made it a little easier and also harder at the same time.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day and the boys and I got my wife flowers, cards and a selfie stick and before any jokes are made about the selfie stick, it is am inside joke between my wife and myself. But after the boys and I grilled dinner last night and for the week, my wife was showing the boys a picture of her mom & for those of you that don’t know, read my post entitled 6 years.  My mother in law was killed in a car accident over 6 years ago and there is not a day that doesn’t go by that we don’t talk about or wish that she were still here.  My wife showed a photo of my wife and her mom together and it was a photo that they had never seen before. The photo was from Mother’s Day over 10 years ago, when my wife graduated from college. As soon as my Baby A quietly asked who it was with their mommy, my wife quietly explained that it was her mommy on Mother’s Day years before they were born. And just then it happened, Baby A asked the hard question, “Can Grandma come to my house and see me?” Silence, followed by tears.

My mother in law has been dead for close to 7 years and even though it has been 7 years, it hasn’t been easy. Holidays are hard. Mothers Day might be the hardest day of them all and tonight, as innocently as possible, they wanted to see their grandmother. My wife and I abruptly ended up in tears & I am still wiping them away now. Tears of sorrow. Tears of joy. Tears of frustration. Tears of heart break.

The boys do not know that their grandmother died 7 years ago, they just know that they have my parents and my wife’s dad and his girlfriend. At some point we will have to explain all of this to them, but last night on Mother’s Day, I think that a simple statement that caused so many tears to flow, brought peace and comfort. But as my wife and I talked about, one day, in a few years, we will have to have a very hard conversation with them and tell them about their grandmother and her dying. And then there will be a lot of people that will tell stories about what a wonderful person that she was and how many lives that she touched. And though, it will be harder on us than it will be on them, as they will not know any better, we will know what they are missing out on. We will know how loved they would have been by their Grandmother. We would have known that we would have had to beg her to not let them spend every weekend with her. So with those knowings, we will have to struggle and wipe away tears and talk about one of the most amazing women that I have ever known.

Over 1,200 people attended the visitation and as far away as 3 states. She touched the lives of many and she made a difference in the lives of a lot. Last night, with tears in our eyes, we said a simple prayer and thanked God for our time with my wife’s mom, but as we wiped away those tears and hug and kiss the boys goodnight, we are hurt and filled with sorrow.

Good night to my little Monkeys. Happy Mother’s Day to my wife, my mom, my sister, friends and family. And Mom’s, I know that you are smiling down on these little kids, I just wish that you could have gotten to experience them first hand.

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Ever say something stupid in front of your kids? Well, I’m guilty and I should really know better. I should know by now that the boys will repeat what I say and then they will think that it is funny. And last Saturday is just another example of open my mouth and insert my foot.

As many Americans, myself and the boys were watching the Kentucky Derby and because I live in a state that allows for horse gambling, I decided to put down $40. The boys were all excited to see the horses on TV and I mentioned that we needed the #8, #12 and #18 ( I think ) horses to finish 1, 2 & 3 and we would win. So all is right in the world and the race starts. Things are going well and then they hit the backstretch and I realize that I had bet correctly for the first 3 horses. I was jumping up and down and so were the boys. High fives are all around and we are all excited!

So here his the issue. We get to CHURCH the next morning and as we are getting out of my Jeep, Baby A asked if we were betting on the horses at church? And there it went straight down, because while we were grilling they wanted to know if we were putting money on the horses. So yes, kids, Dad can be stupid sometimes, but we won $400 and we have money down for the next horse race on the 16th.

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We finally made the decision, we are cutting the cord! We are joining millions of families that have made the decision to move away from cable and thus far, it has been amazing.

Enough was enough. I realized one night that we weren’t watching TV that much, so why have a massive TV channel option, if we watched, maybe 10% of the channels? And it was at that moment, that I looked up our monthly bill and almost fell out of my chair, as it was now $220 a month.  After a little research and chatting with our cable provider a few things were really clear to me in my thought process:

  1. I wasn’t going to get all of my Sporting events that I am use to viewing.
  2. I was going to need to add a Digital Antenna.
  3. I needed to look at another device, i.e. Roku to supplement other 3rd party providers.
  4. The cable company didn’t care or try to keep us as a customer.

1) Sporting Events – I love sports! I live for College Basketball and Football. There is nothing better than watching football on a Saturday, but here is the realization with kids, I wasn’t getting to watch many games. At best, I got in 1 – 3 College Football games in a year and I did get most of my basketball games, but a lot of times I was recording them and watching them after the kids went to bed. So my argument to keep cable for sports, quickly went away.

2) Digital Antenna – I wanted to keep local channels, just in case we needed local coverage. There were many websites that provided options and data on which would work best. I did have 1 limitation that I was faced with and that is that I didn’t want a rooftop or exterior antenna, due to the fact that our plan is to move. So I wanted/needed something that would be mobile and easy to use and setup. I settled with the Mohu 50 after a lot of research and so far, I have been impressed. I have been able to watch golf and the Kentucky Derby with minor issues. But all in all, it has worked just fine and I am out $70 for the antenna.

3) Devices and 3rd party providers – We have a Sony Blue Ray player with web apps, such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon, MLB, etc. so we were covered with being able to watch all of our shows that my wife and I enjoy and also the shows that boys like. I get my sports fix with my MLB package so that I can watch the Astros and this becomes a win win situation.  And then another app came out called Sling TV and they offer ESPN and a lot of the cooking shows that I enjoy, but Sling TV isn’t available on the Sony Blue Ray. After conversations with a buddy of mine, he convinced me to get a Roku and man, that has been awesome! There are so many more channels that we’ve opened up a whole new library of kids shows and other shows for my wife and I to watch, that I really don’t see the need to ever go back to cable. But, from a cost stand point, a new Roku player was $100, we have Netflix at $8/month, Hulu Plus $8/month, we already had Amazon $99/yr and then I got the MLB package for $125. See the breakdown below for a better comparison)

4) Cable didn’t care that we were leaving – I called and chatted with reps from the cable company, explained my desire to cut the monthly cost, significantly and their best offer was cutting our bill by $20 month, which didn’t factor in taxes, etc. so really the $20 a month savings, was closer to $10. There was a time when cable companies would get creative and try to keep customers, but I think that those days are long gone. So, they didn’t fight to keep me and they could have kept me as a basic cable subscriber for the right offer, but they didn’t try to keep my business and I didn’t feel bad turning in the equipment. Now, our monthly bill is $50 a month, down from $220 a month, for a savings of $170 a month.

I get it, I really see why people are cutting the cord more and more everyday. It makes sense, especially if you aren’t watching tv. But let’s look at real numbers on monthly costs:

ServiceMonthly CostYearly CostOne Time FeesSavings
Cable Service$220$2,640$170/month or $2,040/yearly
Netflix$8$96$0
Hulu Plus$8$96$0
Amazon$0$99$0
Digital Antenna$0$0$70$0
Roku$0$0$99$0
MLB Package$0$125$0
Totals$236$2,957$169$2,040

The reality is actually even simpler than the cost savings, we are reading more at night, spending more time as a family and less distractions and we are getting outside more. I know, it isn’t normal to say that we are unplugging and cutting the cord, but we have and we have loved it. In quick numbers, because I like to look at real term facts and measurements. By saving $170 a month, just from cable, we will be able to pay off 2 more credit card bills in less than 1 year! There, I said it, there is another benefit to cutting the cord, financial and getting out of debt faster.

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I’ve seen it on the news for years, but this is the first time that I have ever been faced with something like this. But tonight, as I put the boys to bed, I held them a little tighter and kissed them a few extra times. Never in my life, did I think that I would see riots this close to me? Never in my life, did I think that I would see riots less than 10 miles from my office or less than 30 miles from our home.

Tonight as I watch the news, I am speechless. Tonight as I listen to the Governor of Maryland, I am numb. These are places that I have recently walked, there are places that are being burned down that I have recently driven by.  I am numb by the response of the protestors and I’m also numb by the response by several adults. Here are the facts, a young man, who had what appears to be a troubled path, was buried by his family. No parent should ever buried their children.

But tonight, there is a different feeling in the air. There is a different concern and feeling. Tonight, I kept the TV off so that I could shelter the boys from the riots in Baltimore, but I couldn’t keep my mind focused. Tonight, my feelings are pretty clear, but I’ll have to save those for another. I have listened to co-workers and even my wife talk about their sadness, tonight, I am just mad.

Baltimore residents who protested peacefully, the death of Freddie Gray, you did it right. It is those that wanted to take their protests to the next level where they were destroying private property. I had tried to stay off social media, because I felt that I would be be outraged and I have been. I tried to limit my communication with others, because I would be upset and angry, and I have been. I just wanted my wife to get home tonight, who was north of Baltimore city and she did.

The Governor declared a state of emergency due to the riots and tonight, I have no clue how and if I will make it into the office tomorrow. But, tonight, I was able to put the boys with an extra long hug and a kiss goodnight. My wife made it home safely and I was able to hug and kiss her.

But I pray for those that are in the city that are effected by the riots. I pray that those are protected the innocent, that those will be protected and yes, I have several friends and spouses of friends that are down in that area tonight.

And tonight, I have learned a powerful and important lesson and that there is a time and place for my smart ass remarks and tonight isn’t the night. I pray for safety and God’s mercies for those that are are in Baltimore tonight effected by the riots and I pray for calmer heads.  And I pray that your mommy doesn’t have to go into work tomorrow and be put into harms way, AMEN.

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