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Over the last few weeks, I’ve been asking my friends for life lessons that would give themselves when they were 18 or 21 based off of what they know today. I have to say, one important life lesson, pick your friends that have a close value and moral compass as you do, because their responses were not much different than what I have shared with you both.

Here are a few examples of life lessons that they shared:

  • Take your education more seriously in high school. And realize the impact that it will have for your future both with college and your career path.
  • Consider doing a job that you want to do, not settle for what you have to for financial reasons.
  • Talk with your parents more and listen to their advice, head their warnings and learn from their experiences.
  • Travel and learn about the world and people that live there.
  • Form your own opinions and don’t relay on others to tell you what and how to think.
  • Think about your retirement today! Save as much as you can today, so that you can retire and enjoy your life.
  • Do not pass up an opportunity!
  • Learn from every experience, good or bad!
  • Do not be afraid to think outside of the box.
  • You don’t have to be drunk or high to have fun!
  • Call your mother often.
  • Do not hold back and ignore the opinions of others.

I’ll add a few more of my life lessons as well:

  • Life is not fair, realize that now. It makes it easier to handle things as you grow older.
  • Focus on the positives in life, if you focus your attention on the negative things, it will only drag you down.
  • Find 5 really close guy friends, trust them and they trust you. Form a friendship that you can talk with them about anything from money to women to cars to sports and any and everything. Trust me on this one.
  • As stated earlier, save as much as you can. And hire a really good financial planner. Lucky for you, I’ve already got you one. But make sure that you listen to their advice and guidance when it comes to money.
  • Do not get sucked into credit card debt. Like quick sand, it is easy to fall into and really hard to get out of it when you are in the pit.
  • Find the love of your life and when you do and you will know, don’t let her go!
  • Trust your gut instinct, rarely will it lead you astray.
  • Spend time with your grandparents and family.
  • Find a hobby that you enjoy doing.
  • Remember that at night when you go to bed, when you drop your pants, you drop your worries.

As I write then out, I wish that i had done many of these things, especially as it pertains to spending time with family and saving for your future.

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I had a moment last night of breaking down and I realized, that it is ok to be sad. Strange right? That we have to give ourselves permission to be sad.

This past year has been hard, painfully hard. As a family, we have dealt with the loss of family members, my wife has had multiple surgeries now and right, a pandemic. And we are still living through the pandemic, a year later.

I had a little bit of a meltdown last night. Reality just hit me and hit me really hard. I have not seen my parents in over 14 months. 14 months! Even when I lived in Texas, rarely did I go more than 6 months without seeing them, so this has been a rough year.

As I sat on the kitchen floor, crying, I explained to my wife, that she can see her Dad whenever she wants. I don’t get that luxury. I can not get a hug from my mom and let her tell me that life is going to be alright or not. And I realized in that moment, that it is ok to be sad.

We have been through a lot, but even though we have gone through a lot we are still beyond blessed. We do not know what the future has in store for us, but we will face it together. There will be laughs and a lot of tears in our future.

I am starting to understand more so throughout the days, that it is ok to have grace with ourselves and others and it is ok to be sad too. They do not mutually go hand in hand, but they are both mutually important.

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I’ve been asked a lot recently when do I get a break and the reality is, I don’t. I can lie and say that I do, but the reality is that I do not.

We have been faced with a lot of challenges lately as a family with my wife now having had her 3rd surgery in four months and it has been hard! Really hard!

But, there has been a lot of good that has come from it as well and has been something that I have been able to really point out to the boys.

There have been a lot of teachable moments over the course of the last four months, one starting with and continuing with the point that life is not fair. It just is not and that is a fact. But as I remind the boys daily, we have choices.

We can choose to get down on our luck and frustrated or we can choose to realize how blessed we are and have been.

And then last night, after getting my wife home from her shoulder surgery a friend asked me, when do I get a break, because he was genuinely concerned. Reading the text message stopped me in my tracks, because I do not really get a break. I do, but rarely.

I force myself to ride the Peloton for at least 30 minutes a day, do 10 minutes of stretching and at least 5 – 10 minutes of meditation a day. But that is about it.

The pandemic has really forced me to stop and realize what is important. I no longer want a long commute to work, I really didn’t want it when I was doing it, but I really do not want one now. I want more family time, I crave it more than ever before. And what I am realizing, is that in that family time or when I am on the bike, I am getting a little break.

Life is truly about perception. What one might view as not getting a break, another might realize, that they are getting many little breaks. So I try to remind myself, that everyone views life through different lenses. I myself, have struggled with finding the good in a bad situation, I admit it. Now, I am forcing myself and teaching my sons that even though life can be a struggle sometimes, there are many positives there too.

So today, as I took the week off to take care of my wife and spend time with my boys, I am choosing to take a break. I have to check emails periodically and I am getting non stop text messages, both from friends, family and work, I am choosing what I want to respond to. And though this isn’t a relaxing break, none the less, I am taking the time to focus on my kids, take care of my wife and to relax some.

So this morning as I responded to my buddies text from last night about when do I get a break, I told him that I was on the bike and taking my first break of the day. It is all about choices. It is all about forcing yourself find the good in a bad situation. I am choosing to take a break from social media and the noise. I have chosen to delegate work to my team. Today, I am choosing to take a break!

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Our lives over the last few weeks our lives have been centered around this simple thought: Hope & Fear & Uncertainty, and it feels that literally all at the same time. That seems to be our life right now. And the the uncertainty of it all is driving me beyond crazy.

Hope is simply defined as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” Hope, is what we are basing our lives and decisions on now. Hoping for positive test results. Hoping that the brain tumor does not return. Our plan is that we live today as if were our last and that tomorrow we are given another day to try to live the best life that we can.

Fears are defined as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.” Well, there is a lot of pain that has already been caused both physically as well as emotionally and mentality because of the brain tumor. But we are trying not focus on the fear of the unknown. But fears can lead one down a tough path and the loss of focus to important things as well, like focusing on what we have today.

The uncertainty that we face, each and everyday has been tough. Talking with medical providers, both one’s that my wife is under their care or friends that we know. And the answers seem to very. And if anyone does a google search, well we all know how that can go too. But the feeling of uncertainty is real. It is scary. And it is a valid feeling.

All of these feelings are valid, hell, they all interchange at some point in time.

As we have started to transition from the scary feeling of the seizure to brain surgery and the removal of said brain tumor. We now move into “what is next?”

And the answer is simple, we don’t know. No one does.

Does that mean that the tumor will return, well, there is a greater chance that it does than it does not. That is just a fact. And if it does return, there is a greater chance that it comes back as a higher grade brain tumor. But the flip is, there is a chance that the brain tumor does in fact not return.

And in the most simplistic break down possible for our lives.

Hope – that we never mention said brain tumor again.
Fear – that the brain tumor will return and return worse than first discovered.
Uncertainty – what if? What if this brain tumor kills my wife? I still have two young boys, am I ready to be a single dad again? Can I handle it? God forbid, I have to date again.

There is a lot of uncertainty. The unknown is scary as hell. But, we have to plan. We have to plan for today, as well as tomorrow. We have started a To Do list, as my wife hates the phrase Bucket List. There will be big things on it, like a trip post covid to the Grand Canyon, as well as making sure that my wife goes to everyone of my son’s baseball or soccer games.

Our focus has shifted a little to more of the making memories and keeping our son’s lives as normal as possible. And today that is easily done, but in the future, it might not be. But today, we make the most of it. The sun is out, all the snow is melted away and we are focused on spending time together.

Tomorrow, well we can worry about that tomorrow.

Hope & Fears & Uncertainty.

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Two words, that I never thought that I would ever type, let alone say, Brain Tumor. But, there it is. My wife had a brain tumor!

4:00 a.m. on a Friday morning, I was awaken to my wife having a seizure. At first, I wasn’t sure what exactly was going on, but it was clear that something wasn’t right. So, after quickly assessing the situation, I called 911 and within 8 minutes 4 guys from the fire house were walking in the house. And as my wife was coming out of the seizure, reality started to set in.

Fast forward 4 hours, I walk into the ER to see my wife, that is how long it took to get someone to come over and watch the boys and I’ll get to them shortly. But upon arriving, I knew something was wrong because everyone kept saying to get Melissa that I had arrived. And just like that, Melissa, who was the PA-C that was taking care of my wife, walked into the room, closed the door and asked me to sit down. I don’t remember exactly what was said before or after the words Brain Tumor were spoken, life just became a blur.

As we walked out of the ER that morning, with a scheduled first appointment with a world renowned neurosurgeon 4 days later and the knowledge that my wife was going to more than likely need to have brain surgery with 2 weeks. As we drove home, life became we were left with questions unanswered, but the brain tumor, what he the future held, how do we tell and prepare our kids, will she live?

Rarely do I show that I’m afraid. I’ve always believed that the father, should show emotions, but at the same time, reassure his family that things will be OK, even if they might not be. But this was one of those times, that I was vulnerable. I literally stood in the kitchen and felt paralyzed with fear and couldn’t put one foot in front of the other.

After meeting with the neurosurgeon a few days later from the diagnosis, we felt prepared. We felt, like we had the person that could help and we had a plan. The brain tumor was removed successfully. And we are will be forever grateful for the surgeon, but this isn’t a short process or treatment, this will be for life!

That’s right, my wife will need an MRI every 3 months, for the first year. Then, in year 2, it will be every 4 months. And at some point, it will be 2 years, but this is for the rest of her life. And without going into too much regarding that, we don’t actually know how long her life expectancy will be? The original pathology report told one thing, but this weekend, it was updated with a more serious finding.

But we have vowed to make the lives of our sons normal and stable. We will continue to do for them and to try to make a normal life, in a very not normal time. Between COVID-19 and now this, it has been a lot on the boys and oh yeah, they heard everything when I was on the call with 911. They heard me ask God to save her life, they heard me tell the 911 operator that she wasn’t responsive because she wasn’t. They heard it all. They saw the EMS team. They saw their mother being put into the back of an ambulance.

Life is not fair! And neither is having a brain tumor and neither is being almost 10 and having to see or hear or hell, live this way.

To my sons – I’m incredibly proud of how you both have responded and stepped up during this very stressful time. I am proud of how you both have been there to give a hug, when I”m on the verge of tears. Our families future, is a little bit of influx right now, but we have a lot of people that are there to help, so today, and moving forward, we take it one day at a time.

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Where to begin? Seems like a loaded question, yet a statement that has been used a lot recently when explaining the last 4 months.

I was going to start with virtual school for the boys, but let’s skip that for another day. And instead, let’s touch on my wife’s first surgery and then in another post, probably next week, the discovery of the brain tumor.

Three months ago, my wife had a scheduled procedure, which we thought was going to be routine and in 6 weeks, would be 100% healed and better than ever. But, that was not meant to be.

My wife woke up from her procedure in recovery with severe shoulder pain. Now, for the record and without going into the procedure, her surgery had NOTHING to do with her shoulder, not even close. She was told to give it time.

7 days later, she is getting an MRI and being told that her should was dislocated and then the MRI revealed other issues too.

So a quick recap, my wife went in for a surgery, that wasn’t related to her shoulder, yet comes out with major shoulder problems. The shoulder issue was so bad, that she had to be seen by orthopedic that repaired my shoulder last year and surgery was scheduled.

And with that, when people ask about her shoulder, we usually start with, “where to begin?”

Everyone has been left asking the same question, “what happened to her shoulder?” And short answer, we don’t know. We don’t know what happened. Seems strange, but that we just don’t know.

Next up, the discovery of my wife’s brain tumor and how we found gratitude through all of this.

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So, I took a little break from blogging. Not intentional, partly it was due to a server issue and I was just too lazy to fix it. The other, well life happened.

Over the next few days, I’ll share a little of what has been going on:

  • Virtual school for the boys
  • My wife’s 1st surgery
  • The discovery of a brain tumor in my wife
  • Hopes & a lot of fears
  • Financial planning
  • And anything else, because did I mention that my wife has a brain tumor?

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2020 online school has been very interesting to say the least. Our kids will be online until at least January of 2021, if not the entire school year.

The school board, in my opinion took the most logical and safest approaches in how they decided to have kids return to school. The interesting thing for me, as a working at home parent, is that the kids are seeming to adapt easier to online school over parents that are working at home. The reality is, this isn’t easy.

This entire process isn’t easy for the parents trying to have conference calls or the kids that are trying to learn online. None of this is easy nor is it easy to even explain to the kids, as to why they are having to do all of this. But, the reality, in my opinion, is that this was the safest approaches.

We are in the first few weeks or online school and yes, there have been some bumps in the road. There was a outage of Schoology, but the teachers had a plan B in place and they pivoted to Google Classroom.

I really believe that we will all come out of this much stronger as a country. That our society will come out better. That companies will realize the benefit of working at home and a strong work life balance. But our kids will come out stronger and able to adapt even faster. And, for my kids, new life skills.

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The answer was finally made in regards to the upcoming school year and I don’t think for one minute, anyone was shocked. And to be honest, not only was the right decision I am just more frustrated that it took this long to come to the decision.

Starting the upcoming school year online isn’t ideal, but it has to be done. Telling the kids that they were starting, at least online, was met with both excitement and also reservation. But there was reservation on behalf of my wife and I.

The reality is, last years online school year was a disaster. There were so many issues with the technology and also the in ability to have the teachers actually teach to their classes. This year, that will be different.

This year, it seems like teachers will be able to provide instruction to the classes. And as we continue to the go through the COVID-19 pandemic, the early recommendations right now are only the first semester being at home. But my guess is that the entire school year will be completed online.

Yes, there are parents that are going to struggle with this due to work. But, there is a lot of value in being able to contain the kids and keep them safe. Right now, as long as an online option is available for second semester as well, we will be having the boys complete their school year online.

Ideal, no? But, our jobs have shifted online and have allowed us with the flexibility to both work and will be able to answer questions and assist the boys with their school work.

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Never in my wildest dreams, did I think that I would be a home school teacher. NEVER! But that is what happened.

I haven’t really blogged and that is in part due to lack of time but also the lack not not exactly knowing what to say either. Do I talk about the facts? We are all living it. Do I talk about school and the challenges.

The reality is very simple, this all sucks. Home School. Not saying goodbye to your friends. The loss of Little League Baseball, YMCA Soccer, summer camps, sleep over with cousins and grandparents. The list goes on and on.

But we are safe.

We are safe and healthy. We are making memories, like me being your Home School teacher.

Has this been easy for any of us, no. Absolutely not, but we have been making it work. We are focusing on the positives now that are coming from this and today, that is all that matters.

But as we get closer to the next school year, there is a lot of discussions on what the kids will do. Go back full time, highly unlikely. Go back maybe 1 – 2 days a week, but wear masks, high possibility, or start online again, which is my ideal answer.

I just don’t know if the kids should go back to school? I don’t know if anyone knows honestly what the right answer is at this point? But, I am prepared to be the Home School teacher of the year for both 2020 and 2021 at this point.

More to come on this and other posts.

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