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no, No, NO!!! We can’t afford a family trip this year.
I am just so tired of having this conversation with my wife; I’m really losing sleep and productivity over it. Our 10year anniversary is coming up in couple of months and she cannot focus on anything else other surfing all the travel websites. We have a conference room setup in our house and we should be working-working, not surfing the web for vacation stuff. Kids are sleeping, and she knows all the to-do items that need to be addressed before we even discuss anything related to fun.
It all comes down to the fact I didn’t give her the wedding honeymoon that she wanted. I planned the honeymoon and I picked a quaint little town called Door County in Northeast Wisconsin. It was ideal because it was close to home and I started a new task at work that needed my attention, ASAP. It was a beautiful honeymoon and we have such beautiful memories from it. The whole honeymoon became a problem on our 1 year anniversary. She said, “You still owe me a honeymoon”. To that I said, “Its honeymoon everyday in our householdJ” But she wasn’t feeling it L So that forced me to take my 1st ever international trip out to Cancun for 7days. The 2nd anniversary was more of the same with the added, “That last resort was pretty bad”. So the 3rd anniversary we stayed in presidential suite that was big and lavish enough to house family of 10. Things were quiet until the 5th anniversary. Apparently I still owned her a honeymoon. She said all the other ones didn’t count because it wasn’t on an island. We ended up staying in a gorgeous hotel on the island of Cozumel for 14 days.
We now have 2 kids since the “last” honeymoon. I’m working on family budget, business budgets, project timelines, design reviews, business proposals, & renderings, and what do I get from across the table?…”Honey, when are you going to give me the honeymoon you promised”. I was so close to just blowing up at her. All I did was look at her and not say anything. She kept going on and on about how we needed a big family trip and how badly she wants to go to Hawaii or Europe for the honeymoon, which I still owed her. I took a deep breath and told her we can’t afford it this year. This is absolutely true because we have a double mortgage and our monthly spending has ballooned to 10 times what it normally should be. Yes, you heard that right, 10times!! The construction of the new house is draining all the money and I need to work more hours and days to make it all happen. Since acquiring the new property, I’m working 7 days/week and I’ve been going to bed between 12am-2am, everyday. I’m not whining or complaining here, I just want somebody to throw me a bone! But all I get is, you are too cheap, you are not participating in family activities, you still owe me a honeymoon, etc…
I feel like everything is so fragile right now, and my absence will cause a catastrophic collapse of all the intricate progress that I’ve been making for all the businesses and the new home. All I need to do is continue the same routine, eat same type of food, & same exercise for next 9 months, and everything will be fine.
Baby, I love you but WE CAN’T AFFORD A FAMILY VACATION TO HAWAII THIS YEAR!! Is there a different way to say this? because this conversation is ready to blow up if it doesn’t get resolved real soon. I’m definitely pushing my human limit everyday and stuff like this can really send any man over the edge…<sigh>
horrid memory into funny memory in less than 1year (part 1)
This conversation came up during our lunch time w/ Larry, Moe, Curly, & Shemp. We are scientist, scientist, engineer, & engineer, respectively. I point this out because it’s amazing what kind of stupid discussion we can have, given the education level. It goes to show you that education does not make you smarter…lol. We are all married with two kids, except Shemp.
We decided to do some manly offroading with our trucks. I have a Jeep Cherokee, Larry has a Toyota FJ, and Moe has a Honda Ridgeline. Place we went is called Rausch Creek Off road park in PA. This is the real deal, nothing but sea of lifted rock crawlers and jeeps. Everybody had fun except for the Ridgeline guy. We had to winch him out of the park. He damaged his transmission for sure. Thick smell of roasted transmission oil was a sure sign it needed overhauling.
Once we got out, we were all pleased with our capable 4x4s, minus Moe. We operate in a buddy system. Larry and I barraged Moe with reasons and justifications why he NEEDS to get a different vehicle, a real truck, a man’s truck! This kind of pressuring by close friends worked! He found enough strength and bravery to face his wife. Before I continue further, I need to fill you in on his wife. She is a mean, large, and in charge. Whatever she says goes, there are no if/and/buts. If she wants a rabbit, you pick one up by next day. If she wants a bird, you pick up the complete kit. If she wants a dog, you pay whatever it costs to get the one that she wants. If she wants a cat, you say yes ma’am and shut up. Moe doesn’t have anything left for a backbone, it’s just cartilage.
Being good friends we are, we told him to stand up to his wife and demand that he be allowed to have some adventure time with us. Moe is only allowed to come out if his wife okays it. It gets really freakin annoying to plan anything around his schedule because of “it”. So we really pumped him up to stand up to his wife, we coached him, and we did some dry-runs of all the different scenarios of the argument.
We practiced for about a week and it was finally time. Larry and I were on standby all evening, just in case if something goes wrong. Moe would be welcome to stay at my house or Larry’s house for however long.
We finally received an email at 11pm!!! He had the green light to purchase a beater Jeep! I did reply-all, “Oh, HELL YEAH!” Larry replied something that wasn’t politically correct, but we were all so happy for Moe. His “backbone” was finally strengthening!
Our next day consisted of heavy strategizing of the purchase. We said the purchase has to happen ASAP, before she changes her mind. Three of us hit Craigslist and EBay really hard. Found a beater Jeep for $3000usd and we all went to check it out. It was a great truck, Larry and I gave it four thumbs up. Moe paid for and you can tell he was beaming. Not only was this a capable 4×4, it was a trophy, trophy of conquering his fear and adversity. That made all of us proud of him. He is such a great guy and he should be able to reward himself once in a while like this. I volunteered my time to get it fixed up to pass state inspection. After about 2weeks of repair, the truck was finally ready. We held a team meeting and we all agreed to hit the 4×4 park for upcoming Saturday, we were set….so we thought…
Moe’s Jeep was definitely worth $3k, but it wasn’t perfect, it was actually next solar system over from being perfect. Moe decided to celebrate this joyous occasion by driving it around with his two young girls, ages 5 and 7. They are such adorable little kids, and their daddy loves them to death! It was a beautiful day, Jeep is driving great, and his girls are having a blast in the back seat.
Things suddenly turned for the worst when Moe decided to drive his beater Jeep through a mechanical car wash. I don’t know if you’ve ever been through one, but it’s the kind with 3 giant mechanical rollers; two on either sides and one huge one on the top….Moe’s Jeep is a RAGTOP (made of cloth), a very very very old ragtop 😦
Water started pouring in as some of the smaller holes turned into bigger holes, and the spinning of the rotating machine banging against a cloth cover made it sound like you are in a tornado. Two girls are screaming in the back, & Moe is screaming in the front. Moe tries to start the car but it sputters to a stop, he can’t get it started. In his last ditch effort to save his daughters, he threw himself to the back seat and covered up his two girls. He feared the roof was going to collapse and kill his girls.
Good news is they all survived, but the ragtop was no longer a top, it was just a rag. His last email to us was, “I am so fucked”. Larry and I were frantic; we tried calling him, texting, & email, but no response. Larry and I were feeling so guilty. If it weren’t for us, Moe and his girls would have been fine. One can only guess what kind of wrath he was dealing with. His girls poured their heart out to their mommy and pretty much ratted him out. No one knows what happened next inside Moe’s house… I just know whatever backbone Moe had it just turned into string cheese. Larry and I were very scared for him.
We finally got email back from Moe saying he can’t join us for the next 4×4 adventure, and that he is selling his Jeep. He didn’t join us for lunch during that whole month, and he ended up giving the Jeep away for $1500.
It’s been almost a year since the fallout, and it looks like everything is back to normal. Moe has paid his “prison sentence” and is able to breathe fresh air again. We talk about this incident once in a while, and we just start cracking up and it always ends with, “What the hell were you thinking, man?”…ROFL!
kids’ Mother’s day brawl
This mother’s day started out with my wife poking me in the morning, asking me to get up and make her some breakfast. I am half asleep and I THINK I inadvertently told her “you are not my mother; I can make you some cereal when I get up”. As I was trying to fall back asleep, I felt an eerie omen come over; it was complete silence from other side of the bed. Every married man knows, when a silence like this makes its presence in the bedroom, something bad is about to go down. I quickly responded with, “how about I assist the boys in making your breakfast?”
From my bed, I called out for my oldest boy (5yrs old). I told him to make mommy some lovely breakfast for mother’s day. My oldest, who I refer to as “the champ”, is an amazing kid. He loves is mother to death and he will never say “no” to daddy. As I’m lying on my bed, I can hear all the rustlings and activities going on in the kitchen. I am smiling because its just too darn cute.
My champ comes upstairs and tells mommy there is a surprise for her 🙂 She kisses him and we all walk down the stairs. Long and behold, what do we see? Our “wee-bear” is caught eating some of the food the Champ has laid out for mommy.
All hell breaks loose!
My oldest lunges in with a double fisted superman punch and knocks the little one down. This is when my mother’s day participation comes in. I pull the oldest one off and I tell the little one to apologize.
I proudly prevented bloodbath between these two rivals 🙂
Picture below is the breakfast our Champ made for mommy.
bad tragedy affecting my house purchase
Yesterday was supposed to be a pretty exciting day for me. I purchased a short sale house, bought it for $250k less than what it was appraised, and we finally closed on it yesterday, yay!
My wife and I were there as buyers and there was only one person as a seller. This was odd because there were two names on the property deed. Not only that, the seller was a mess. She looked like she hasn’t slept for days and was on a verge of having a mental breakdown, right in that office. Everybody understood the mood and nobody said anything, other than the closing agent instructing us what to do.
As everybody is signing documents, I couldn’t help notice tears rolling down the seller’s face as she was trying ever so hard to swallow back whatever emotion was trying to surface. She was quivering so much, I felt sick for being the one to “take” her property 😦
Her story goes few months back. Just before Christmas, there was a horrific car accident that involved a small motor vehicle and a garbage dump truck. The dump truck driver ran a red light and basically leveled the other car, instantly killing the driver. That driver was the seller’s husband.
She is left with three children, with the youngest boy being about the same age as my kids. The husband had a successful business and made lots of money. Unfortunately, for as successful as he was, he didn’t have any life insurance, and the wife had no clue about his business. Long story short, she lost EVERYTHING in matter of months!
I actually couldn’t sleep last night because I felt like shit. This is a perfect example of morality vs. business. The agent did reassure me this has nothing to do with me. The seller made a deal with the bank and she will get paid some money, because the property sold. Agent told me the sale price has nothing to do with how much the seller gets paid. The agent also told me that the seller was very happy to see her property go to such a wonderful family.
So today, I am trying to come up with anything to make my conscience feel better. If there is a bible expert out there please correct me on this, but I’m pretty sure there is something about helping out a needy widow.
I am in the middle of writing a personal letter to the seller. In it, I will be offering to let her and her kids live in the property until she is able to stand on her own again. I am also offering her one of my cars until she is able to afford one of her own. I thought about giving her money, but she has so many creditors after her right now, it’s just going to get confiscated.
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update 5/7/2012
Her agent is telling me, the seller just wants to be left alone and doesn’t want to talk to anybody. She has moved in with her family, and her kids have transferred to a different school. She knows my offer will always be there for her. I’ll just remain on standby until I hear something back.
3 bears and Goldilocks story (Tour de France style)
This picture reminds me of “3bears and Goldilocks” story…lol. There is “Momma bear’s bike” that is sleek, fancy, with all the bells and whistles. There is “Papa bear’s bike” that is purely functional. There is “junior bear’s bike” where he can bounce to the moon and back. And, last but not least, there is “wee bear’s bike” that rocks him all the way to the finish line…lol.
I didn’t purposely configure our fitness room this way, it just ended up looking like this. This is our post dinner exercise where we all go in the basement, get on our assigned equipment, and watch Tour de France stages on the big screen. I suppose it is a pretty funny sight when all four of us are working out at the same time.
My best moment as a father and a husband
This event happened several days ago but it still makes me laugh, so its a sure indicator of a good post for my blog.
It was just an ordinary dinner at my house, just me, the two boys (5 and 3), and my lovely wife. The two boys are talking back and forth about what they are going to give mommy for valentine day. It was pretty cute to see them go back and forth trying to “one-up” each other. Eventually, oldest one settles on full size Hershey’s chocolate and the little one settles on his ring pop. It was a really sweet gesture because I know how much those two items mean to them. Full size chocolate bar is so valuable to my oldest because we rarely allow any candy in the house and when he does get one, it’s always the little baby sized ones. The ring pop is also the most treasured item for my youngest. It’s almost halfway eaten thus it is a “used” item. He guards it like a pit-bull, and it’s the only candy that has lasted this long because he only allows himself to get few licks/day before he packs it away for another day. So now, I just couldn’t just sit on the sideline and let this simply play out like this. After my boys made their final decision, I stand up and yell out, my valentine to mommy will be the bestest in the whole wide world!! I see the look on my kids face and you know they are getting nervous. “What are you gonna get mommy, daddy? asks the oldest. I boast bombastically, “I’m getting her a shiny new expensive Proform Tour de France training bicycle for Valentine’s Day, and it is sooooo expensive and sooooooo beautiful that nobody can get her anything better….HAHAHA!” Please keep in mind I am just playing around and my wife is a tri-athlete. I just know there is somebody getting ready to blast me with a hate mail for getting my wife a nice bicycle when my avatar shows how much I like bicycles, too. I promise you, my wife really loves this bike. So anyway, going back to the dinner table, my kids are in shock, devastated, and feeling hopeless. I don’t ever recall having a quiet moment at the dinner table like that…lol. You can clearly see my boys are worried sick to their stomach. I just had to take another jab again. I ask the young one, “Sooooo, what did you say you were gonna get mommy?” He replied, “It’s a secret, I’m not telling you.” LOL, I was balling in tears! Then I turn to my older one and ask the same question. He was in complete silence with facial signs of distress everywhere, I was actually getting worried he might start crying right then. He looked over to mommy, with the saddest puppy face, for some kind of miracle, hope, or sign that was clearly starting to dissipate from him. You can see the sadness in his eyes, worried his mommy would love him less because daddy’s gift is so much nicer, and knowing it was beyond impossible to match daddy’s gift. I wish I could have taken a picture of them looking at each other; it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Mommy didn’t say anything back, but I can tell she was getting all teary eyed, too. She understood what was going through his little mind and she understood he felt that way because of how much he loved her. My oldest truly loves mommy beyond anything in this world. I started getting little choked up because it was so sweet, beautiful, and innocent. Just when I think it won’t get any worse, my oldest finally starts to say something. He was very choked up and emotional as he was trying to say what was on his mind. He says, “Mommy, I’m gonna give you my heart for Valentine’s Day…” and he starts crying uncontrollably. That immediately sets off chain reaction of tears. My wife embraced my oldest, the kind of embrace only a loving & caring mother can give, and starts crying with him. I’m trying to hold back my tears, while my youngest is getting upset because he now understands he has the worst present for mommy…lol. My youngest is at an age where he realizes it stinks to be so little. He gets very frustrated at times when he knows what he want to do, but he just can’t accomplish it because…he is only three.
Everybody had wonderful dinner and everybody is feeling pretty good, so we just resumed our normal activity after dinner. Kids run off to play with their toys for next 30min while mommy and daddy catch up with day’s events at the dinner table. My oldest kept interrupting by asking us to spell “love”. What happened next was something words cannot describe, so I am not even gonna attempt to describe it. Please refer to Figure 1 below, mommy is the tall skinny one. He did that 100% all by himself, no help from anybody, from scratch. Its days like this where parenting has its greatest reward. This one day makes up for all the chaos, destructions, broken electronics, crying, fighting etc…, and whatever grief these kids will cause in the future. The little one hears all commotion going on and takes a break from his Thomas & friends to see what is going on. Realizing he is snuffed again, he is now DEMANDING somebody help him create an art project that will match what his older brother just did. Folks, when things get this cute, this fast, I cannot control myself. I start chasing these two rugrats around until they are cornered, then I give them a big giant bear hug to squeeze out whatever cuteness remains within them..lol.
I guess we all know who won the Valentine’s day challenge of 2012 🙂
My kid has Eczema, what now?
My oldest boy had really bad case of eczema when he was just an infant. Our pediatrician recommended we use all sorts of topical cream on him. For example, the one cream she recommended was called Fluocinonide cream 0.05%. I read the ingredient and it sure looks like something I do not want my kid getting dependent on. I’m probably being ignorant to modern pharmaceutical, but I’m all for letting human body deal with whatever comes its way, naturally. Long story short I fought tooth and nail against my wife and pediatrician and decided to treat him using something lot less potent. Wife and I agreed on dry skin cream labeled, “Eucerin Dry skin therapy Original” moisturizing crème. I lathered him up after every bath, every night, and completely replaced Fluocinonide cream. I knew it was probably tough on my boy because there were times when he would really flare up and complain about the rash. By this point I knew what his threshold for irritability was. I let him go long as possible with just Eucerin until it became really bad and I would add little bit of fluocinonide for instant relief. I kept up this routine for next 4 years with really positive result. I started noticing his body was getting more tolerant and his irritability threshold also got raised significantly. He would have fewer cases of bad outbreaks and these outbreaks eventually became smaller and smaller. I know his pain tolerance was raised because he would same same kind of breakout that used to bother him, but now he would just….take it like a man and not think of it. My oldest is 5 now and I no longer worry about his eczema. I should also add my current 3 year old was also diagnosed with eczema when he was an infant. I treated him the exactly the same way as my 5 year old, and he is already “cured”. I put cured in quotes because he does have some small level of breakout from time to time, but its nothing little Eucerin and pain tolerance can’t handle.
Children’s book review : Toto the cloud dog
This is my first children’s book review based on a great book I just read to my two boys, 5 and 3. My wife and I read plenty of children’s book to them but for some reason this one book stands out above all other books I’ve read to them. The book is called “Toto the Cloud Dog” by C. Nicholas and it’s on Amazon.com books. This book is interesting to me because it can be read in couple of different ways. Your kids will interpret it as a cute fluffy dog doing good deeds around the world. You will interpret it as something bit more serious. If you ever suffered loss of a family dog, or pet, this book will strike a chord with you.
My kids love this book because illustration is bright and characters are fun. Story starts out with Toto, the main character, being abused by a naughty kid. Toto gets rescued by a good boy who takes really good care of Toto. At some point Toto is struck with illness and is in pretty bad shape. What happens next is really interesting and there is a twist here. Your children will see it as Toto eventually getting better and helping out other animals around the world. Parents will realize Toto is dying while there is some “behind the scene” stuff going on with the higher power. Toto eventually do die and becomes an angel. I got really choked up here because I did lose a family dog some time ago and it was bitter sweet reading this book to my boys. So anyway, according to my interpretation, Toto becomes an angel and starts helping out other animals around the world.
I love the fact this book is written with a strong Christian value. If you are offended by Christmas, this book is not for you. I will definitely keep this book handy for the future. I want my kids to read it again, for the first time, when they are older. It will be interesting to hear their reaction when they realize what is really going on. Its intelligent writing, very thoughtful, and the author clearly loved his dog.
So in conclusion, this is a great book if you love dogs or you just love animals, and especially if you recently lost a loving pet.
I would like to award these books as being the best of the best children’s books for my kids,
1. Best classic children’s book category: All the Margaret Wise books.
2. Best behavior teaching book category: Rainbow fish
3. Best children’s dog book category: Toto the Cloud dog
Thank you PurpleOwl
Thank you PurpleOwl
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