My favorite candidate

Today in Election Day! Two reasons to celebrate quickly come to mind for me. First, is the opportunity to freely and peacefully exercise our right to vote. Secondly, today marks the end of the political commercials and phone calls.

This election season, like many before it and many to come, the candidates spoke of change. Things they would do to make our government and our lives better. I am posting today to point out a person that I feel has truly made great strides of change over the past two years. She does not appear on the ballot, but like many others of her generation, she has been working daily to figure out the world around her.

In two years when the political advertisements fill our airwaves promising more real change, without being pessimistic about our government, I am confident that she will have outperformed them again. Now that “our little candidate” has a running mate, I fully expect the next two years to go even faster than the last two.

We are proud of the development you have made over the last two years. I can’t wait to find out what the hot button topics are in 2012 when there is a 5 year old and a 2and a half year old in the house. Regardless you two will always have our vote!
















Lucy Elections Day 2008

Food & Grocery: Coupon Strategy

Since becoming a stay at home dad I have become more active in meal prep and grocery shopping. I have started to enjoy cooking, and trying to save as much as possible at the grocery store appeals to my competitive side. For these reasons, and because the grocery store is a lot less busy mid morning on a week day grocery shopping has landed on my to do list. Over time I have developed a system for making a shopping list, clipping coupons, and working my way through the store.

In many ways grocery shopping is like parenting. Millions of people do it, each in their own unique way. In parenting and grocery shopping everyone has their struggles (we seem to frequently blow the beer budget!?!?!) and strategies. As a parent and shopper I consider myself a work in progress and gain comfort knowing countless others are going through the same things are we are.

I want to lay out my current grocery shopping strategy, explain areas where I want to do more, and discuss some weaknesses of our current system. I turn to you blog community to help fine tune the strategy. I would love to hear your system, you strengths, weaknesses, etc. (As a guy who in a previous life went to Cub Foods coupon-less, I am now clearly over the top with my grocery issues!?!?!? My apologizes!)

Current Strategy: Lib prefers Target, I like Cub Foods, and in a pinch we use CobornsDelivers. Coborns seems to be a bit more expensive, but sometimes the convenience of having groceries at your door is priceless.

I try to do a weekly grocery shop. The girls are usually pretty good about shopping. Lucy rides in the cart, Paige goes in the front pack, and all the old women at the store smile and stare at our set up. Beautiful system!

In preparation we go through the kitchen, fridge, and freezer to see what we need. I go over the weekly Cub ad as well as the bi-monthly Cub flyer and the manufacturer coupons. There is nothing like double couponing an item (Cub ad and manufacturer’s ad)!

I love watching the total cost of groceries go down after everything has been rung up and the check out person starts scanning the coupons. I also love that on the Cub receipt they print % saved. My goal is always 20%, I get super pumped if it gets toward 25%, and with a few system improvements I think I can consistently be pushing 30%.

System improvements needed: I currently have two main areas of focus for improving the grocery system. I am hopeful after this post you will help me out with others.

First, I need to tap into the wide variety of on-line coupons that exist. I recently signed up for Shortcuts.com and ShopAtHome.com . I have yet to print and use any of these coupons, but I think these additional coupons could increase the savings. Do you have any web coupons that you have had a lot of success with?

Secondly, I want to streamline the shopping list. Many people lay out the weekly meal schedule and then only buy the ingredients they need for those meals. I am not there yet, but knowing we have a plan for the buy one get one free cantaloupe instead of just racing to fit it into every meal before it expires would be helpful. A detailed list of needs would also help me with one of my weaknesses…chasing the deals.

Weaknesses: I haven’t gone to the extreme of buying Kibbles ‘N Bits because it is such good deal even though we don’t have a dog, but I have come close. In my attempt to generate as high of a percentage saved on my receipt as possible, I have definitely bought items off the grocery list. Although I know this is playing right into the grocery store’s hands, it hasn’t been completely a bad thing. The buy one get one free ham steaks that I had no idea what we were going to do with went in the freezer and eventually turned into two good meals. (Lib and Lucy may argue that the word good could be left out of the last sentence, but they can’t argue with the fact they turned into two meals.)

My plan for a solution is to make the shopping list (hopefully more detailed in the future) and then use the coupons that apply to what we need. Coupons that can be used in future weeks can be cut, saved, and then used when those items are needed. Not sure how this plan will affect my goal of getting to 30% savings, but the real goal is saving dollars. If the percentage is lower that isn’t a problem as long as the overall spend is lower.

My second weakness, which will probably be an ongoing battle, is finding the time to execute the plan. Collecting coupons from multiple locations, laying out a week of meals, etc. can be very time consuming. The reward of dollars saved is good, but there is no denying that life is busy. I will keep you posted on attempts do make the system time efficient.

Your suggestions and recommendations on any or all of this would be greatly appreciated.

Happy start to National Blog Month!

National Blog Month

November is national blog month. To celebrate there is a tradition of bloggers posting every day in November. I plan to participant in this time honored tradition (blogs started in 1997) and blog all 30 days of the month. How I will be able to do this is unclear, but I am looking forward to seeing what topics are covered during November.

Two blogs that I read FatJ and Bebe’s Corner Blog have confirmed that they too will be participating. If you have a blog, I invite you to participate. Like running a marathon National Blog Month will be more fun if it is done with others in an organized fashion. Going out and running 26.2 miles by yourself on a random morning around your neighborhood just isn’t that appealing to me.

There are two personal blog items that daily November posts will help with. First, I will be able to get back on pace to fulfill my blog commitment. After committing to blog weekly, I only posted three times in September and once in October. 30 straight days of posting will help bring that average back to my committed frequency.

Secondly, I am interested in following what affect daily posting will do to traffic on my blog. Monthly I average 570 visits. My highest month is 762 visits, which was January. I posted 12 times that month, more than any other month since starting the blog. I think that is more then a coincidence, but I want to learn more about how close the correlation is between visits and posts. Either way, clearly my blog is no YouTube, with its 2 billion videos views per day and 24 home videos uploaded every minute. I have set a goal of 1000 visits in November. I would love to have you check in daily!

Happy Halloween, enjoy what is left of October, and I will see you in November!

Name that vehicle

Growing up we had a tradition of naming our family vehicles. One objective of this blog is to find out if that was normal. Did anyone else have a car that they named?

As I look back on our various cars and their names there seems to have been a decline in the creativity as time went on. This trend continues today. For example, Libby drives a red highlander and we refer to it as…drum roll…the red car. Before discussing our current cars further I want to take a moment to recognize the vehicles of my youth that we named with affection.

First, and the most creative of the names, was Babe the baby blue Ford Aerostar. The name came from Paul Bunyan’s ox, Babe, who was the same color as our first mini-van. I would estimate we rocked this thing throughout the Midwest during the early 90’s. This was back when vans only had a sliding door in one side.

My older sister cruised to and from school in Bonnie the Bonneville starting in 1995ish. Early 1990s model, with a very long front hood.

My first car was Curt the Camry. I estimate it to be a 1990 Toyota Camry.

With Bonnie and Curt, you can see creativity was already on the decline. Better then red car, but no Babe.

All the above pictures were pulled from the Internet, not shots of our actual vehicles. I thought I would mention that, just in case the sunset and barn in the background of the Pontiac Bonneville weren't enough of a give away.

Back to present day other then the red car, we have a van. After leaving my sales job that included a car, we were in need of a vehicle. Lib’s parents were in the market for a new car themselves, so we bought their used van. A lot of people say they could never drive a van, but I love it. Vans are so spacious and ours has really been very convenient for all our summer travels.

The only issue I have with our van is that it is currently nameless. I would love your help, so please submit any suggestions you may have. To get the brainstorming started below I have listed a couple of other famous vans.

Dumb and Dumber is one of my favorite movies of all time. Harry and Lloyd cruised most of the way across the country in their Shaggin’ Wagon. It was traded for a moped after Harry made a wrong turn on their way to Aspen.

I love this YouTube clip about The Sienna “Swagger Wagon”.



Last but not least, a shot of our van. I guess we don't have any real shots of (would be great to have a name here) our van, so I again went to the Internet. Good luck naming this beauty!

nocturnal frog

When you hear a crash like that in the bathroom one room over at 3am you really fly out of bed quickly. Come to find out when it happens a second time a few months later at the same time of day, your heart pumps with the same adrenaline as the first time. It wasn’t until the second incident that I decided to do something about it. What was this incident that had me flying out of bed at roughly 3am multiple times you ask…it was the nocturnal frog.

When we were expecting Lucy some friends gave us the below pictured frog to hang in the bathtub and collect the bath toys. When reading the instructions for installing the frog I misinterpreted a few of the steps. More specifically, the steps regarding suctioning a piece of the frog to the shower wall by cleaning and drying the area before applying suction cups. My interpretation of those steps was to just push really hard when applying suction cups.

The frog stayed up for a while and as a bath toy picker upper and holder it worked great. The basket had holes in it so you can just scoop up the bath toys and the water would run out and back into the tub.

The first time the frog fell off of the wall with an alarmingly loud crash I didn’t initially know what it was. Frankly, my first reaction was fear. I thought someone was in the house or that a deer has jumped through the window. (Oddly, what you first think of when you hear a loud crash in the middle of the night may be genetic. I say this because I distinctly recall my mom saying she thought a deer had jumped through our kitchen window the night our cat knocked the glass gerbil cage over. I have no further evidence of this beyond this one example.)

Although fear was my first reaction I charged out of the room shirtless and more consequently if it was a house invader…weaponless. I was able to take a deep breath after looking in the bottom of the bath tub to see Mermaid Dora, Swimming Elmo, and Back Float Baby staring back at me. I returned to bed, explained to Lib what the noise was, and of course vowed to fix the frog in the morning.

Due to Lucy’s love of the frog and its overall usefulness we gave it a pass on causing a house wide heart attack the night before. The “just push hard” application was used again and we were back in business. Inevitable the frog fell again. Of course it wasn’t during the middle of the day or when we weren’t home, but in the middle of the night. This leaving me no choice but to conclude that the frog is nocturnal.

In response to these two events we have moved to a more grounded system. This pink basket was purchased at Target and although it isn’t shaped like any animal is doing the job quite well. Most importantly is has slept through the night every night since we brought it more. A trick Paige has yet to figure out!?!?!

Shopping Queen or wait…

This weekend Libby’s brother is getting married. We are all very excited for Dan and Mollie. Lucy has been asked to be the flower girl (a blog worthy event if I have ever heard of one). This past weekend we were completing some final preparations, which included a trip the mall. When we go shopping we all have our rolls: Lib has the shopping list, “front pack Paige” looks around and tries to grab anything close, Lucy occasional holds mom's hand and asks for stuffs, and dad just tries to keep up and stay out of the way.

Upon entering Old Navy Lucy quickly found the section of clothes that were her size or in her words “my section”. After Libby found a button down cover up in case Lucy gets cold in her dress she was off to the next section. Lucy wasn’t going any where. As Lucy continued to comb through the racks I began to have visions of an emerging shopping queen. I imagined a young lady with arms full of must have outfits, shopping carts full of shoes, and in store meltdowns with yelling and tears whenever she heard the word no.

As I snapped out of my daydream I noticed she wasn’t really picking anything out, just enjoying looking at the clothes. So wait, maybe not a shopping queen maybe someone with a future in fashion or design. She was heard using such quotes as, “that is cute” and “I like the pink one” or “that would be good” all while talking to the clothing.

Mom stopped by to let us know she was going to the fitting room. This brief visit made Lucy switch gears. She started to organize the clothes, and if any of you have ever been to the St. Louis Park Old Navy you know there is plenty of this needed. She started taking shirts that where on the wrong rack and moving them back with their matches. Shoes and sandals were returned to their right places, sweatshirts were folded (kind of), and shirts were put back on hangers.

With a mother who was has a math degree, a “papa” in accounting, and a soon to be aunt (5 days away at the time of posting) who is a CPA Lucy’s sorting and organizing made me say, “or wait” again. Genetics are powerful and she was looking like the next generation “bean counter”.

When we got home she wanted to turn her bedroom into a clothing store. When I arrived at the store (walked into her room) she started taking clothes out of her closet and drawers that she thought I would like. When she showed me an 18 month sleeper (not sure why we have this out with a 3 year old and 6 month old in the house) for my younger daughter I told her it might be too big. She said she will grow into it. When she showed me a summer dress for my older daughter I told her it might be too cold for this time of year. She replied that she could still wear it inside. As we went through this sales process I said or wait again and thought that a sales career could be in her future.

While we don’t know what Lucy will pursue when she gets older this experience has me convinced she has some options. This week our focus is on her being a 3 year old (bday is the 14th) and on Saturday a Flower Girl. Updates on both will be coming soon.

DUDE REPORT: Fantasy Football

This is my fifth dude report and it is the fifth that is about sports. This serves as evidence that I am a sports nut. Basketball, baseball, football…I like it all. To take the “nuttiness” to a higher level I enjoy playing fantasy football. Those of you who don’t like football particularly fantasy football, because you think it is something sports nerds use as an extra excuse to analysis stats, because it makes your spouse cheer for odd players on odd teams, or because it make for a frantic hour on the computer before Sunday’s noon kickoff to make sure the lineup is set…you are right on all accounts.

With that all said, my two sports fan highlights of the year are filling out my NCAA March Madness bracket and drafting my fantasy football team. Nutty, nerdy, over the top…guilty on all charges!??! Below are my predictions for this year’s fantasy football season.

If after all that ranting you are interested in giving fantasy football a try or looking to join another league, I would love to offer ESPN’s Gridiron Challenge. It is free, fun, and not too time consuming. I have started a group: Winneconne, etc with the password: packers. (Background: Winneconne is the name of my home town in Wisconsin. I am a Packer fan.)

Before we dive into more sports, I wanted confirm that I still have plans to take the DUDE REPORT into dude topics beyond sports. Grilling, landscaping, and why we all should demand Hollywood make Anchorman 2 to list a few future topic examples!?!?

Booms: (Players who will exceed expectations this year)
QB: Tony Romo, DAL
RB: DeAngelo Williams, CAR & Jonathan Stewart, CAR
RB: Michael Turner, ATL
WR: Greg Jennings, GB
WR: Hakeem Nicks, NYG
TE: Jason Witten, DAL
K: Matt Prater, DEN
DEF: San Francisco 49ers

Busts: (Players that may still have good years, but will underperform to expectations)
QB: Eli Manning, NYG
RB: Rashard Mendenhall, PIT
RB: Ryan Grant, GB
WR: Larry Fitzgerald, ARI
WR: Mike Sims-Walker, JAC
TE: Owen Daniels, HOU
K: Jay Feely, ARI
DEF: Denver Broncos

Sleepers: (Late round picks or players no one is talking about that will make an impact)
QB: Kevin Kolb, PHI
RB: Arian Foster, HOU
RB: Cadillac Williams, TB
WR: Jeremy Maclin, PHI
WR: Jacoby Jones, HOU
TE: Jermaine Gresham, CIN
K: Neil Rackers, HOU
DEF: Cincinnati Bengals