Sandler and our new fish

For Lucy's birthday, which was a couple months ago, she got a fish. She loved our trip to Petco. She was checking out the mice, rats, ferrets, and the wide variety of other animals they have for sale at the store. After talking to a store employee we learned that if you don't have anything prepared at home (fish bowl, fish food, etc.) you are most likely leaving with a beta fish.

A beta is perfect for us because, they are low, low maintenance. Feed it once a day, clean the water once a week, it prefers to live alone, and it doesn't need a filtration system.

For any pet owner, especially a three year old, selecting a name for your pet is a big deal. I wanted to share my theory on how Lucy named her fish and its funny double meaning.

Lucy has really been into rhyming words lately. This interest in rhyming often leads to her just making up words that share sounds with other words. When discussing names here brain starts by thinking of names she knows. Libby is typically the first name that pops into her head. With that being her mom's name that is understandable.

Recently she has been calling all her dolls Lollie. I think this is a spin off of the L sound. She did the same with naming her birthday fish. We landed on the name Lippy. I wasn't sure if the name would stick, but it certainly has. I would like to take a moment to publically welcome Lippy to our family.

The double meaning of this name that always makes me laugh is that Ms. Lippy is the name of Adam Sandler's odd preschool teacher in the movie Billy Madison. I think of Billy and Ms. Lippy regularly when we are feeding Lippy.

Before signing off today, I wanted to list my top five Adam Sandler movies. In researching this list, I realized there are numerous Sandler movies I haven't seen. I would love to hear your Sandler movie recommendations.

1)Happy Gilmore

2)Billy Madison

3)The Waterboy

4)Big Daddy

5)The Wedding Singer

DUDE REPORT: Beer and Beards

As parents we have learned the importance of being a step a head of your kids. Having a plan for a snack or nap can be very important to avoid a meltdown. While we of course want to teach our girls to be flexible too, a hungry 3 year old is hungry or tired 7 month old is simply no fun.

With this DUDE REPORT (the first non-sports DUDE REPORT) I want to list two examples of where I applied the proactive attitube to two aspects of my "dude life".

First, I started buying and drinking Octoberfest beer in early September. Octoberfest beer is my favorite seasonal beer. I anticipated my need, and was successful in being a step ahead. I analysis Octoberfest beer further later in this post.

Secondly, I started growing my beard for what I like to call “No Shave November” in early October. Again, if that doesn’t speak of being proactive, I don’t know what does. Don’t look now, but I just might have my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving!?!?!?

The "No Shave November" tradition started a couple years ago when I started deer hunting with my father-in-law and brother-in-law. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your feelings on beards, I plan to discuss my beard at least two more times during the month of November. Some many remember that I got some support with the beard last year. (The circus was in town)

Octoberfest Beer
As I mentioned, Octoberfest beer is my favorite season beer. Now that the calendar has turned to November, I wanted to reflect back on my favorite Octoberfest beers. Please let me know which ones I am missing and which are your favorites. Then together we can count down the days to next years “Octoberfest season”!

1) Hoptoberfest-New Belgium Brewing Company: From the makers of Fat Tire this seasonal beer took top honors for me this season. As you can see from the name it may be too Hoppy for the Octoberfest purist. In addition to not 100% knowing what “too hoppy” tastes like, Hoptoberfest was spot on for me.

2) Spaten OctoberFest Beer: Originally made on Munich, drinking this make me think that I was in Germany for Octoberfest. Going to Germany for Octoberfest is definitely on my bucket list. Buying it at my local Sam’s Club reminded me that I was clearly in America!?!?!?

3) Sam Adam’s OctoberFest: Sam Adam’s is always a favorite of mine. I wasn’t able to muster up the courage to buy or try their Harvest Pumpkin Ale, but it sounds intriguing and perfect for Halloween. Sammy’s Octoberfest were shared by a neighbor buddy who ranks this beer number one.

4) Leinenkugel’s Octoberfest: Pains me to have a Wisconsin beer earning a 4th place rank. I am always open to retesting, and I think the Leine’s many have fallen victim to my high expectations. I love the Sunset Wheat and Summer Shandy and the Octoberfest was a slight step back.

Octoberfest I would like to try: Lakefront Oktoberfest Lager Beer, Milwaukee, WI, Beck’s Oktoberfest, Germany, and Ayinger Oktoberfest, Germany to name a few!

Who knew being proactive could taste so good!?!?!?

Why I love my cheap cell phone

At my last job our company work phone was a Blackberry. I remember how excited I was to have my first “smart” phone. The opportunity to browse the web, a full key pad, and having my e-mail on my phone were all features I was pumped for. Of course, shortly after receiving the phone I realized why the company thought these phones were so cool too…they could track you down anywhere and anytime if needed!?!?!?!

When I left my job the phone went back to the company. I joined my in-laws' friends and family plan and selected a phone from the options of free phones offered with a new line. The extent of my phone downgrade has been a bit of a running joke around the house.

Lib loves to laugh at how difficult it is for me to send a text. I have to agree, texting is my top complaint with the old school phone. Hitting 3 three times for c or 7 four times for s gets annoying quickly. I often find myself unable to send a text that accurately captures my feelings. For example, recently a friend send me a long text (clearly from a full key pad) inviting me to do something. I replied, “I out 4 2nite.” I couldn't even muster up a “thx” or a “ttyl”

The second main downgrade with the switch in phones was the quality of the camera. The camera takes grainy, low quality pictures. Unfortunately for you the reader this hasn’t stopped me from using the pictures in past posts. (Shopping Queen or wait… and Year One as a Stay at Home Dad to list a few)

Despite my various complaints and the on-going countdown to 20 months, when I am eligible for a new phone, I fell in love me my phone recently at the park. The phone made up for all of its bad features by not having a certain feature. Thank you for being a cheap enough phone to not have a zoom on the camera!

If the camera on my phone had a zoom I believe I would have been more then arms length away from Paige and Lucy after taking this picture. Being more then arms length away wouldn’t have allowed me to catch Paige when Lucy decided to let go!

It was my fault for putting Lucy, still only 3, in that position. Both girls were smiling and enjoying playing together on the pictures rocking toy. I decided to step back and snap a quick picture on the camera phone. After taking the picture I said, “Thanks, great, that was a good one.”

Lucy reacted like many 3 year olds at the park who fly from toy to toy. In her head my comment meant we were done with that toy and she was on to the next. I was going into my natural habit of looking at the phone to see how the picture turned out. Without even thinking about it I lunged toward the ground to catch a falling Paige. Thank the Lord that she fell my way and that I was able to catch an arm before anything other than her feet hit the ground.

I was scared, Lucy felt bad, and Paige expressed her feelings moments later, by filling her pants. The whole experience, which lasted about 1 second, took my breath away. The idea that Paige had the crap scared out of her made me laugh a bit after I knew she was alright.

With a full pair of pants and no diapers with us, and of course, the whole near miss fall thing I thought we had done enough at the park for one day. We were on our way home shortly.

On the walk home I found some time to give my phone a quick kiss!

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!