Life and times of a father in America

Let me start by saying that in today's market I am extremely greatful to have a job. That being said, I would just love to tell my boss's bosses to "BACK OFF"! This month has been hectic to the extreme for me. My position is to obtain copies of all rebates being paid to ProBuild for the entire country, evaluate the backup information, and provide an accurate distribution so that this money goes to the correct region and location. A normal month so far has hit around $3M coming in. This month broke $8M coming in. WOW. On top of this, we have a project from the corporate office that is realistically a 4-6 week project by itself, to be completed in 3-4 weeks, on top of processing the rebates for the month. I am not about half way through both projects, with 1 week available to concentrate on each, and beginning to feel overwhelmed. The biggest problem with always managing to succeed at impossible projects is that they will always give you something more challenging...

Not sure what I'm gonna type this time, not much is happening. Or maybe I should say a lot is happening but not much new. Harmony has decided to volunteer with me in the 2's and 3's at church. Since we made the decision to home school I have come to realize that working 40 hours a week will make it difficult for me to be active in my kids education. My solution is to volunteer in their Sunday School class. Beginning with Sam when he was in the nursery, I have given 1 weekend a month in his class. When he moved up to the 2's and 3's class, I did the same. With Evie I am doing the same thing. Well Harmony has repeatedly heard me mention how we just don't have enough adults to help in these preschool classes, and decided to come help me out. We also decided to move Evie from the Nursery up to the 2's and 3's early. As a result we are in that class twice a month, usually as the only two teachers. Potty training is going well. Sam has been using a p...

Mid 2006, Harmony and I invested around $1800 in a washer dryer set. GE front load, high efficiency, and we paid the extra for the bottom drawers. January 2007, I accepted a position in Lacey WA and we moved north. Our brand new washer and dryer set went into storage at Mary's house. November 2008, we move into a manufactured home in Tenino WA and finally have a place where we can use the washer dryer set. August 2009, the drum stops spinning in the washer. Initial diagnosis is that the belt went bad. After driving over and hour to Tacoma to pickup a new belt, it takes almost 2 hours to get home Friday night. After installing the new belt we discover that it still keeps falling off. There is a little extra wiggle in the drum pulley. Harmony sends an email to GE and the response tells us that the drum bearing has gone bad. A $400-$650 repair that we won't be able to afford for a couple of months. My parents head to the bank and deposit some money into our account so I can get t...

Today Harmony called me at work to inform me that our washing machine has stopped spinning. The pump still drains, but no spin to the drum. After getting home I opened up the back to find that the belt has stretched/melted and come off the 2 pulleys. So far the only price we have is if we order directly from GE, $65.00. We have a full week until our next pay check and nothing to spend until then. So we still need to try and find this belt locally, and then we either was dirty underwear (remember Evie is potty training) by hand in the sink, or we put it on a credit card (which means we will are that much farther from every paying it off). Prayers for a little miracle would be greatly appreciated right now.

Back in 2005, back when Sam was just a dream yet to come true, we had a very comfortable living. Facts are simple, Harmony and I both maintained a full time job. The income we evenly split, with Harmony bringing home a little more than me each month. With the insertion of a child, this miracle named Samuel, we made a decision that Harmony needed to stay home and take care of him, at least until kindergarten. So overnite our income was cut in half. Coming up on 4 years since and this decision has shadowed every decision, every move. I do not regret it, both of my kids are amazing, and Harmony is definately making a difference with her hands on care. Fact of the matter is that if we put the kids in day care and Harmony took a full time job again, her entire income would go towards paying child care. We as a family get the best benifit with her being a stay home mom. Now we have the lingering debt we are still trying to pay down, mixed with an increasingly difficult economy, and ev...

That's the score after one day of potty training. We decided to try and potty train Evie. At the same time we chose to take Sam's potty seat away and make him use a big potty. Now he as to stand and pee or sit and hold himself up. Evie has a smaller potty seat just her size. For a partial success Evie gets a sticker on her chart. Sam has to make a complete success, including flushing, and he has to remember to ask us for his sticker. So at the end of day 1, Sunday 8-2-2009, Evie went through 14 pairs of panties, 1 T-shirt, and had 1 official success. Sam is doing really good, but is afraid to stand up, and always seems to pee under the seat and on the back of his pants. Harmony is home feeling under the weather (great timing) and dealing with the bulk of this potty training alone while I work.