I have a new strategy for dealing with my unhappy little girls. Basically, if I feel a swell of frustration inside of me because they’re harassing me while I’m trying to do something, I no longer get bothered and lose my cool. Instead, I stop what I’m doing and change something to try to make it better. It’s so simple you probably just missed it. Let me give examples:

Talking to a friend

This is the classic parent dilemma. I’m talking to a friend while we’re out having coffee. Norah and Stella finish their snack and drink, and they are no longer happy sitting at the table with me and Jeff. So they start heckling me and demanding more of my attention. When I ask the girls what they want, they don’t have any ideas.

This is where I would normally get bothered. I would lose my cool or go back to ignoring them. Now I look for ways to change the situation. Get our coffee to go and head to the park. Or take a ride around Arcadia in Luke’s golf cart. With the girls strapped into their seats, we can keep our adult conversation going. We’re all happier because of it.

Working on a project

I am obsessed with making stuff. I’ve spent a decade making stuff online, in the classroom, and in boardrooms. It gets dull. Right now, I’m most obsessed with building things with my hands. And it’s clear that Norah is obsessed with building too. Typically, I’ll start a project outside and get moving. Norah will discover that I’m having fun and want to join the barn raising.

It sounds cute at first, but within a minute she’s gets too close to the project and risks messing it up or even worse, getting hurt. So now I try to have some sort of side project that she can work with while I’m doing my thing. Or I’ll explain to her the steps of the project and then let her know which part is just for me to do, and which parts can we do together. Things go better
this way.

Keeping a Cool House

So lets be real here for a minute. One of the reasons why stylin’ single people get uneasy about the idea of “settling down and having a family” is because there are so many sloppy examples of what this really looks like. You know, the sexy young couple gets married and then they stumbled through their years together and eventually lose their style, gain weight, and their house is destroyed by snot-flinging children. Nobody wants this to happen.

Solution 1: The Play Corner

So the way Candyce and I dealt with this dilemma was to have a cool house and then have a kid friendly corner in our living room. This is where we kept Norah’s toy box and a couple push toys, like a baby carriage and a shopping cart. This worked for a time, but through a couple birthdays and Christmases, that cute arrangement of toys had grown to an awkward, precarious stack of toys. Even when Norah’s corner was “clean,” it still didn’t look cool. We looked like parents who were losing control of their house.

Plus Norah seemed frustrated by the whole situation. Her space was cramped, so it wasn’t fun to play with anything. So she would keep digging through the toy box hoping to find a burst of excitement, but she never did. So every night, I had to repack and restack the play corner, and the next morning Norah would bring it all back down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Solution 2: The Play Room

One afternoon a few months ago, Candyce’s brothers and dad were hanging out at our house doing nothing. So I put them to work by rearranging our furniture to create a playroom for the girls. Candyce wasn’t too happy because it seemed impulsive, but it was something that I had been scheming for weeks. Plus I knew that talking about it would get us nowhere–this is the kind of thing you just have to do and see what happens. I promised that if she didn’t like it after a week, I’d put it all back.

What did we do? I flipped the dining room and the living room (1 couch, 2 comfy chairs.) Rather than just swapping the dining room table for a living room furniture, I put one of the comfy chairs into storage. With the extra space that was freed up, I created a whole wall of toys for Norah. She was thrilled! We were thrilled b/c we could still sit and talk, but now Norah and Stella could be occupied. Victory.

Solution 3: The Play Room with Storage

So the new playroom was a hit, but it was also ALWAYS messy. Something had to be done. I was uninspired by searching for “toy storage” on Pinterest. But I did stumble upon a DIY garment rack on some creative girl blog. So I got gangster on the idea and came up with our toy rack:

The hanging canvas buckets keep toys close, but out of reach with little kids. It’s such a very simple concept–but it’s magic.

Summary

If you want to be happy, don’t try to make children fit into your grown up world. It wasn’t fair to kids two generations ago, and it’s not fair to kids today. You’re the designer. It’s easy to design a Dwell-like home with all the hipster adult details, surfaces, etc. The best designers, though, aren’t afraid to create a house to be a–dare I say it–a home for children first, and then make it stylish enough for adults.

Sleep depravation does strange things to a man.

Over the past couple of weeks, I feel like I’ve been pushed to my limits to take care of my sick girls. I’m also become more aware of how I’ve taken comfort for granted.

Back in Phoenix, it was midnight runs to the 24/7 pharmacy for medicine, Gatorade, and saltine crackers for a sick Candyce and Norah. Then sleeping on a cot in the corner of my own bedroom so that I could stay away from the sick ones, but still be close enough to care for them if their stomachs rejected the little food and fluid that they brought down. It was changing out puke buckets and scrubbing toilets.

Here in California, it’s been more vomiting from both Norah and Stella, but the worst has been ear pain. These ear aches are horrible because your child wanders into sleep for just a few moments before they’re jolted back awake by the sharp pain deep within their ear. It’s hours of tears and screams.

Through all of this, it’s interesting how uncomfortable a parent is willing to be in order to make sure their sick child is comfortable enough to fall asleep. I’m sure part if it is because parents love their kids, but it’s a lot more about what does it take to get your own head back on that pillow. A little sacrifice now means more sleep later. I got through the blazing heat of the 65 pounds of blankets that were heaped onto my legs because my stillness meant that Norah could fall deeper into sleep. Later that same night, I fell asleep sitting up in a chair because it soothed Norah’s ear to be upright. There is nothing about falling asleep in a chair that is comfortable.

Finally on Christmas Eve we had a silent night. It was magical to wake up on Christmas morning fully rested. In the few days after Christmas, it was all well.

But Stella has acquired a nasty habit of getting really angry at night. I’ve found that the only thing that calms her down is to walk her around the neighborhood through the dark of the night. It’s bizarre to go from being happily asleep in my own warm bed to getting out onto the street in yesterday’s clothes with a baby on my back, both of us wrapped with a down comforter to keep off the December chill. An hour later, Stella is finally asleep and I’m ready to climb back up the stairs and slide back into a cozy bed.

Even still, sometimes all that attention is not enough. Stella falls asleep for just fifteen minutes and then she’s up again and angry at the world. So for the past two nights, Candyce, Norah, and I relocated in the middle of the night downstairs and all fallen asleep on the couches. At least there we’re away from riot that is Stella.

Last night was round 3/4/5 of sickness was last night. Candyce and Norah got a cold that made it hard for both of them to breathe. I flopped out of bed and explored the closets of the house to find a humidifier.  Luckily it worked quite well. I woke early in the morning with a thick coating of dew on top of my pillow and blankets. That’s bizarre. This whole thing has been bizarre. And it doesn’t show any signs of stopping.

Lucky for me this is all happening on vacation. Yeah, it’s not ideal, but at least it’s not interrupting work the next day. I’ve been thinking too about how life has been different without the comforts that I took for granted before these rounds of sickness hit my family. Comfort is good, that’s why we reach for it. But too much comfort makes you a less compassionate person. Inevitably it turns you greedy too. It’s not enough to sleep in a warm bed within the shelter of a home, it has to be a super nice bed within a super nice home in a super nice city.

At this very moment, I feel very lucky just to have 30 minutes of solitude where I can write a blog.

01/02/2013 Update

New Year’s Eve —> New Year’s Day was not fun. I took turns taking care of Stella (teething) and Norah (ear ache) until 5:30 in the morning.

So Candyce showed this calendar to me and said that she was going to make one just like it. Why not make it a little exciting? I sketched some things out and then shared them with her and she wasn’t at all curious with my big ideas. So I got the project started myself. Two-and-a-half months later, I finally finished it. Here’s some photos of the project, and what it looks like on the wall here a year later.

It happens like this. At least twice a month I sit down to write a blog about some meaningful part of my daily life as a dad, and I end up getting frustrated twenty minutes into it because the words that type don’t do this subject justice. I want to share a glimpse of the magic of fatherhood in at least one blog post, but as sentences turn into paragraphs, that magic gets lost inside of sentimental storytelling.

I don’t publish these blogs not because I’m afraid to be soft, but more because the stories end up reading like every other story I’ve heard parents share with other parents my whole life. Stories about the innocence of children. Stories about skinned knees. Stories about tender kisses and hugs.

Why is it this way? Why these same stories? Becoming a parent changes your very being, so it shouldn’t make sense that something so epic could be distilled so perfectly into short, sentimental stories. But somehow they do.  The story is just a drop of water, but it is the essence of a great ocean. This is why parents share these very familiar stories, because behind every one of those simple stories is a profound relationship with another soul.

…

Last night Norah woke up twice before midnight crying about her legs hurting. Both times I sprung out of bed and quietly but quickly walked down the hall to comfort her before she woke up Stella. Both times her face was wet with tears. She twisted around on the bed, reaching back to grab her calves and repeating the word “Hurt! Hurt! Hurt!” Both times I prayed over her legs and asked Jesus to take away her pain. I rubbed her legs and feet. I sang songs to her. Somewhere between the second and third song, she stopped sobbing and joined in during the few words that she understood. Slowly… very slowly… she drifted into sleep. After a few minutes of deep sleep, it was okay for me to tuck her blankets and return to my own bed.

On the third outburst of screaming, I told Candyce that I was out of ideas and that it was her turn to try to comfort Norah. Five minutes later, Candyce came back into the room and said with desperation and defiance: “Norah told me she doesn’t want me there. She wants you to help her.” So here I was, my third trip down the hall to comfort an agitated little three year old in the middle of the night.

I did the same thing. I prayed. I rubbed her legs. I sang. But after she fell back asleep, I decided to stay put, to keep holding her close and let myself drift into sleep.

I woke up four hours later to the sound of my cell phone alarm. It was time to get up for a full day of important meetings, maybe the most important meetings that I’ll host this year. I still had so much to prepare for in the two hours before the first meeting. But I pressed snooze anyway, not because I was dreadfully tired, but because it afforded me another few minutes to cherish the sweet sweet little girl whose warm breath fluttered on my cold cheek.

…

The two years of graduate school was punishing for me, mostly because I had to steal time away from my family for class, meetings, homework. Class. Meetings. Homework. Then I came home to a loving but tattered little family. Norah took it the hardest. Her little heart was raw, and it showed up sometimes in bad behavior, but mostly in tears. I did my best to make time for her every day, but some weeks and months were impossibly busy.  It’s a terrible day when you are too busy to see your own child.

On those difficult days, I would wake up in the middle of the night and give Candyce a kiss on the cheek. Then I’d walk down the hallway to find a sleeping Norah. I laid next to her, scooped her into my arms, told her how much I loved her and then fell back asleep. I would be gone by the time she woke up, off to fight another day. My hope was that even if she were not alert to the fact that I held her that night, maybe her little heart, her little soul would somehow feel closer to her Dad.

…

You hold your child because you think they need you. And in for that abrupt moment, that’s true. But the truth is that you hold your child because you need them.

I am on the flight from Indianapolis back to Phoenix. I spent the last three days—three very full days—at the National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC). About 25,000 teens from around the country come together every two years for this event. In the mornings and at nights, it’s a mix of main stage talks, concerts, and entertainment. In the hours in between, teenagers explore the bazillion acres of convention space for more talks, concerts, entertainment, plus an exhibit hall where different organization set up with booths.

Our own Life Teen booth was cool and all, but if you walked past us, you would never know that we were one of the largest Catholic organizations on earth. It wasn’t big or flashy. Then again, no booth was big and flashy. There’s so little money to be made in this “industry” that it would be silly to invest all your money in a booth b/c there’s no market share to grab. Instead, we all support the mission of Faith in humble and simple ways.

While I was at NCYC, I gave two talks on the subject of the entertainment media to a room of 1000, and one talk to a room of about 1500. I don’t know of any other time throughout the year where I can have that big of an impact in such little time. For this reason, I am a big fan of NCYC. It’s an efficient trip.

I can’t deny, though, that this NCYC thing is so big that I can’t make sense of it. Maybe it’s because I am tired, and it’s too hard to write about something when I haven’t had the time or the energy to write about it. Maybe it’s because I’ve been to this conference several times before, so that the conference’s magnitude in and of itself doesn’t ignite my awe anymore. I’m not discounting the spiritual foundation of NCYC and the impact that the conference can have on each person who attends. It’s just hard to see in the middle of the circus. Here’s the ironic thing—every adult who leads or contributes to the event would probably agree with me. So we all do our part to make it more than a fleeting rah! rah! trip in the middle of November.

I can’t wait to get home. Candyce said that Norah woke up all throughout the night crying because she misses me. What could be more heartwarming to a father than that? The bad news is that Norah ended up waking up Stella. So none of my three girls slept well last night. I can’t wait to be on the ground again so I can continue what’s most important to me—being a husband and father.

• San Diego, CA (Post graduation trip with the family)
• Pittsburgh / Steubenville, Ohio (Franciscan University Youth conference)
• Kansas City / Atchison, Kansas (Benedictine College for LTLC)
• Prescott, AZ (Camp Tepeyac)
• San Diego, CA (Family Vacation)
• Hiawassee, GA (Family Visit with parents)
• Atlanta, GA (Steubenville Youth Conference)
• Tiger, GA (Family at Camp Covecrest)

I don’t know if there will be time to reflect on the experiences that I had in each of those places. I’ve got plenty of stories and cool photos, but not enough time to collect them into a blog. It’s a good thing that Candyce has a blog too.  Soon she will stack her blog with photos and sweet memories.

This recent 2-week vacation to Georgia (we got back a couple days ago) was really good for our family. I got to spend a lot of time with my daughters, with Candyce, my parents, sisters, brothers, and my grandmother. I also spent a lot of time with teenagers (2500 at Steubenville, 220 at camp) who benefit from my hard work throughout the year at Life Teen. It was encouraging.

Just for fun, I’ll be impulsive and write about whatever is on my mind. I’ve got 20 minutes before I have to go.

1. I need a haircut. We’ve been out of town so much that I couldn’t schedule in a trim with my barber here in Tempe. I told myself that I could get a haircut while out of town, but we were always having so much fun that it seemed like a waste to ruin the party by driving down the street for a haircut. I don’t even recognize myself in the mirror.
2. Oil change. Seriously, it’s been over a year since I’ve changed the oil in my car. While I was in Georgia I rented a loaded Chrysler 300. I love that car. It was fun to ride around in style.
3. Recession etc. My classmates and I felt confident back in 2009 that by the time we graduated in May 2011, the recession would have passed and the economy would be on the rebound. To a degree, we were right. However, the “rebound” is hardly a reality. I spent a lot of time with students entering college over the past few weeks, and each of them talked about how they were grateful that they could weather the recession through four years of college.
4. Sharp-dressed man. It’s hard to dress well every day. My standard attire during the work week is a pair of leather shoes, chinos, and a shirt with a collar. I’ve been doing this for about three years and it has its benefits. But the downside is that I spend a lot of time ironing pants and shirts. When I meet the girls for lunch, Norah usually wrinkles/dirties/thrashes my well-pressed attire. I take it in stride, but again, it’s hard to dress well every day.
5. ReadyMade. I learned this morning that my favorite magazine over the last 10 years is closing up shop. I think the Internet ran away with their zeal for DIY.
6. Facebook. It gets boring in the summer. Every time I login I am remarkable uninterested. For the sake of documenting technology as it happens, Google+ started a few weeks ago. It may or may not be a replacement for Facebook, LinkedIn, and SomeThing Else.
7. Rebuilding Interest. With school done, I’m trying to get up to speed with new technologies/trends/innovations/Apps.
8. Compassion. There is a lot of hurt in this world. Everyone needs compassion and love.

Well, time is up.

Late last fall I discovered an unfinished contemporary house near Camelback Mountain near Paradise Valley. I was immediately curious about the home. Based on the weathered construction materials, the house’s exterior looked as if it hadn’t been touched in about a year.

After doing some research, I discovered that the home was in foreclosure and would go up for public auction late in the winter.  It appears as though the property was purchased at the top of the Real Estate bubble and the new owner decided to do an elaborate reconstruction to convert the traditional ranch home into a modern house. My guess is that he got discouraged with each month—he was pouring out tons of money during construction, all the while the housing market was crashing down around him. So he stopped making his payments and walked away. He left behind his half-finished dream. A dream that few people could understand.

Could this be my next house? I explored the property and made note of what was left to be finished. After running the numbers, I knew what price-point I’d have to get the house to make it a sound investment.

What it could become? I imagined a two-story extension (left) to balance out the imposing volume of the 3-car garage (right)

I was discouraged the week leading up to the auction when the bank released a very high starting bid for the property. It didn’t make sense for me to go to the auction if the bank was convinced it needed to make that much to make up for their loss.  I expected the home to go up on the block and not get any bids. Then a month later, the bank would adjust the price down and put it up for auction again. Maybe then I could pick it up?

Long story short: someone paid top-dollar for the home. I have no idea how the new owners could possibly finish the project as a strong investment. I wish them the best. Honestly, shortly after the first auction I got caught up in the business of graduate school and other investments. Although the dream never materialized, it was still a lot of fun.

Saturday, May 19, 2011

This photo means so much to me. On my back is my precious Eleanor Grace. This is the little girl whose world was rocked by me leaving for two years of graduate school.

I snapped this photo early Saturday morning at REI, about twelve hours after I walked across the stage at graduation and received my diploma. We never bought the backpack, but we had a lot of fun running around the store, jumping in and out of isles. I could hear her giggling in my ear. She swooned my name with such joy.

I can’t help but be surprised how the memory of this morning almost feels nearly as sweet at the day Norah was born. There wasn’t anything particularly exciting about the morning. Candyce was hosting her ladies prayer group at our house, which meant that Dad and I needed to take Norah and spend the morning away from the home. We spent some time at the coffee shop, and then explored a mall before any of the stores were open. We finished with an exploration of REI.

It was my father, my oldest daughter, and me. No place to be, but completely happy spending time together. There was no distraction from work or graduate school. Just family. Just happiness.

One of the more subtle changes over the last two years is that I was given a new identity. I was introduced to new people, both classmates and professors. These people surrounded me for three days of each week. The newness of group wasn’t what made it so different, it was that all we had in common was the subject matters of business. These were not matters that I thrived in from the beginning. I was thrown into a pool of accounting and finance and I had to learn how to swim. Through each trimester, the classmate became friends, and the subject matter became more familiar and exciting.

So what’s next? I’ve accepted a position of VP Strategy & Communication at Life Teen. I’ve been in talks with our CEO since September of last year about the position. I’m excited to have the authority and resources to move our organization forward.

What I want out of this summer is to be with my family. It’s been a very difficult two years for all of us.

It’s been almost a month since I last updated my blog. I know from experience that it’s too difficult to write a good narrative, so I’ll just list out what’s on my mind. We’ll see what happens…

Final MBA Trimester

I am at the beginning of my final trimester of business school. I have a ticker on all of my computers (work, home, phone) that announces each day how many days I have until graduation. I never get tired of looking at this because it gets better every day. I know that logically there should be no surprise at the passing of time, but emotionally, it’s an absolute delight to watch that number deflate with each day that passes. Rejoice! At risk of sounding melodramatic, I feel that through every day of 2011 I’ve gotten a little of my soul back. I’m happier at home, work, and in class. It’s not that I dislike school–I really do enjoy it–but it’s always stressful to have too many obligations and too little time. It beats you down.

Staff Retreat

We had a great staff retreat at Covecrest back in Georgia. This year was different because we let staff members lead sessions. I could go on forever about why this was a good idea, but what stands out the most is that it gives everyone on the retreat diverse perspectives that keep the four days interesting.

It’s too much to talk about the spiritual experience of the retreat because those are private experiences that are hard to share cohesively on a public blog. But I will say this. I went on this retreat with every intention of jump-starting my soul. I engaged in every prayer and sacremental experience there. I spent hours in the chapel. I prayed non-stop for four days. This isn’t because I’m a superior spiritual athlete, but it’s because it’s what my soul needed. It was required no effort to sit in the chapel alone at midnight.

It was soul satisfying to spend quality time with Andrew, Paul, and Michelle. I rode with Dad to the Atlanta airport because he was making another trip to Haiti. He’s in Haiti so often now that I cannot even make sense of it all. He’s almost become part of the community there.

Candyce’s New Group

After a year of prayer and preparation, Candyce began her girls prayer group / Bible study at our home. She’s following the same curriculum that she’s experienced with her group at Stacey’s house for the past five years. (Wow, that was before we were even engaged.) Candyce has enjoyed life so much more since she was invited to join Stacey’s group.

One of my greatest sources of joy in my life right now is knowing that these 14 young women who enter my home twice a month will have a richer experience of life. They don’t know that yet, and that’s part of what makes it so much fun. My job in all of this is to help clean the house the day before the group and to take care of Norah and Stella when I am not in class. I love being behind the scenes.

What Didn’t Get Make It

Here are things that I wanted to write about but I’ve run out of time:

• Why it’s hard to write a blog
• Lent
• My men’s group
• Home prices
• Current events
• Cool MBA electives
• Fresh Fridays at work
• Why I want to redesign this website
• Gas prices
• Candyce’s blog stealing my blog’s material
• The Newly Weds Supper Club
• The joy of building community
• The 2012 Chrysler 300
• How much I love having an iPhone
• The power of positive thinking

For the record, I drank two espressos during this blog.

Sunrise over Papago Park

• Miscarriages. Close friends and family have had to deal with the painful reality that their unborn babies didn’t make it. I’ve been in constant prayer for these people. They’re in a lot of pain.
• Weddings. I’ve been to three weddings so far this year. Each wedding was for a beautiful couple who belongs together. So much joy at those weddings! The Garcia wedding in Atlanta was fun because I got to see family and even attended the wedding with Dad. If it weren’t for these weddings, life would’ve felt very dreary.
• Haiti. Dad spent time at an orphanage in Haiti last week with Mrs. Benzinger, a family friend. The US Embassy issued a warning to all American citizens in Haiti that there could be riots from political unrest. The warning was for a region along a road that Dad and Mrs. Benzinger would have to take to get back to the Port-au-Prince airport. Fortunately, they’re day of travel was peaceful. I prayed hard.
• Early death. In the past year, three young people have died at our church. In the last month, a precious five year old girl named Stella died in the middle of the night. She seemed to only have flu symptoms.
• Sickness. The Smith family has been sick: cough, congestion, vomiting, hives, fever. I missed most of my work last week. Then this past weekend I lost my voice and it hurt to breathe. Through it all I have to take care of my family too. Last night was the first night of good sleep that the four of us have had in two weeks.

Experiences like these really help redefine what it means to have a “great day.” I mean, if the people you love are safe and healthy, what more can you want?

And through all of this, I continue to work and go to school. My group wrote a Supply Chain paper and gave a presentation on Monday of last week. Then on Saturday I took a midterm under the daze of a fever. Last night we finished a final group project. Tomorrow night I have another final. In six days I have another. I’ll be done with B-school in 83 days.

Greg Iwinski: Now that you have two daughters of your own and you start a new branch of the Smith family, what lessons from having foster siblings do you think you will bring into raising your own kids?

ME: That’s a good question. I don’t think I have answer for that one yet. I guess just talking about all this now reveals how counter-cultural my childhood was. The rest of the world moved along just fine without knowing about our humble lives in the mountains. We were disconnected from the glamorous things of the world—trends, music, celebrity culture, professional sports, wealth, whatever. Whatever I saw on TV about what it was like to be young and have a family – my life looked nothinglike that. We were off the grid, but that doesn’t mean what happened there didn’t matter.

The Smith family in 1984

Somewhere along the way society has become consumed with appearances, and that has confused what it means to be a “happy family.” You know, the parents drive nice cars, they have a sweet house in a cool neighborhood where all the lawns are perfect… the kids are all hip and dress nice and have cool stuff. Fancy vacations. The whole deal. How uncool would life be if all we tried to do as a family was impress others? There’s no soul in that. I want my children to know that its okay to be counter cultural. And there’s nothing more counter cultural than loving like Christ loved.

I should say that my answer didn’t come out quite so composed on my first try. It was an email interview, which means I had time to reflect on the questions and then put together thoughtful answers. It was supposed to only take me thirty minutes, and it took me well over two hours. Because this was the first time that I had to consider my upbringing and then consider how I would raise my own children.

I’ve found myself marveling at the life my parents created for themselves and for us kids. This is what has stuck with me about Mom and Dad:

• Be Creative. They bought an old house with lots of land and they decided they wanted to start a farm. Then came the animals, the large garden, and the fish bait business. Dad even split his own fence posts from trees that he harvested from the woods.  How resourceful is that? Beyond the six of us little kids, they brought in teenage foster children too. We never had enough money to do all that with comfort, but we still did it. My parents were resourceful and creative.
• Be Fearless. What did my dad do? He met the girl of his dreams and they started a whole new life together. There was no hesitation here. They knew what they wanted and they did it. Dad didn’t know all he needed to know to become a farmer, and that was okay. He made his decision and he did it. My parents had little interest in sticking around their homes in the northeast to see what their friends from college were doing with their careers.
• Be Faithful. Mom and Dad called our farm New Life Farm because it was a new beginning for them, for us little kids, and for the foster children that we brought into our home. Our farm had a logo too—a dove. It was stunning. Dad even painted it onto the side of our home. (Again, I have to interrupt here. Do you know what would happen to me if I painted a logo on the side of my home today? I wouldn’t make it till sunset without our HOA having an emergency meeting.)

A big part of life is figuring out your place in the world. Why am I here? Do I matter? What makes me unique? When you are young, these questions define your life in a very obvious way. As you grown into adulthood, these questions may not be in the forefront of your mind each day, but they reside deep within each of us. I believe that most of us make decisions in life with hopes of finding answers to these questions.

Inevitably, we compare ourselves to others to get some context for who we are. If I were to be completely honest with myself, I get jealous of people who have inherited opportunities from their family: admission to an Ivy League school, the family business, the vacation home, the brownstone in NYC, the vintage Ferrari.  They have so many resources from which to draw as they create their own story on this Earth.

I have none of that, and I’m beginning to see that that’s okay. I do have a heritage of creativity, gall, and faith. Absolute individuality. I need to live and breathe this heritage. This defined my childhood and it should define my adulthood.

This is what the builder had to say about his truck:

The ’41 cab has a 2″ chop, custom firewall and floor pan. Shaved door handles. Interior has custom dash and over head console with stereo CD and radio. Frame shortened 15″ and complete boxed with ’79 3/4 Chevy front end with 3″ drop spindles on disc brakes, air bags and shocks. Rear end is Ford dually Dana 40 narrowed 6″ with 4.10 gears. Drum brakes triangular 4-bar. Five gallon air storage tanks with two air ride compressors with 3/8 air lines. Engine is a 1995 Lincoln 4.6L Fuel Injection with Ford AOD transmission. 400 miles since built. Autometer gauges. Vintage air. Pirate Jack power brake system. Lokar shifter. Custom built 15 gallon gas tank. The flat bed is 9 1/2′ x 5’3″ custom built with oak bed and aluminum strips. Bed tilts back for access to engine, storage compartments and gas tank, which is all custom built.

More photos from the day…

This was the first sunny day we’ve had since we got out here to California. Although I’ve enjoyed the moodiness of the rain, I have enjoyed the sunshine.

Sunrise snapped in my sideview mirror at a rest stop near the AZ/CA line.

…Norah is unhappy at the end of the night if I’m not holding her. Her skinny little arms wrap so tightly around my neck. She squirms and nuzzles every couple of minutes just to try to get closer than she already is. She’ll wake up and kiss me on the neck and whisper “hi daddy” then go back to sleep.  Stella is like a chubby little angel. Every time I see here bundled up asleep on the couch, I laugh because she’s so cute. I love holding Stella because inevitably end up holding Norah too. Stella gets about 1000 kisses a day.

At first I didn’t know what to do with all this sweetness in my home. Now I just don’t think about it…I just soak it in and enjoy it.

Norah smiles for Candyce while they make cupcakes for my birthday.

Tiramisu Cupcakes from Candyce. Delicious.

Roses I cut for Candyce.

Grampa and Grammy, 1941

This morning Candyce, Stella, and I filmed a segment for Inside Edition. I’m interested to see how they stylize Stella’s birth story. I’m told it will be on TV tomorrow afternoon.

So last night in the hotel I watched a couple episodes of the Uniter or something like that. The premise of the show is that a dude (who incidentally is kind of odd) helps people find lost loved ones. One episode I caught was about three college-aged children searching for their drug-addicted mother who they had not seen in six years. Another episode was about a young mom who decided to search for her half-sister who was put up for an adoption as in infant to cover up her father’s affair. The good news is that on both shows the people were reunited with those they were looking for. The reunions were super dramatic because the host explains to the seeker what he’s learned about their lost family member, then he tells the people to turn around and their lost family member walks through the door. Everyone starts to cry and hug and sob. I got a little drippy too. How could I not? Seriously, I could cry right here right now on this airplane in seat 8A if I think about those reunion scenes.

What has stuck with me most about this show is that these people’s lives were consumed with the desire to find the lost members of their family. Through every day of their lives, they ached inside because of their loss. I can’t even imagine what that pain must be like. How blessed I am to know everyone in my family, to know that I can call them and have a happy conversation whenever I feel like it.

I don’t know. The more I look around, the more I realize how blessed I am.

:::

So in seven months I will graduate with my MBA. That’s just two more trimesters. Having time off of work for paternity leave has given me a glimpse of my life was like before graduate school and what I can expect in the spring—less stress and more fun. Plus I’ll have time to catch up on every other part of my life that I placed on a two-year hold. It’s like heaven is waiting for me in May. I am so glad that I entered grad school when Norah was just 12 months old. It would be almost impossible to have pulled this thing off with more little ones at home.

My battery is dying. So it’s time to finish up and read some more of my new John Grisham book.

I hang my ironed clothes along the top of the wainscoting that wraps my living room and kitchen. When I am finished and all of my clothes are all pressed, I gather them together and head upstairs to hang them in my closet. These pants? All subtle variations of khaki. Notice, too, that they’re hung against white paneling that stretches beneath a taupe wall covered with white and black framed photos. The rest of my house looks pretty much the same.

And if you want to look beyond this very photo, you’ll notice my website looks pretty much the same way. Yes, I designed my home and my website with the same palette.

Both of my cars are black.

The reason why I record this here is that it’s ridiculous that I’m so enamored by neutral colors. For my entire life I’ve been fixed on anything bright and obnoxious. I was once famous for having a 40-piece Hawaiian shirt collection. I even wrote a blog years ago about my infatuation with the color purple.

I asked Norah to stand on the stool to give a sense of scale. The X you see there is made of scrap redwood from a different project. Although it looks cool, the braces are to keep the stool sturdy. It’s inevitable that this stool is used by more than my 30 pound daughter.

The stool in the back was the first one I built. Unfortunately, the cool X is hidden from view when it’s pressed against the kitchen cabinet. So on the 2nd stool I sliced the X at the center and used each section to brace a different stair step.

Here’s my original sketch. On the lower left is my plan for cutting each part from a single pine shelving board from Lowes. I like the idea of adding in the handle, but I ran out of time on the project. I can always cut those out later.

The most satisfying part of this project is seeing how much Norah enjoys them. She gets such satisfaction every time she bounds up and down the steps.

Norah’s 2nd birthday part. Awesome. I’ll add photos in later.

Medical bills. The day after Norah’s party, we brought to an end 24 months of drama with the hospital bills from the day she was born. How do I write this without getting bored or upset? Basically, I ended up dedicating an entire filing cabinet drawer to organizing all the information from the health insurance, hospital, and doctor bills so that I could figure out why none of them agree with how much money we owe. And even worse, why none of these statements accurately describe what kind of service we got at the hospital. I’ve made countless phone calls and sent many letters. I’ve consulted a lawyer and garnered support from advocates. I’ve been a detective in the circular world of health care bureaucracy. It’s taken up way too much of my life. Finally, it’s over.

Candyce’s birthday. We were both so busy in September that celebrated it almost a month late. We went downtown to eat at Hanny’s (hip) and had desert at the Compass restaurant (romantic). She is awesome.

Matt Maher’s wedding. How beautiful was that?

Graduate school. Every trimester starts our reasonably manageable. That feeling of “hey, I got this together” disappears by the second day of class because I’m clobbered by readings, assignments, group projects, and dozens of new messages in my inbox. I’ve come to believe that balance between family, work, and school is impossible. There’s just too much going on to give proper attention to those three parts of my life every day. Balance is not a goal that can be achieved. But trying to have balance in life is the only shot you have at keeping it all together. You need to know when to close the book and hold your baby.

Getting ready for baby #2. Lot’s of stuff to do here…and it’ll never get done. The goal, of course, is to have the household ready for this new life so that by the time she gets here, we’ll be able to relax and enjoy her.

Waiting for Autumn. Arizona summer lasts too long. It’s a thrill to have cool evenings and mornings.

Football! Until it gets to be “real fall” outside, watching people look cold at a college football game on TV is enough to trick me. It’s fun to watch a game at Bobby Dodd stadium at Georgia Tech. It brings me back.

Being so high in the mountains gave me a preview of autumn. At night it was in the low 60s, maybe in the 50s. It felt good to put on a jacket in September.

She walked over to the toy chest on the other side of the room.  Apparently Candyce panicked during the water spill and decided it would be smart to relocate full plate of food to prevent any further chaos. The funny thing is that she had no recollection of this.

]]> http://supafly.com/blog/2010/08/29/a-misplaced-plate-of-dinner/feed/ 0 http://supafly.com/blog/2010/08/28/a-moody-arizona-sunset/ http://supafly.com/blog/2010/08/28/a-moody-arizona-sunset/#comments Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:38:53 +0000 Matt http://supafly.com/?p=2322 The setting sun lit up the sky and put on quite a show. Norah, Candyce, Josh, and I took a walk around the neighborhood. I snapped the photos.

Oh…and by the way, we returned home with lots of household drama:

• Broken cell phone
• Broken pool pump
• Dying fridge
• Leaking A/C that warped my family room floor.

This isn’t what I wanted to come home to. But I’ve been trying to keep it all in perspective and not get too worked up. Unfortunately, fixing all these problems costs lots of money. Money that I’d rather be spending on cool stuff like monster trucks and Van Halen memorabilia.

I’m just going to write. Let’s see what happens.

• I have a hard time stomaching hipster music. For ten years I’ve read a gazillion music reviews of indie bands and I’ve tracked down the most promising bands. After a few listens online, I can’t find the fortitude to keep listening. It seems to me that the gushing fans that surround a lot of these hipster bands are often so in love with the image of the band that they somehow overlook the fact that their songs kinda suck. What good is a song if it’s not catchy?  But what they play here at Starbucks is different enough to be unfit for popular radio, but it’s still pleasant to my ears.
• Trucker Hats. They’ve lasted a lot longer than I would’ve imagined. When I filmed the Road Rules Challenge in 2003, I wasn’t sure if I should wear one because I might look behind the times. Here we are seven years later, and people still like them and they look cool wearing them. The guy sitting on the other side of the window on the patio is perfectly confident rocking his trucker hat. By my rough estimation, they’ve been cool now longer than they used to be uncool/whitetrash.
• Cargo Shorts. I’ve read no less than a dozen fashion experts proclaim that cargo shorts are out dated. Unfortunately, those declarations were all made over a course of the last 15 years. So apparently they were all wrong. Have you ever actually gone to a store and try to buy regular khaki shorts? It’s harder than you think. Me? I don’t like cargos because they’re too hot and floppy. Yet I still wear them.
• Flip Flops. There are a lot of pretentious fashion editors that despise casual footwear. I share their concern that people wear flip flops to way too many places–weddings, funerals, baptisms—but you will lose credibility if you wholly dismiss flip flops all together. Why? Because they’re casual, affordable, and freeing. That’s why bazillions of people wear them around the world. I’m one of them and I like it.
• Classic Cars: My father-in-law asked me what I imagine car collectors will look like in another 20 years. Who will they be and what will they be collecting? This paragraph could turn into a book, so I’ll keep this quick. There will never again be a car culture that we saw between 1944 and 1972. That was a rare time in America with a “youth culture” was formed and shared amongst Baby Boomers through some very good years for cars: hot rods, 1950s Mercys and Chevys, and of course the late 1960s Pony Cars & Muscle Cars. I know this because I’ve been to many car auctions, and all I see is a bunch of aging Baby Boomers trying to recapture their youth. By the time any of my generation gets super-loaded with cash, I doubt we’ll be fighting over a Hemi Cuda that was first enjoyed before our birth. Dudes will always like cars and try to collect them, but it’s not going to be as focused on a handful of American cars. It’s going to be more niche: Classic VWs, Kustoms / Sleds, Rat Rods, New Muscle Cars, Donks, Trucks, Vintage Luxury German, Supercars, etc.
• In two months I will be holding a newborn girl. Becoming a dad has been the most defining experience of my life. Although it’s hard being a parent, I’ve yet to find a life experience that’s as rewarding and affirming as parenthood. I’m eager to see Norah interact with a little sister. Norah has a lot of love. She takes care of her baby dolls like you would not believe. Whenever she can’t find one of them, she’s an absolute mess. Every Sunday at Mass, Norah looks up a the crucifix and opens her arms wide and says, “hug me.”  There’s just so much love beaming out of that 2-year old.
• There are many adults who work at this Starbucks. Seriously, I’ve seen several well put together people in their 30s serve coffee here this afternoon.
• Mom blogs. Candyce is addicted to blogs run by hip housewives and mothers.  Every time I get on the computer, I see a dozen open tabs in the browser, each featuring a different beautiful mom writing about her life experiences. After a year of this, it’s become easy for me to believe that moms rule the Internet.
• Twilight. I don’t care about these movies at all. Perhaps I’ve reached that point of adulthood where I am not expected to understand why these movies are popular. I suppose I could watch them and see what the fuss is all about, but again, I don’t care about these movies at all.
• Amusement. Last weekend I rode roller coasters in San Antonio and then played in a water park in Phoenix. Lots of fun. I will say that 1 out of every 5 adults at the resort’s water park had a tattoo. The wave pool looked like a flooded biker rally.

Alright, my coffee is all sipped-up. Time to pick up my phone and ride my bike home.

Here are quotes from the interview, highlighted with my favorite lines and my thoughts:

s: Your mission statement declares we’ve “demonized dirt” and made “work” a dirty word. How do we make up for it?

mr: I’m no expert, but my theory is that these changes happened very, very slowly and on a lot of different fronts. How we got to the point where the idea of getting dirty and working hard felt like a sucker’s bet, that’s part Madison Avenue, part Silicon Valley, part pop culture, part American Idol —an amalgam of reward mechanisms that celebrate the exact opposite thing of actual hard work.

My Thoughts: In a blog I wrote a couple years ago called Desiring Money vs. Making Money, I explained that more is required to becoming “rich” than to desire a lot of money. Specifically, you must WORK HARD. If you do not have the fortitude and endurance to work hard, you’re just lost in your delusion of grandeur.

s: Is it as simple as putting away our hand sanitizer and getting dirty?
mr: You can follow your bliss however you want in your life, but maybe that’s not the best way to choose a job or a career. Nobody follows their passion into waste water treatment or window washing. You do it because you’re hungry and you’ve found a job nobody else wants to do, and then you do it well, with a good attitude, with an entrepreneurial spirit. People are going to need to be willing to do work for work’s sake and find their happiness in learning to enjoy a job that they might not have dreamed about their entire lives. And that’s OK. There’s nothing wrong with hard work or a dirty job. I can’t tell you how many millionaires I’ve met who are covered in crap.

My Thoughts: The problem with many “dream jobs” is they are often just fantasies. I know this my sound very un-American, but it’s true. Example: last week I overheard a college student explain that all he wanted to do was play his guitar and hang out at the beach. And that the most he’d be willing to work was 15 hours each week. Every young person has a fantasy lifestyle+job like this, but all the dreaming in the world won’t make these jobs come true for millions of people just because they want them.

s: So it’s only blue collar jobs that are underappreciated?
mr: I think the big lie is accepting the notion that there are blue and white collar jobs. What I’ve learned from Dirty Jobs and talking with the people I’ve worked with, all of whom seem to line up in that blue collar category, is that this is a false distinction. What’s going on is not really between blue and white collar; it’s actually between an employee mentality and an entrepreneurial mentality. Many of the people on Dirty Jobs seem, at first blush, to fit the employee model, except they just drew a really short straw so they’re on some factory line covered in somebody else’s crap.

s: And a lot of those people on the factory line aren’t exactly smiling.
mr: Yeah, I’ll grant you that there are plenty of people out there covered in crap who are miserable if you’ll give me that there are plenty of people wearing a suit and tie who are drones. Let’s take the drudgery and the drones and push them to the side and admit that these are the people who, basically, fit the employee model. The more interesting model is the entrepreneur. The blind spot that we have right now, socially, is that we don’t look at entrepreneurs and associate them with dirt. We associate them with private jets, and that’s dangerous fiction.

My Thoughts: Amen!

Pharell’s bike, on the other hand, is a fresh take on a vintage bike. Not another tough guy chopper. All executed with thoughtful, subtle details. Well done!

So what you are looking at here is a not just a car. It represents my affection for the Magnum and my wife’s admirable ability to keep our lives tidy.

Highlights from the trip:

1. The Hotel. Our view of the Houston Skyline from the Hilton was gorgeous. Other perks were the top floor pool and complimentary car service. Across the street was a beautiful city park called Discovery Green where Norah could be entertained by the splash pads and the mega-playground. Plus we ate at the park’s two Dwell-like restaurants: The Grove and The Lake House.
2. Downtown Living. It was fun to explore the city to see what it would be like to live there. We did the whole deal: museums, cafes, shops, and parks. You can see from the photos below that it’s a beautiful downtown that feels older than most people would have guessed. Like many Western cities, unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of residents downtown. Lots of buildings, not many people.
3. Norah speaks. Norah’s vocabulary and enunciation seems to have improved in the past couple of weeks. She now calls me Dah-Deee! instead of Dah-Dah. She now refers to herself as Nah-Nah whenever she needs something. Every time the train passed by us in downtown Houston, Norah would tap her chest with her little hand and say Nah-Nah to let us know that she really wanted to ride the train. It’s adorable. Another cute one: hmmm has become shyesh (yes). These little words just fill me with joy like you can’t even imagine.
4. Lovely Woodlands. Seriously, if you have to plan a suburb, do it like The Woodlands. All big retail stores and their parking lots are hidden from the main streets with a 100-foot deep band of forest. Signs are low to the ground and not tacky. Plus they have a newly built downtown that should have been featured in my previous blog series called Suburban Shopping that Doesn’t Suck. (Read it: Part 1, 2, and 3.) I could go on about the details, but the end result is a suburb that doesn’t feel like a generic suburb. It feels like a charming forest.

Right now I am at the courthouse in downtown Phoenix because I’ve been summoned for jury duty. I’ve postponed this whole deal three times now because of big responsibilities with school, family, and work. But now it’s my time to come and do my duty. So far, I’ve just checked in and nobody has spoken to me since. I’m glad I brought my laptop so I can distract myself from the celebrity gossip that’s booming out of the television that’s strapped to the wall.

Here are photos from the trip: