Change is in the air, maybe…

I woke up Sunday morning and this was outside just waiting on me to look at all the beauty.

This is now officially baseball season and Birmingham has just built its wonderful citizens a new stadium. If you are unfamiliar with B’ham, we have a AA minor league team called the Barons. They are associated with Chicago White Sox. The old stadium was built in Hoover and did not really have an personality and was not super fun to visit. The traffic was bad, the stadium was not well-designed, and it was out in the middle of nowhere. So the people that are in charge of B’ham made a decision to move the stadium right to downtown and that has made all the difference.

If you know very little to nothing about my city, we have corrupt politicians (who doesn’t), terrible city planners (just to give you some idea how bad, in the 70′s Atlanta was the same size as B’ham and then they decided to bring in international business to make their city thrive) , and weird business people that try very hard to not make money (not saying I would want B’ham to be Atlanta, but every friend that has visited my town has commented on how beautiful it is). In every city I have ever lived and visited, the ones that stick out in my mind are the ones that have an active downtown scene where people want to go and spend money or just hang out at parks and still spend money. You may see a theme- $. If you could not tell, money is not something I stress over, but to have a thriving city you need it. That is simple simple economics. Austin is a prime example of how a good city is run. The most expensive real estate is near downtown and after 5 pm is when people come back down to have a good time because there are things happening at night. B’ham has been notorious for being a ghost town after 5pm. When the business district shuts down, people run home and do not come back till 8 am the next day. Now if you know anything about history you know that in the early 60′s we had a little problem with race right here in this very city. It went along the lines of white people were wrong and not giving African-Americans their equal rights. African-Americans revolted and Birmingham has continued to be divided. White flight is a gross understatement for B’ham. There are many suburbs of the city and guess who lives there. I will let you guess who makes up most of the population of Birmingham proper (hint- not white people, remember they were the flight part). This has always brought me anger for my city. I saw it before I left, but truly saw the dividing line once I had moved away and saw that not everywhere was like B’ham. I say all this to let you know that there is, I hope, a group of people like my wife, friends, and I, that want our city to become great. Not necessarily larger, in the Hotlanta sense, but a better place to be and live. The Baron’s stadium right downtown may make this a reality.

Now I disagree that it is the only thing that has made this change, which is what the Baron’s big whigs are trying to convince you. They want everybody to think that this stadium has brought all the change. I want to clarify that there has been some great strides in the right direction. To name a few: we now have Railroad Park, Good People Brewery(if you like beer, it is the place to go- I love the Coffee Oatmeal Stout!), El Barrio, and many many new places to go and hang out in the area. These places are bringing people down and hopefully will continue to help B’ham thrive. Birmingham has always struggled with the people in charge and now it feels like we the people, taxpayers that make up most of the population, are now wanting to take our city back and make it the wonderful city it should be.

Now I have to rant about the stadium. We bought season tickets with a group of friends and we are going to at least 17 games apiece, so we have a vested interest. But, to put it simply, the stadium is well made. It has views of the all the city, our boy Vulcan can be seen by all, we have a view of downtown, and it just feels open. The biggest draw is that it is incredibly kid friendly. This will be what makes or breaks it. The one major thing B’ham has going for it is that raising families here is a great thing. The whole reason we moved back was because of the what a great childhood my wife and I had and we wanted our children to have the same great time growing up. Now once they get older they may want to leave and I hope they do. We plan on traveling with our children as much as possible so they can see and learn about this wonderful world in which we live. Now I know there is a group in this city that is going to stay in their safe white neighborhoods and never venture out into the big city. We do not want them anyway. They made the city the way it is today and I want them to stay home, let us open-minded type people make this city great.

My excitement is starting to show to everyone around me. I want to be downtown a lot in this city. When I used to live in Southside(the kind-of hip area of B’ham) I was always eating and doing stuff downtown, but there wasn’t much to do. Now I hope that the city wants to make money and have people visit on a regular basis. A problem with Birmingham is that people tend to not have short memories. They think that what happened 10-15 years ago is still the way it is. We have to foster a new philosophy for this town, we need to want to grow and open up to the possibilities that we are not what we were. We should never forget our past, but we need move forward and grow into a community of southerns that love their city and want to make it the great once more.

Going down a different path…

He makes me proud. I am glad that I was given the privilege of being his dad.

Everyday brings about thoughts of another day , but hopefully with a better ending. I have reached a point where I want more for others than for myself. That makes me sound like I have been incredibly selfish all of my life. Well that shoe fits. What I am experiencing now is the reality that I want to achieve enough to get have my wife stay at home and raise our children. Do not get these ideas that I want to rule over my wife and have this “Mad Men” type life. My wife and I decided before we had kids that we wanted for me to go to work for a monetary reward and she would be paid in the satisfaction of being able to raise our children. I have reached a point that I no longer want to be in a classroom.

This will be short and sweet. My reality has to change and I have to make the move. Up till this point in our lives Emily has had to work and we are now at a point where we want to settle and put roots down in a place. Moving back to Birmingham was the best thing that could have happened. In every aspect besides my career it feels almost perfect.
The realization that education is a place where I have become stagnant. I want something where I am not going to be moving around every 1-2 years. My path up till this point has been one of me learning as much as possible by working in different situations. It has brought me to this point and now I want to be stable and support my family. In the reality of this world this could be the hardest thing that I ever accomplish. I must reach out and grab what I want. Providing for your family has been the goal of most people since families began. Now it is my turn to move into the role of sole provider. The next question is how do I accomplish this goal. We live in a world where anything is possible and if you believe that than anything is possible. You are your only obstacle.

Teaching has created a tough predicament for me. It has always seemed like the thing I was chosen to do, but I look more and more and see that I really will never know what I was chosen to do. My choice in life has been to put my decisions in the hands of another.
That has always put me in the right situations and now it feels that the classroom is a negative for my students. At this point it feels as if I am failing them. It has always seemed that I was helping, now the tide has turned. This seems as if it is the time to find something new in which to pursue. To say that this is a scary time is life is an understatement. I had a plan and now the map has been burned and I am standing in the woods with my gear and wondering which way to head. I will let you know where I end up.

On a much lighter note, we got together with friends and got our season tickets for the upcoming Baron’s season. For you not in the know, that would be Birmingham’s AA Chicago White Sox minor league affiliate. We ate dinner, drank some beer, and split up 70 games between 8 of us. Community is starting to form and I feel that friends are happy to make this city a great and wonderful place. We want the best for the place we inhabit and we choose to make that happen. We have taken the reigns and decided to not let the horse lead us.

Fall in love with who you want…

Yes, that is my youngest son sitting at a bar. Go ahead and judge me.

Major League Baseball started tonight, Games of Thrones just got recorded on my DVR, the season finale of The Walking Dead just got put on the DVR also, and right now I feel like my head may explode with my nerdiness leaking out everywhere. I am having problems keeping the crazy all contained. If you were to look at my wife’s face after I told her that you would see her roll her eyes so far back in her head it may cause slight brain damage. So far what I have actually figured out about life is that you should enjoy it. We went to church this morning and I made an observation. We were 5 minutes late to church and we had to sit in the hallway of the church, not even in the sanctuary. If that many people in Homewood, AL, believe that there is a God and that God they believe in and follow His laws should have no problem forgiving someone for being gay or even caring if they are gay.

Took a turn you weren’t expecting I am sure. You thought I was going to nerd-out on you about TV and baseball. Sorry to disappoint you, but I am going to be touching on a sore subject for some and a no-brainer for others. My views have always been open-minded, but one of my 1st times covering a class in the Bronx a girl stood up for whatever reason and said that she was gay and she did not care who knew. We were talking about things in that class and she dropped that bomb. My views became crystal clear after that moment. That young lady was in my class the next year and I always respected her for knowing who she was and not letting anyone tell her otherwise. She was one of my brightest students and I hope only the best for her. During that year I helped the counselor at our school run the Gay Pride club at an inner-city school in the Bronx(you think it is hard to be gay in the bible belt, try thug central!). The end of that year that counselor got another job and she ask me to take over the club. I did gladly. When I told my parents I think my mom’s heart stopped for at least one second. She was unaware that I had such radical views on homosexuality. With all the recent media coverage on the Supreme Court and the same-sex marriage issue, it felt like I needed to chime in on the subject- a heterosexual white male, because everyone cares about what my demographic thinks.

Since that time period in NYC I have met many people and become friends with even more. Since that beginning of my life in the world outside of the Bible Belt, I have taken a very firm stance on homosexuality- I DO NOT CARE who you want to 1)fall in love with 2)have sex with 3)spend your life with or d) raise kids with.  To begin with, with my doctrine and spiritual beliefs I do not get to make that judgement. Hell, I have had male friends that would literally sleep with any woman that they came across. I have gay friends that have been in a monogamous relationship for years. Who is sinning? I cannot think that the higher power I believe in will hate you or keep you from whatever happens after death just because you fall in love with someone else and that person just happens to be of the same sex. Now, do not get me wrong, people that sleep with anyone have their own set of problems. I do not agree with that at all. But, if you fall in love, I am happy for you and support your choice to want to spend the rest of your life with that human being. Heck, one of my very best friends has made the decision to change their sexual orientation. We discussed what I would tell my boys about the change and I told them I would look them in the eye and tell them exactly what is going on and let them ask whatever question they wanted. I in no way want to keep my children in the dark with anything in this world. We live in a strange reality and I never want my boys to not think and question everything they encounter.

I have many gay friends and the older I get the more I realize they are the people that I like to have around more than most. They are the friends that accept me for all my crazy and I just get the pleasure of being their friend. This is an issue that I get angry about and have a vested interest. I always get the question, “What if you boys turn out gay?”. My response is always along the lines of I hope they find the love that I found with their mother. All I can affect in this life is the decisions I make. I will never be able to change anyone else unless they are willing to change themselves. Everyone deserves to be happy as long as the decisions they make are not hurting another human being. Who someone chooses to spend their lives with is not my business and I plan to fight till my dying breath to keep that right for them. If you read this and think I am wrong, you may never want to read my posts again. Just a little heads up. Go out and do something out of your comfort-zone, I plan on this week trying to have a conversation with a close-minded person without yelling. You have your homework, can’t get rid of the teacher in me.

I make laundry detergent and do the laundry…

He wanted to sit by himself on the train and this guy got the pleasure of sitting next to the one and only Porter.

It is always great to travel, but the feeling you have when you are back at your house is the greatest. The saying “Home Sweet Home”, is so true. We spent a week in Chicago and had a blast. We saw great friends, ate great food, saw a great city, and had fun. The one thing that I told Emily when we got together was that I had to see it all and she is doing her best with our budget to make that happen. Going into a trip like these where we spend 12-13 hours in the car we are always concerned with how the 4 and 2 year old we have produced will react. It is always a crapshoot to how they are going to handle the time on the road, but I have to say that they were champions on this trip.  The week was filled with challenges and experiences that will be with me for a long time to come.

I used to always joke with Emily about letting Josiah lick a subway pole when we traveled to NYC so that Josiah would never get sick again. Well little did I know that our 2nd son, Porter, would take me up on that offer, but did it in Chicago. If all goes according to plan he should be coming through with his superpowers in the next couple of weeks. Traveling is tough with young kids, but it seems that we like to visit big cities and that adds an extra level of stress because there is so much going on around you. Josiah made the decision this trip that he likes big cities and all there is to do in them. He enjoyed the museums, riding mass transit, and walking around in the cold. He took it all in and showed us how mature he was for a 4 year old who has not grown up in cities with mass transit. Porter kept to the stroller the 1st couple of days because he was overwhelmed, but then he decided he wanted to be like his big brother and got very independent very quickly. There was always someone on Porter patrol and that was at times harder than controlling a classroom of kids. He seemed to want to find out about everything and normally that involved running at high speeds far away from where we were at the time. It made it stressful and adventurous all at the same time. I would never trade those memories for the world.

I started talking about how we did things like travel cheap and Josiah got fascinated by that concept of cheap. He would look at me every so often and say, “Why do we like cheap things?” I assured him that we did not “like” cheap things, but having two parents that work for the largest non-profit organization in the United States we had to find ways to save money so that we could do cool things like travel regularly. When we travel we always try to stay with friends and that takes a huge chunk of money away because hotels are freaking expensive and really boring. But, the cheap thing also brings me to the fact that we do as many things to cut corners as we can so that we can spend money on trips, fun, and new adventures. Besides cutting out shampoo from my end, I have also starting making our own laundry detergent. I know I know, how much more hippie could I be, but when you look at it, it saves lots of money that you are spending on some company that has said their product is better than what you can make at home. This site caught my eye and I haven’t looked back every since. I made my 1st batch in a 5 gallon drum and use it all the time. I know what is in my detergent and it saves soooooooooooo much money. I have spent about $20 for all the ingredients and even the bucket and the batch I made in August is still going strong. I still have about 2 gallons left out of 5 and it is almost April. The big question is does it work as well and the answer is yes. I have had no complaints from my crew when they get their laundry. It smells fresh and clean just as good as any detergent I have ever used. Not to mention it helps because there is not all those chemicals that come in the normal detergents. With kids it helps that it does not have all those things in them, not to mention I put in tea tree oil for antiseptic purposes. So far I make our detergent, shampoo, and baby wipes(here is the video we made with friends in Austin). I hope to be making soap by the end of the summer. That is little more work and I need to get some more supplies before I start the big move to make our own bar soap.

My kids are growing up with a hippie and I am sure that they will turn out to be like Alex P. Keaton and wear a tie to middle school, espouse conservative viewpoints, and probably hate all the things I have taught them. I am proud that my kids are taking an interest in the outdoors. Josiah is constantly talking about the next time we get to go camping or backpacking and now Porter is ready to take his 1st backpacking trip. I enjoy the fact that some of my interests are things that my boys like and I can teach them what I know and enjoy. Being cheap is not necessarily a bad thing. It mainly just seems to me that we are frugal at times and want to use our money for what we enjoy and not letting the capitalist pigs grab grab grab. I may not be as angry as I was as a teenager at the world, but I definitely do not want the people in charge to make any profit on us. As I am typing this my wife is making a shorts pattern from my kids shorts so that she does not have to buy one. The internet is wonderful! So please make something and save some money so you can spend it on fun stuff(what you think is fun may differ wildly from me). We enjoy travel and seeing friends, so there are corners to cut so we can be cheap and do it all.

A few travel rules

Travel always involves friends, weather, and normally teaching your children how not to get killed my mass transit.

5:00 am is about the time my brain starts working everyday no matter how much sleep I have gotten. I know that I am a day late and there is no excuse. So read and hopefully you will understand why Monday morning is why I finally was able to get some time to write. It has been one of those weekends where you leave on a trip Friday after a full day of work and wake up Monday morning and realize life is full of so many surprises and wonderfulness you are thankful that you are able to participate. Welcome to the world of reality through the eyes of someone slightly askew. So much to talk about and so little ability to make it concise and funny, but here it goes. Today boys and girls we will delving into the world of family, friends, food, and road trips again.

Reason # 4031 that I am fortunate to have my life is that we take our crew of 4 and crash with friends for a week. My wife and I made a deal before we got married that no matter how many kids we had we would always travel and see everything in the world if possible. Although Emily was 100% behind my optimism she laid down the voice of reason and told me realistically that we would be able to see the United States and life abroad may take some time. I was ok with this. From day one with both of our children my wife and I were always willing to pick up and travel any time, multiple times per year to visit friends all over this great county that we inhabit. That brings me back to the main point of topic sentence of the paragraph(English teachers all over the country just a small tingle  down their spines as a student remembered something they said) and the absolutely fantastic, wonderful, and truly amazing people that we get to call “friends”. That term “friends” I have never taken lightly and never will take them for granted. Let me explain through our family why our friends are truly the best. If you have not noticed or heard before the name of the game with my crew is exploration. I have been blessed with a wife who is always up for the next adventure. The best part is she is also able to put up with 3 children(I am included in that count) on all these adventures. Our friends kick ass because we show up with Emily- wife, mother, planner, heart of an angel, and friend to all, Erik-(me) husband, father, kid, driver, and insomniac, Josiah- oldest son, do-gooder, Mr. Athlete, and one overall really sweet kid, and last Porter- youngest son, non-do-gooder, bull in a china shop, madman, and wild man galore. This is the cast and crew that you sign up for if you decide to be our friends. We have the philosophy that we travel staying with friends beats the emptiness of a hotel room and not to mention the price is so much better.

We follow the “traveler’s code”. So if you do not travel and want to start please follow these couple of rules: 1) Always be able to fit into one room(no matter the size of the room), this keeps your crazy contained in a new environment. 2) Always provide either a dinner to the host friends or some really nice booze(this is normally your payment and it says that they mean a lot to you). With the “traveler’s code” normally the host is not looking for monetary reward, but payment with experiences that years later you will be able to recount with fondness. 3) Never be rude(that one should explain itself) 4) Work around their schedule(if this is not followed you will not be asked to come back, I promise) 5) Last, Enjoy your time with friends(this one is the most important and no amount of money will ever be enough to pay for this). My fondest times of all my road trips has been once the kids have gone to bed and friends and I sit over normally a good beer or three and discuss life, religion, politics, food, and more life. It is always amazes me how much fun it is to sit and discuss anything with really cool people. For future reference, I am referring to my friends, I consider myself only entry-level cool and that distinction has only come since the meeting of my wife and having my kids. Being able to pick up and travel most of this country and have people to stay with almost every night of a trip is something that I will never take for granted and want to thank all the people past and future who are willing to have the Batson experience.

With this life comes decisions and the consequences of those decisions that make up your reality or reputation. Taking this lightly may work for some, but I know there is reaction to every action that I take as a mortal human being. Through years of experience and life it has become clear that taking a path of enjoyment through good deeds and thoughts is the path for me. I have people in this life that have taught me to be appreciative of all that I have been given. Through our family’s travels it has become clear that there is so much out there and being able to show my children all those things is my mission in life. I have been blessed with crew that is willing to put up with me for 12 hours in a car and come out the other side for good times. We are in Chicago for spring break and I will have many more experiences to convey next week. Right now I am going to try to sneak in a 2 mile run in below freezing temperatures. So please, please get in car, plane, bus, on a bike, or use your feet and go and explore this world. It is one of the best thing I have ever done and I promised myself to not stop till something stopped me from being able to do it myself. Thank you everyone who has ever taken this bunch into their homes, we thank you from the deepest most grateful parts of our hearts!

Here a 1st, there a 1st, everywhere a 1st 1st…

In moments like this I truly understand or at least think I understand the meaning of life.

There are many firsts throughout your life: the 1st time your parents leave you at home alone, driving a car(without a parent), having “relations” with another person, leaving home, renting a car, getting on a airplane(it is implied that you will be flying), your 1st real job that starts your career,. These are all times that make an impression in certain people’s lives and there are many others. This week I got two and they both involved my 1st son(you see what I did there? wink wink nudge nudge say no more say no more). I got to see his 1st soccer game and we went on our 1st backpacking trip in the Sipsey Wilderness. So to preface this entry: I am going to talk about being a parent and that makes me very happy, I will not go on about how wonderful the creation of life by wife and I is, and I hope to express some thoughts that make sense to anyone. So if any of this annoys you stop now for there is no hope.

Someone typed a comment today that made me realize many things at once. It was said to me that, “You really like this ‘dad’ thing!”. My response was more than you will every know, who knew?! By no stretch of the imagination do I claim to be a great father, but I am however accepting and enjoying the fact that life is not about me anymore and more about something so much larger and better than I will ever be. Much like my philosophy in education, I am only a facilitator. My job is not to change anyone, but merely to be there in a moment that someone needs some help in understanding something that is hard to comprehend or needs a new perspective on a certain situation, no more no less. This stretches out into being a parent. As I have said before, parenthood was not something that was on my radar. Yet, life has a funny way of giving you what you need rather than what you want. So I have taken the stance that I an active participant and all I can really do everyday is experience and help influence the ones that are my responsibility. My kids are typed about many times in this blog, but you write what you know and this is what I am aware of here and now. I have spent everyday this last week just watching and soaking it all in so that I will always have those little mental images and emotions that no one can ever take away. So much of life is about what we can get and I am getting mine. It just so happens that “getting mine” involves memories. The pictures, the letters, the little trinkets are all wonderful and I think that I understand why people hold onto these physical things. They are trying to make connections to times and things in their past that bring them to a happier moment or experience. Being raised by a person who is inclined to hoarding it pushes me more each day to just live in the moment and try as hard as possible to experience the time right then. I fondly think back on things, but I hope that my brain will not fail me in recalling those thoughts or emotions.

Walking out into the woods this weekend with my father-in-law, nephew, and son made some things move to the forefront of my conscience. I enjoy being outside. Every person has a duality and mine is very apparent to me every since I moved to NYC. Living in a suburb such as Homewood with my neighbors literally feet away from my windows and then walking into the woods to get away from it all sums it all up. I am greedy for both worlds: the hustle and bustle of city life with the breaks to go out and survive in the woods. I know that I am not living off the land setting traps and skinning animals while I hike through the wilderness, but I am aware that loading up 35-40 lbs. of gear and walking out into woods is a skill that most in our society have yet to obtain. My love for the outdoors and spirituality are so tied up in walking in the woods that it is hard to see where one begins and another ends. Before I knew my wife I used to take hikes all by myself for the weekend. My father used to comment that I was not in church(he is a preacher and I used to show up at his church to hear my old man reign down fire and brimstone), but I would just look at him and say, “I was not in your church”.

With everything that happens and every way that we can document, visualize, create, and capture every moment we have now for the interwebs, people are always yelling “LIVE IN THE MOMENT”. What I have come to understand is through all this documentation we are living in the moment, so that we can live in those moments again and again and again. When I take a picture of  my sons, what we are doing, what I am seeing, and post it to “fill-in-blank” social media outlet, I am doing so within seconds because of our technology and go back to that moment without missing a beat. We all adjust to our surroundings and as humans we do that better than almost any creature that I know. Yes, we make our surroundings shape to our liking, but we do adjust also. Be aware that it is about all that and so much more. If you have yet to figure that out, we will wait as long as you need us to so that you can enjoy this existence as much as we do.

I haven’t used shampoo in a year!

This was my view during our walk through the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and it makes me happy to look at this picture.

This entry is not going to be exceptionally long. I hope that does not disappoint people and if it does be aware that I normally write these Sunday night and a couple hours ago in my soccer match I ran into a human being much larger than me with my leg trying to stop a goal and it felt like my leg was going to snap in half. Thank goodness it is just really swollen and sore as hell. So this writing will hopefully have brevity.

Last March when I lived in Tejas I started seeing more and more things about shampoo and what it really did for your hair. When I started researching it I found out we were tricked again by companies to buy products that we do not need. Ain’t capitalism a biatch?! So what I read about said that shampoo strips all the oils out of your hair everyday and then your hair gets oily again in a couple of days of not using it because you naturally produce oils for your hair. Amazing how well the human body works when you leave it alone and let it do what it supposed to do. Well I decided from this site- a sonoma garden, that I would change my ways and become more independent. Then I started doing research and it seems that the powers that be have us to believe that we must spend hundreds of dollars a year on products we don’t need. So I started my experiment with being a true hippie and it has worked out great. Full disclosure: my scalp tends to dry out aka dandruff so I had to look at rinses to help out that problem. So this is how it goes: 1) I have 2 water bottles and each is filled with something different 2) 1 bottle is filled with warm water and 1 teaspoon of baking soda/ 8 oz of water. That is shaken up and used as a “shampoo” 3) I buy a $1.99 herb of thyme at the grocery store (this can be grown and I will do that in the future when we start our garden), but as of now I spend about $2 every 3-4 months 4) boil a gallon or more of water and put the thyme in it and let it boil for 10-15 minutes 5) let that cool and then put that in a container (I used an old gallon milk jug and label it “thyme rinse” in bright red sharpie so Em does not think it is tea- it is not poisonous, just not tea) 6) put 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar to 8 0z of the “thyme water” and shake 7) that is my “conditioner”- I sometimes wash that out, but most of the time I leave it in and let it do its job.

I can tell you the 1st month is slow going and you may get annoyed, but then like a light switch your hair is adjusted. If you have seen me in the last year you can vouch for the fact that my hair does not look gross or dirty. It actually feels great and looks better than it has in years. I also notice that I can go 3-4 days without washing my hair and it is not greasy like it used to be when I used shampoo. So to say that I can a convert is an understatement. I am full fledge hippie and proud that I have raised my middle finger to corporations and said I am good, you can go screw the next person. The more I live the more I realize we are being lied to way too much and it is making me angry, but getting even is much better. Hit ‘em where it hurts, in their wallet!

So that was what I wanted to talk about this week. There was stuff about disrespect in the classroom, but I need to stew a little more on that topic before I throw-up all over the internet about it. I am collecting my thoughts and will let you know since Emily and I are on the front lines and are worried about our future generations. Now picture me as the old man waving his cane standing in his front lawn telling those damn kids to get off my property. Also, Josiah, my oldest son will have his 1st soccer game this week so I am sure that will be part of my discussion in the next entry. I really do hope that everyone is doing well and enjoy the people you see everyday. Say hello to a new person and hold the door for someone with smile on your face. Life is way too short to not help at least some people.