Tag: home

I put Cocaine on my Roof….

~ K ~ 7 Comments

I live in the Pacific Northwest (Seattle area) and it is damp and rainy here about 97% of the time.  Perhaps, that is not entirely true but we have 226 cloudy days (4th most in the United States) and another 81 partly cloudy days.  Now, I’m not a math genius but that’s a lot in anyone’s book.

So we have a moss problem on our roofs.  I mentioned to my friend that the moss build up on my roof looked awful and I need to go buy some moss killer at the local hardware store.  He suggested to me, use baking soda.  It’s natural and you just put it on the top ridgeline of the roof when the roof is dry.  The rain comes and gently washes it down your roof and kills the moss.  The moss dies, and you can sweep off the dead moss or use your leaf blower to blow it into your neighbor’s yard.

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Who wants to cook their minds?

At Costco, I purchased a huge bag (13.5 pound bag) of Arm and Hammer baking soda for about $7.  I have a fairly large roof so I dumped about ¾ of the bag on it.  I went along the top of the roof ridge with a line on each side of the tip so the baking soda would be washed down both sides of the roof.  My son mentioned it looked like lines of cocaine on my roof.  Thanks son!  My daughter commented it looked ghetto (sweet!  I love to be “that” house in the neighborhood).  I’m always striving to be that house that stands out amongst its neighbors!

The end result:  Moss is dead and I’ve swept most of it off.  The white lines are disappearing and can be easily washed off or swept away if they don’t disappear on their own.

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Die moss….die.

Please kill me now…another “Informational” Meeting!!

~ K ~ 3 Comments

Please kill me now…another “informational” meeting…..

Last night I got stuck going to my son’s “informational” meeting for new parents at his high school.  It is our second time through this school but he is doing the Jump Start program which is new.  The meeting was scheduled to be an hour long and that should have been my first warning sign.  Any meeting that is an hour long is mostly a meeting of wasted time and worthless advice.  The two papers that the school handed out could have easily been emailed to me.  In fact, I think this whole “informational” meeting should have just been uploaded onto YouTube video.  Then I could have had the option to ignore it online instead of being subjected to a hot stuffy theater stage for 55 minutes.

On the bright side, it did end five minutes early.  Or I feel asleep.  One of the two.

Getting back to my annoyance…..Yes, I understand parents like to know what is going on in their kid’s life.  Sure, these informative meetings are helpful for some people.  But really, when you basically go over the same information that I have in my hand (as a piece of paper), you are wasting my time.  I’m not saying it is worthless advice. I’m saying it was a waste of my time.  Time better spent relaxing at home and enjoying the last summer evenings before school starts.

 I know better.  I knew I should have skipped this meeting.  This isn’t my first time at the rodeo.  But I thought I should go.  And I was strongly encouraged by my wife to go.  Hmm, the same wife that is out of town on a “Girl’s Trip” with her two best friends.

So blinded by love for my wife and children, I thought I should show my face and be a good parent.  You know that kind of stuff where you look like a good parent but are really just going through the motions.

Ahh, high school….

It’s not like I’m totally against the idea of having an informational meeting that will aid parents when they send their children off to high school.  I’m just against the wasting of my time with a meeting that really didn’t need to happen.  It didn’t need to occur; a simple tactful email with the two documents attached to it could have accomplished the same thing.  Think of all the valuable time that could have been saved!  Hours and hours!  My time wasted, my friends’ time wasted, teachers’ time, people I hate…their time was wasted as well.

That time is gone forever.  And I am forever reminded of the pain of that lost time whenever I drive by that school.

 

 

 

 

Teaching Kids about Disappointment and Adversity: What Valentine’s Day is All About!

~ K ~ Leave a comment

Argh, it’s another one of those “holidays” where parents, husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc. are suppose to buy “gifts” for each other to prove their love to one another.  I view this as an opportunity to teach your kids (and your significant other) about Disappointment and Adversity.

You should know by now that if I talk to you or live with you, that you are pretty special.  This extends to my friends as well.  I’m pretty picky on who I hang out or interact with.  If you are reading this, you are even more special than others.

One of the ways you can teach your kids about Disappointment and Adversity is to NOT give them gifts or cards on Valentine’s Day.

What?  But…but…where’s the love?

You want love?  You want gifts?  Here are the gifts of love you should be giving them: Disappointment and Adversity.

They shouldn’t expect this day to be any more special than any other day.  It isn’t Christmas or their birthday; they shouldn’t get presents.  And according to my friend Mike, if you bought a Valentine’s Day card for your wife (or husband), you spent too much on her (or him).  His wife and he have mutually agreed not to exchange gifts or cards on these kinds of “fake” holidays.  I admire that.  They both get a gold star.

If you shower your kids or significant other with gifts now, you have already set unrealistic standards for them later in life.  You have created the opportunity for them to be disappointed later in life, yet not given them the experience of adversity to overcome their disappointment.

For example: What if you are in a different country and are gone for Valentine’s Day?  If you give your children gifts all the time for every Valentine’s Day, you have already set a standard you must constantly live up to.  Your kids will still expect a gift even when you are gone.  You just gave yourself more work to do.  You have to plan something and that takes work and effort on your part.  And will those kids remember your gift in a week?  Will your husband remember that gift in 24 hours?

No, they won’t.

All of your hard work, planning, and effort for nothing.  Your hard work wasted away in the hands of time.  What did you learn from this experience?

What if you don’t do anything?  You just taught a valuable lesson to our children about Disappointment.  After they cried their eyes out and say their mommy and daddy doesn’t love or care about them, they will be stronger.  Nothing makes your kid tougher than tears streaming down their dirty face, a little disappointment entered into their thought process.  They will learn a great lesson on how to overcome adversity.  How will they learn from this experience?  How will it make them stronger?  How will it toughen them up?

Let’s fast forward to your kid in a relationship with someone they care about.  This person forgets about Valentine’s Day.  Because you were such a “good” parent all these years, your kid (now an adult) goes ballistic because their significant other screwed up Valentine’s Day.  But really…whose fault is it?  As a parent, it is your fault because you chickened out and didn’t introduce Disappointment and Adversity at a young age.  For Pete’s sake, everyone knows that ALL problems stem from “daddy” or “mommy” issues we have as children.  Ask any stripper; they’ll tell you.

Life is all about Disappointment and how to overcome it.  A lesson in Disappointment will also teach your children about Adversity.  Your children will cry but this experience will make them stronger, they will overcome the adversity that they are now experiencing.  This lesson would be better taught to your children at a younger age.  Better to learn a valuable lesson at a younger age than later in life (when it will turn you bitter and just make you a miserable person).

As always, your sarcastic and bitter comments are welcome.  Heck, all of your comments are welcome.

What’s better than cat puke? Spilled Pickle Juice!

~ K ~ Leave a comment

I’m proud to announce that at 10:15 pm, I have finished cleaning out the refrigerator after the “Great Pickle Juice Spill of 2011!” Yes, nothing beats having your son announce that at the bottom of your fridge sits a pool of pickle juice ready to be clean up. Instead of sitting down and enjoying a good book or watching some mindless television (who doesn’t like Jersey Shore??), I spent my evening pulling out the bottom two shelves of the fridge, cleaning them off and then….thinking to myself….

…since I am cleaning the bottom out I should also clean all the other shelves.

Out comes all the milk, cheese, eggs, Uncle Ray’s BBQ sauce, ketchup, mayo, Chinese hot mustard, jelly, beer, spinach, carrots, Jell-O, sour cream, etc. Out come the shelves to be scrubbed off with a beautiful solution of warm bleach water, gently scrubbing off the crumbs, dried out spinach, and other odd spills.

Looking into the empty fridge, one can step back and admire the cleanliness that has claimed its stake in the modern world. Yes, inhale softly the sweet smell of a clean fridge and relax knowing your eggs are once again safe from the foul smell of spilled pickle juice.