A Carton of Eggs, a Gallon of Milk, and a Scoop of Poop: Quality Time with My Daughter

A couple of years ago I started occasionally helping my friends Bob and Sheri on their farm. I learned to milk cows, take care of their chickens, and do all of the fun things that take place on a small farm in the morning. For the past several years, when they were out of town and needed somebody to take care of the critters, I jumped in whenever I could. It is something that I really enjoy, and it keeps me on my toes, since the only thing constant on a farm is change.

Two weeks ago, Bob and Sheri asked me to milk for the weekend. My two girls were in the play Annie, school was getting ready to start, and I was in the middle of a sizeable flooring project. It was quite hectic around the house. Nevertheless, I jumped at the opportunity to work at the farm.

Then my nine-year-old asked me if she could help. My initial response was to tell her that she needed to sleep in (and I use the term "sleeping in" very loosely, since my kids are almost always awake by 6:00). I needed to leave the house by 5 a.m., and I didn't think that Big E would be able to handle this on top of everything else that was going on. But the softie in me said that this would be a great Daddy-Daughter memory, and I told her that she could help me one of the days. I woke her up at 4:45, asked her to get dressed (and found out that she slept with her clothes under her pajamas so she would be ready more quickly), and we headed out.

Big E helped get the cows ready to milk. She carried their food. She scooped the poop from the pastures. She fed and watered the chickens and checked for eggs. And not once did she complain. It was hot and humid, even at 5:30 in the morning. There was a rain storm the night before, so everything was muddy. And yet she kept a smile on her face all morning.

As we were cleaning up, and then driving home, we started talking about the time on the farm and her experience. She expressed her desire to someday live on a farm and have horses and cows and chickens. Her face lit up as she dreamed her wonderful nine-year-old dreams.

And I thought to myself, "Am I Tom Sawyer? Did I just dupe my child into doing work by making her think that it was fun?" I don't think that I tricked her, but I do think that I showed her how much fun the work is because of my enthusiasm. And my enthusiasm was even greater because of the one-on-one time that I got to spend with my daughter in the midst of an extremely busy time in our house. I love taking my kids on dates and spending time with them. But for Big E, spending time scooping poop with daddy was just as great as a date.

Do you think it will work if I pretend like I really enjoy folding their laundry and make that a date?

What Type of Flooring is Best? A Stress Test of Bamboo, Laminate, and Engineered Floors

We love our current house, but we are still in the process of making it our home. As you may have read in one of my previous posts, the addition of kids really slows down the home project process. However, one of the biggest advantages of taking projects more slowly is the amount of time I can spend researching products before deciding what I want. This is my gift. This is my curse... All of that to say this: I hate my floors. Our carpets are so old and worn that we have stopped cleaning the stains. The tile is standard builder's grade beige with hints of beigeness, with beige grout. We have been fine with this for the past four years, but I say to these floors, "No more!"

But back to the process part of the project.

So before we tackled this project, we had to decide what to replace it with. We knew that we wanted something that was wood or wood-look, and we needed something relatively inexpensive (Remember, I'm an educator. We're famously underpaid.). So we had four contenders.

Inexpensive Home Comfort Fix: So Easy a Six-Year-Old Can Do It

This past week, we had a whole house energy audit. If you haven't heard of these, they are pretty cool. We had ours done through a Rosie-certified contractor (all Arizona homeowners should know who Rosie is). The purpose of a home energy audit is to find out how energy efficient your home is. Here's the process.

First, a big fan is hooked up to the front door. All ducts are tested with a pressure sensor, the AC unit is tested, windows and doors are

DIY Stained Glass

Three years ago I wrote an article about being a real life long learner. The two skills that I had recently learned at that point were milking cows and making stained glass. At that point, I had only made a turtle after one session of stained glass work, but I really enjoyed it. My mom had supplies, a friend had several boxes of glass, and I had a table in the garage that just needed a future project to sit on it. And sit on it the supplies did, for three years.

Then, this past spring, my wife and I were looking at this ugly curtain that covered a south facing window above our sliding glass door. The curtain came with the house, I think it had once been white but was so covered in dust that its color was indescribably filthy, and the window was just screaming for some class. We had talked about doing something with stained glass for that space, but the window is about five feet by two feet, and the turtle that I had previously made was about four inches by three inches. I didn't know if I was ready to

Stained Glass and Coffee: What to Do When It's 3 A.M. and You Can't Sleep

It's 3:30 a.m. and I can't sleep. I've been laying in bed awake for an hour, and while I know I'm exhausted because it's the end of a school year, my mind just won't shut down. We've all been there before. When I was a kid, it was the Tetris dream. You know the one. You have a game of Tetris playing in your head, and you have all of the pieces perfectly stacked. Then you get nothing but random zig-zag pieces that don't fit and you wake up in a cold sweat. Please tell me that I'm not the only one who has had these Tetris dreams before.

Is this random? Yes it is. Remember the part where I said that it is 3:30 a.m.?

I'm not having random Tetris dreams now. I have school schedules running through my head. And kids birthday parties. And gardening and house projects and date nights and banking. So while my body is tired and in need of sleep, my mind is like a three year old at a birthday party. It just won't stop.