My favorite line:

"Swine flu?!? Man, I'm too fast for that to catch me!"

HT: Brad Ruggles

Labels: swine flu, video

Hello World: Please don't ever make me talk about sex again.

This cracked me up, but it is great. I hope that when the day comes that we have to talk to Palmer and Presely about sex that we handle it this well.

Before Twitter, I would have definitely blogged this. Since I started using Twitter, blog posts like this usually get compressed into 140 characters or less and maybe a Twitpic. However, tonight when I went to tweet this, I couldn't say what I wanted within the 140 character constraint and I was reminded of the days when blog posts like this were more frequent. I often say that "Twitter killed my blog", but tonight the blog won.

Tonight, Kim went to play Bunko with some girls. It's something she does monthly-ish. She gets out of the house and get some kid free grown-up time, which leaves me with the kiddos.

Just as Kim was leaving, the Pritchetts showed up with our dinner. They are one of the very gracious families that have volunteered to make dinner for us while we get used to have two kids in the house. Tonight, they brought us some pasta and salad.

I set Palmer in his chair with some pasta to eat. When I returned with my dinner he had eaten all that I had given him. He looked at me like, "You gonna eat your cornbread?" So, I gave him some oranges to eat. He scarfed those down, too, so I gave him some more pasta. While he was working on round two of pasta, I got him to try some lettuce, which he did not seem to like all that much, and some tomatoes. At first he resisted the tomatoes, but after he tried one, he asked for more.

Since he ate so well, I decided to reward him with some dessert. I gave him a cup of pudding, which he kept referring to as chocolate milk. Below are some pics from that. He was pretty funny to watch eating the pudding.





Overall, my single dad with two kids night went well. Our kids are pretty good when they want to be. Tonight, they took it easy on daddy.

* Every time I say "Twitter killed my blog", I think of this song. Every time I hear that song, I think of Empire Records, which by the way is an excellent movie.

What's up with today today?

Labels: family, food, movies, music, Palmer, twitter

I know this my sound strange, but I have started "couponing". Well, that is a stretch, but I did do it once.

Tonight, I got $19.87 worth of stuff from CVS a net out of pocket of $1.12. Here's what I got and spent...

NOTES: CVS ECB is essentially a CVS gift card that you get for buying certain items. I had an actual CVS gift card from a prescription coupon. Those are awesome. You get a $25 gift card for getting a prescription filled at CVS. The kicker is they take competitor's coupons.

Transaction #1:
1 x Softsoap Scrub Body Wash @ $4.99
- $.50 CVS ECB
- $3.99 CVS Gift Card
= $.54 Out of pocket

I got back $4.49 in CVS ECB.

Transaction #2:
1 x Kellogs Fruit Loops @ $2.00
1 x Collgate Toothpaste @ $3.99
1 x Butterfinger @ $0.67
- $1 off Kellogs Cereal
- $1 off Collgate Toothpaste
- $4.49 CVS ECB (from transaction #1)
= $.22 Out of pocket

I got back $3.99 in CVS ECB. The Butterfinger was just filler. You do not get change from CVS ECB. So, if you use $4.49 in CVS ECB to pay for $3.99 in merchandise, you lose out on $0.50. So, I bought a candy bar.

Transaction #3:
1 x Collgate Toothpaste @ $3.99
2 x Sobe Life Water @ $1.49 (On sale B1G1, i.e. buy one get one free.)
1 x Reece's PB Cups 8 Pack @ $1.25
-$1 off Collgate Toothpaste
- B1G1 Sobe Life Water Coupon (Made mine B0G2)
- $3.99 CVS ECB (from transaction #2)
= $.36 Out of pocket

I got back another $3.99 in CVS ECB, which is equal to the gift card I started with. The Reece's were filler again. Maybe next time I'll try to buy filler that is not candy.

So, I walked into CVS with a $3.99 gift card, the change out of my car, some coupons and a plan. I walked out with Some body wash (that I don't really use), two tubes of toothpaste (which I needed), two bottles of flavored water (that could possibly make lizards dance), a box of cereal, some candy, and $3.99 in CVS ECB.

I got the plan from here and most of the coupons I printed off the internet. You can find the links to those on the site linked in the previous sentence. It does take a little bit of time and effort, but if you're going to the store to get toothpaste, you might as well pick up two of them and a bunch of other crap for only a little over a buck.

Do you have any super awesome ways you stick it to the man?

NOTE: You can print the Sobe coupon from the site above and you can do the B0G2 up to 3 times. So, that's a B0G6, $9 worth of drinks for free.

Labels: coupons, CVS, money

On Saturday, Palmer was playing downstairs. Kim and I were both upstairs. We heard a crash and then heard Palmer start crying. It was not the I'm-scared cry, but it was more of them I-hurt-myself cry.

I hustled downstairs to see what was wrong. He was trying to climbing back onto the chaise. Apparently, he had just fallen off it and scraped his back on the end-table.

I dusted him off and took him upstairs to show mommy his 'boo boo'. He had a scrape about two inches long on his back and it had a tiny bit of blood on it. When I showed it to Kim, she immediately broke out some hydrogen peroxide, Neosporin and a band-aid.

While she was applying treatment, I laughed. I asked her, "Do you know what I would have done for this if you weren't here?" He response was spot on. She knows me well. She said, "Probably nothing." Then, she said, "That's why God made mommies."

I love my wife. She's so good for me and our kids. Without her, there's no telling what kind of state we might be in.

Labels: kids, Palmer, parenting

The weather is nice and I want a big juicy burger. The problem is that other than taking a trip to Red Robin, I don't have a good way of producing that big juicy burger. To remedy that, we've decided to buy a grill.

We are going to buy a gas grill. With two kids and loads of other commitments, we don't have the time to mess with charcoal.

So, other than the gas versus charcoal debate, what other things should I consider when choosing a grill?

What kind of grill do you have? What do you like about it? What do you not like about it?

Let me know.

Labels: food, grills, summertime