Photo Credit: Janetmck

Babies really have a way of putting out the stink. It is not so bad for the first few weeks after birth, but as their digestive system works out the nourishment remaining from gestation, their normally bland smelling diapers take a turn for the worst.

The very best thing to do is focus on the head. Since the head is the most attractive part of all babies anyway this should be fairly obvious. Just remember that the head is the part without the white saggy plastic bag attached to it. A mistake in this assessment skill could be catastrophic. One never knows the terrors that reside in the loin coverings of babies.

The very best parents will keep the baby’s head powdered well. Sometimes you get real lucky and find a baby that has been rubbed down with baby oil. These babies smell particularly nice and should have their heads sniffed at every opportunity.

It can be real tempting, when in public, to go up and smell the heads of completely strange babies. I would encourage the baby smeller to avoid these types of smelling situations. Most normal parents frown on strangers smelling their babies heads. If you do find a stranger willing to let you sniff their baby there are a couple of things to be mindful of.

First, remember that babies are easily startled; you should sniff as quietly as possible. Secondly it is never a good idea to actually touch your nose to the baby. For the baby to maintain a nice odor it is important that the noses of complete strangers never touch it. Finally, should a baby be surprised to see you lean in for a sniff, you may want to consider finding a different baby to smell. Although babies smell great, pleasuring your olfactory nerves is not their only function.

While babies heads smell better than anything else on the planet, it is the responsibility of all sniffers to understand the dos and don’ts of baby smelling. Without responsible baby sniffing by all adults we run the risk of losing this privilege forever.

For the sake of all moms, dads and babies please exercise appropriate baby smelling. Responsible baby smelling is everyone’s responsibility and should never be taken for granted.

Photo Credit: urbanwide

My parents worked pretty hard to raise my sister and me well. They did not have the best examples to follow. When they were older, and started raising a family of their own, they did the best they could.

With the exception of the ban on ‘rock music’, I do not have any problems with any of their decisions. Hey, I missed out on the greatest era in music, the eighties!

It is okay dad, I am not too bitter! (wink wink)

There is one thing my parents taught me that I have followed to this very day. Julie and I are trying our hardest to instill this one value into the lives of our children as well.

Just tell the truth!

If I really wanted to find out the depth at which my parents could discipline, all I had to do was tell a lie. There was absolutely no room for it in our home. My mom’s favorite scripture out of the bible on the subject, while I was growing up, was the following:

all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone

No, I do not sit around in fear that if I tell a lie I will burn in hell forever. My mom was trying to make a point, though. Mom and dad both knew that pain and misery follow liars around and the consequences of such behavior spread to those around us. The greatest violations man has thrust upon other men were covered in lies and deception. Both slavery and the Holocaust were founded upon the lie that Jews and African Americans were not 100% people.

Trust is the currency of all relationships. – Andy Stanley

I want my girls to understand; without honesty successful relationships cannot exist. When they get older and start to date I want them to expect honesty. If they have lived their whole lives in an environment filled with the truth then they will be instantly turned off by any relationship with lying in it.

Because of our desire to see our daughters be in healthy relationships we hold them to very high standards. They have lost privileges for an entire year as the consequence for dishonesty.

Even if they tell the truth just to avoid the long horrible conversation that may result if we find out they lied I am happy.

Eventually truth will find its way into the light. I want my kids to understand that the end results are always better if we shine the light of truth on ourselves rather than hoping someone else does not.

“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

Photo Credit: JD Hancock

I have been fascinated with time travel for a long time. Since I am a sci-fi fan I get plenty of entertainment content surrounding the subject. For the most part every episode of my favorite shows use time travel to give me a happy ending. Our hero goes back and saves someone or rights some kind of wrong. He or she gets to return back to their correct time and everything is better.

Well hurrah for them!

The rest of us have to live our lives looking back on bad decisions or experiences and wish we could go back and change them. My list is just as long as anyone else’s. Maybe I do not have some of the ugly things in my past many people do such as untimely death of family members, but I would like to think that kind of thing is relative anyway. My worst experience may not be as bad as another person’s worst experience but it is still MY worst experience.

I am such an emotional person that I would run back in time just minutes after a decision and change it. I would ultimately find myself in an endless loop of decision making, and changing, trying to find that perfect combination for a life that will make me happy.

I would abandon the need for a mentor. I can just try every single possible scenario and choose which result I like the most. I would become the ultimate manipulator leveraging my powers for my own welfare. My wife, children, friends and neighbors would become slaves to my every whim. I would become lazy and fat(er) since I would be able to win the lottery any time I ran out of money.

With the ability to turn back time and fix my past mistakes I will guarantee myself one thing. I will leave this earth as dumb as I entered it, and no one would be better off for my existence. I would live an uneventful, perfect and completely boring life.

Photo Credit: Kaba

Probably the most stressful part of running my own company was keeping the pipeline full. I tried a little bit of everything.

It was easy in the early days. Demand was high for cabinet installation. Trim carpenters, at least here in Kansas City, wanted nothing to do with kitchen cabinets. All we really had to do was the basics. If we were on time, did our work well, and took care of the details we stayed busy.

As the market turned south the landscape changed. Trim carpenters all over the city decided installing cabinets was not such a bad idea. Since most of them knew very little about cabinet installation they looked to the builders and suppliers for pricing. The trim carpenters provided opportunity, and the building industry here in Kansas City cashed in, or out, or down, you get the point. The floor dropped out of market pricing and instillation quality went with it. I tried for 36 months to keep things above water. Ultimate we closed our doors due to lack of work. We were not willing to be the cheapest place in town; we were unable to perform that poorly. We were specialists in a market that did not want specialists; it wanted cheap.
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My wife loves to decorate for Christmas. The phrase, “the more the merrier” is not lost on us. These snowflakes have been taken down, neatly packed, and unpacked for the last decade. Every year our home is stuffed wall to wall, with decorations.

It is like an episode of Hoarders but with lights!

The tackier the decoration the more excited we get.

I think I picked this one up from Wal-Mart but I do not remember. It is about three feet tall.

This is quite possibly the most frightening thing on the planet. It looks harmless but do not be fooled!

Douglas Fir - Of Death!

Plug it in, turn it on and if someone walks by it opens its mouth and it starts..

“Do you know what time it is? It’s Christmas time!”

“Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree how lovely are your branches.”

Well, Julie got this great idea to plug it in after the kids went to bed so they would wake up in the morning and be surprised.

About seven AM we hear this blood curdling scream coming from the living room followed by screaming and running down the hall and a door slamming. We find our beloved Jessica hiding in the corner of her room crying, “The eyes!”

The eyes of death!

For the next three years Jessica refused to come out of her room while we dug the decorations out of the attic. If we even hinted that we were using Douglas she would run from the room screaming and slam the door; locking it behind her.

Friends

Eventually Douglas and Jessica did make up. She is even able to laugh at herself now.

The next time you head to the attic to dig out your decorations. Beware the dangers that lurk in the corners! Things are not always as they seem!

Photo Credit: Eva_elfje

Myopia is the medical condition in which someone can only clearly see things close. Myopia is also used as a slang term meaning, “Lack of discernment or narrow mindedness.”

Writers suffer from the slang version of myopia. The popular advice for a new blogger is,  ”Find something you are passionate about and write about it every day for a year!” The problem with this advice is you end up with a bored writer. Bored writers quit writing. The internet is littered with dead blogs from writers who got bored writing. They would probably claim writer’s block but I would argue it is more like writer’s myopia.

Every writer needs creative inspiration. I get mine every two weeks from the “Let’s BlogOff” masterminds (I use that term loosely) at http://letsblogoff.com.

I joined the “Let’s BlogOff” group back in February of this year. I have only missed one week during that time but it was the one week that has changed my writing forever.
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