Clubbing

I always want to start my blogs with something about clubbing. I'm not sure why, but it's probably because my parents didn't love me enough or they didn't get me the GI Joe w/ the Kung Fu grip or something. Either way, whatever sanity I have sometimes doesn't seem quite enough. God seems to provide (if you're a heathen then I guess insert an empty space where I wrote God) what I need but it's pretty darn close sometimes. The boys have been doing better because we've been keeping a daily accounting of their behavior. If they've been bad they end up w/ a "frowny face" and their reward/punishment is bare bottom spanking. Thankfully, that's been pretty rare because we give them a reality check when I get home. Then they get the opportunity to turn it around but the best they can do for the whole day is and OK. Basically, I define that as "Kids are not small adults, and therefore they will make mistakes and I will not crush their spirits too much." A "smiley-face" is "I about passed out because when I came home my wife wasn't in hysterics and screaming "Why did you do this to me!?!" and I am able to enter the home and go to bed at night w/out almost having a heart attack. Also, you probably did something without being asked and did a good job. Oh, and you ran and got me water whenever I asked for it." 

A frowny face on the other hand is much much grimmer. It consists of the aforementioned hysterical wife with details such as "he said i hate you." or lying and bullying the girls or wanton destruction or some such evil that is wicked (as were we all once) children. I worked with Forrest on proper nouns. Ok, forget all the complicated stuff. Proper nouns are nouns that are always capitalized. Get that, then work on what makes them special. I don't do much w/ helping schoooling (yes an extra o for the extra work) but Forrest was working on greater than/less than. Ya know < & >? I remember being confused on those. I swear I was in sixth grade. What the heck? why was I doing that in sixth grade. I gotta be wrong on that one. Anyway, I finally figured it out so I told forrest to picture the symbol < as pacman eating the bigger number. I drew a partial circle (come on, you can picture it) and threw on some eyeballs. I even added teeth. That seemed to help him a lot and it made it more fun to boot.

Anyway, something is always going on here. Rebekah and I are currently in tense negotiations over Turkey Day. Plans changed since her lazy sister moved away. Right now i'm looking at a multiple-hundred $ expense to drive to Colorado. I will stop now before I get in too much trouble. Rebekah gets these blogs. She's shopping right now while I sit here like a zombie. Granted, a zombie with higher brain function, but still a zombie.

We are also looking at refinancing our house. I'm a little frustrated over homeowners insurance of all things because our house is old. Hopefully we can put that to bed soon. I've committed to an appraisal though so if things go belly up now, i'm on the hook for $500. If not, it'll get rolled into the loan (i think). <groan!> See why driving to Colorado stresses me out? Not to mention the 6 small children and an over ten hour drive. Sanity, I'll see you on the flipside :)