Do Not Open Unless You're Me! (of course, you reading this blows THAT out of the water) :p
DEAR ABBY: I recently found a notebook of my mom's. On the outside cover it said, "Disclaimer: Do Not Open Unless You're Me!" Being the curious soul that I am, I opened it despite the disclaimer.
Often this is the story of my life! But it's not like posting a blog is keeping your innermost thoughts secret anyway, so I'm trying to control what I share here ... and I'm the first person to admit I am not always successful at that. So this weekend.
Days two and three of the North Dakota State Fair (this past Friday and Saturday) are most often the days Martha and I get to go, or at least get to hear the stories from my kids of what's all at the Fair this year. For the fiftieth anniversary Fair, quite naturally a lot of stops will get pulled out. And you have to have the fair food. From the cheese curds to the onion blossoms to the funnel cakes to the strawberry smoothies (all enjoyed by Martha, me, and the kids, at one time or another) we also got around to rides which the kids immensely enjoyed ...
Until we got to one called the Flipper, and whether our son Jeffrey could ride it or not seemed to depend on the operator at the time due to how tall he was. (Jeffrey, not the operator.) Now when someone else in our family was there with him, they seemed to finagle him onto the ride with his sister Sarah and cousin Josceline. But when I was there and I was ready to tell the operator the same thing I was stopped from doing so. Reminding myself eventually that it wasn't worth the jail time, I walked away -- but I didn't talk much the rest of the day.
I have no problem asking people for help, contrary to what seems to be popular opinion, I just don't like having a decision made for me because I WILL shut myself off if I feel like no one's listening. I am forty-three years old, and I would like to think that as a parent and as a human being I have developed enough that I know ... heck, I don't know. Friday I was home with the family and we caught the eighties film version of Little Shop of Horrors, Saturday while Martha worked we went to her parents' house and caught a decent if windy view of the 213-float parade, then got to the fair.
So much was at the fair -- we even got to see one of Jeffrey's artworks from school displayed, he got a participation ribbon for it and a State Fair hoodie -- that by the time we got home it was just past midnight (I think) and in church the following morning we were all dragging! And I'm the one who's usually on Sarah and Jeffrey about keeping some degree of alertness about them during morning worship ... I was half tempted to leave everyone at home, but my wife was the voice of reason on that. Still, I had to sound angry when I was reading the lesson just to stay awake!
Yesterday the kids went to the Fair too, but not as long. By the time we picked them up we'd bought another bottle of freon for our van's air conditioner, which you could barely feel running, and got my brother-in-law Allan's help installing it (seriously, even reading the directions it didn't make sense) and after we got the kids we went out for pizza at Angelo's -- we'd never been -- and halfway through Jeffrey was feeling another front tooth of his ready to come out! With some help from Sarah at home later, out it came and the Tooth Fairy visited last night. And I couldn't sleep anyway, I was surprised.
One small step for man, one giant leap ...
David
Often this is the story of my life! But it's not like posting a blog is keeping your innermost thoughts secret anyway, so I'm trying to control what I share here ... and I'm the first person to admit I am not always successful at that. So this weekend.
Days two and three of the North Dakota State Fair (this past Friday and Saturday) are most often the days Martha and I get to go, or at least get to hear the stories from my kids of what's all at the Fair this year. For the fiftieth anniversary Fair, quite naturally a lot of stops will get pulled out. And you have to have the fair food. From the cheese curds to the onion blossoms to the funnel cakes to the strawberry smoothies (all enjoyed by Martha, me, and the kids, at one time or another) we also got around to rides which the kids immensely enjoyed ...
Until we got to one called the Flipper, and whether our son Jeffrey could ride it or not seemed to depend on the operator at the time due to how tall he was. (Jeffrey, not the operator.) Now when someone else in our family was there with him, they seemed to finagle him onto the ride with his sister Sarah and cousin Josceline. But when I was there and I was ready to tell the operator the same thing I was stopped from doing so. Reminding myself eventually that it wasn't worth the jail time, I walked away -- but I didn't talk much the rest of the day.
I have no problem asking people for help, contrary to what seems to be popular opinion, I just don't like having a decision made for me because I WILL shut myself off if I feel like no one's listening. I am forty-three years old, and I would like to think that as a parent and as a human being I have developed enough that I know ... heck, I don't know. Friday I was home with the family and we caught the eighties film version of Little Shop of Horrors, Saturday while Martha worked we went to her parents' house and caught a decent if windy view of the 213-float parade, then got to the fair.
So much was at the fair -- we even got to see one of Jeffrey's artworks from school displayed, he got a participation ribbon for it and a State Fair hoodie -- that by the time we got home it was just past midnight (I think) and in church the following morning we were all dragging! And I'm the one who's usually on Sarah and Jeffrey about keeping some degree of alertness about them during morning worship ... I was half tempted to leave everyone at home, but my wife was the voice of reason on that. Still, I had to sound angry when I was reading the lesson just to stay awake!
Yesterday the kids went to the Fair too, but not as long. By the time we picked them up we'd bought another bottle of freon for our van's air conditioner, which you could barely feel running, and got my brother-in-law Allan's help installing it (seriously, even reading the directions it didn't make sense) and after we got the kids we went out for pizza at Angelo's -- we'd never been -- and halfway through Jeffrey was feeling another front tooth of his ready to come out! With some help from Sarah at home later, out it came and the Tooth Fairy visited last night. And I couldn't sleep anyway, I was surprised.
One small step for man, one giant leap ...
David
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