September 2011
2 posts
50%
My wife runs a small business. I teach at a small independent school. If we wanted to have medical insurance for our whole family, it would cost me 75% of my paycheck. My salary is too high for our two daughters to be covered by Hoosier Healthwise.
Medical Insurance is not affordable for us. So, we are currently uninsured. Socioeconomically, we are considered a middle class family. Yet we...
How Do My Children Measure Up?
For the last four years, I have had the opportunity to work in an urban public school. My two children were students in this school as well. Each year, the pressure on myself as a teacher to increase my student’s ISTEP test scores, increased. While I knew my students, as well as my two children, were more than a test score, I worked hard to make sure we covered as many state standards as...
August 2011
7 posts
Beets...
Those two glasses contain juice from three beets, a few carrots, and some ginger.
According to our neighbor, who knows about most things food related, when you are juicing, you have to be careful with beets. When you are a beginning juicer, you shouldn’t use more than one beet at a time. The nutrients of a raw beet are a little too much for the beginning juicer’s belly to handle....
Reboot Day 1
Day one of Reboot began with me wandering around the house for 5 minutes trying to figure out what to do instead of making a pot of coffee. I was lost. Sitting on the back porch and reading didn’t feel the same without a mug going to my mouth every few minutes. I am pretty sure this is a sign of addiction.
We made our first glass of juice: peach, carrot, orange, rhubarb, blueberry,...
Reboot.
So we saw this movie…and that is how it usually starts right? That or, I read this book. In this case, we saw a movie. This movie was called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.
The premise is that you can change your health, reboot your body so to speak, just by drinking raw fruit and vegetable juice. ”Just” doesn’t mean easy. It means that’s all you take in. Raw fruit...
Basement Fridge...
So we moved the food back upstairs a long time ago. We finally called the repairman who worked some magic for about $100. The basement fridge has been returned to its regular duty of just keeping beer cold.
February 2011
4 posts
Basement Fridge Update
I’ve lost track of where we are in this little experiment, somewhere near or in week 3.
Much has happened since the kitchen refrigerator stopped working. Egypt is free. Libya is next. Wisconsin is in an uproar over budget cuts and the rights of state employees. We tried to fix some plumbing on our own and ended up without a shower for two days and a bill from the plumber who had to...
Basement Fridge Day 8
We have now lived with Basement Fridge for a week. Here’s an update of our status as a family with a fridge in the basement.
-Back Porch Fridge has now become Back Porch Freezer. The temperatures are dropping to below zero at night. We left the milk on the porch. It’s basic science. Needless to say, the milk froze.
-We survived a blizzard without a refrigerator in our kitchen....
Basement Fridge Day 4
Our oldest daughter started day 4 of Basement Fridge with a question. ”Mom, you are going to call the refrigerator repair guy today right?”
Needless to say, the refrigerator repair man did not get called. We are currently under a blizzard warning, which meant the day was spent running errands and getting groceries. We did have fun last night, watching our neighbors pull up in...
January 2011
2 posts
Basement Fridge
Exactly two days and seventeen hours ago the refrigerator and freezer in our kitchen stopped working. It’s okay though. We are an American family. We have another one in our basement.
My wife and I loaded up the contents of the broken fridge into laundry baskets and hauled them down to the basement. The basement fridge is one of those old ones that just keeps working, the kind that is...
November 2010
1 post
Election 2012
So the highlight of this election season for me was my nine year old daughter’s insightful comment after seeing another political ad where one candidate fails to mention what they stand for, but instead tells us how evil his opponent is…”Daddy, I don’t mean to judge, but it doesn’t really seem like old guys make very good decisions.”
It is only two years after...
August 2010
1 post
Celebration
“A party, like a meeting for worship, is not operating on the level of reason…. It transcends logic. It slides willingly and consciously (if it is a good party) toward a celebration of the fact of being alive. The celebrants at a party share bread and wine and reach toward a communal touching, for a moment, of an existence that is not limited by the individual ego. The sound of a party...
December 2009
1 post
Advent
So for the second year in a row, my wife and I have been going out of our way to make this time of year, known as advent on the Christian calendar, somewhat counter Christmas cultural. Slow down instead of speed up. Reflect and anticipate instead of try to squeeze a year’s worth of guilt motivated charitable acts into three weeks.
Last year, during our first run of this attempt at doing...
November 2009
1 post
Farewell Green Machine
Dear Person Who Stole My Bike,
Because you were generous enough to take my bike in the middle of the night without waking my family or I, I thought I would return the generosity by giving you a few tips on what I affectionately called The Green Machine.
One of the finer attributes of the bike is the squishy cushion seat I purchased for it two years ago. It should really make those long distance...
October 2009
4 posts
The Harvest Party
This week, my family was invited to come to a Harvest Party on Saturday night. We graciously declined the invitation because Saturday night also happens to be Halloween. (click for an interesting history of Halloween, I’m sure you can find various histories, I’d never heard this one before).
The Harvest Party. The Harvest Party is a Halloween alternative, a “safe”...
Eating Rocks
Eating Rocks is my attepmt to make some sense of our lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana. So here we go…
Whisker what???
Whiskerino.
Two Hundred Thirty-Seven men successfully faced the gauntlet of Whiskerino 2007 from November 1st, 2007 to February 29th, 2008. Society be damned, they grew fierce beards for four months and cultivated creativity, friendships and forged an indescribable connection.
Will you join the 2009 Whiskerino?
Joining Whiskerino 2009 will require you to…
1. Grow a beard for four...
“Vision over visibility.”