the other day i was leaving the kitchen and bella called me back. when i stuck my head through the doorway she said:

BELLA
you forget something?

TROY
uhh. no. i just came down for my coffee.

BELLA
you didn't say i love you.

TROY
oh. yes. sorry. love you.

BELLA
love you too. hope you have a great day. do good. make it happen. View in Gallery >>>

while anthony and i were walking to school a man in a well-kept bmw stopped to bid us good day. we returned the sentiment. in parting, he told anthony to work hard in school and drove off. as anthony and i watched the car pull away anthony said ...

ANTHONY
that man must not have any kids.

TROY
why do you say that?

ANTHONY
because he has such a nice car.
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my notes from a toastmaster's talk i gave titled FAMILY MANTRAS.

marty and i have adopted a few house rules. typically they revolve around love, support, and respect. one of the earliest house rules (which i believe i lifted from a friend) is the "nothing permanent" rule. this rule connects to our intention of delivering our children, when they are of age, to adulthood free of permanent luggage such as tattoos, unplanned children, or prison records so they may ...

marty attaches the phrase "after college" to most things the kids ask regarding grown-up choices. this would be stuff like having children, getting married, buying horses, or living in bigger homes ¹. this message falls in great alignment with our "nothing permanent" policy (explained here).

my hope by the use of this phrase is that they in fact wait until after college for the litany of things described. marty's hope is we can at least get them out of high school before dealing with them.

here is one case i really hope i'm right.

¹ anthony desperately wants us to move to a bigger home. this became a sticking point with him after we visited some friends. funny thing is their home is no bigger than ours, might even be a touch smaller. but, it was a ranch layout loaded with circles (doorways that connected rooms together) so it had a mesmerizing and labyrinthal quality especially to someone who can barely see at a counter level.

while visiting with my friend in utah, sister-keri, back in february, we had many discussions about all sorts of things. now that we were both parents and doing that whole adult thing, some of these dealt with parenting and one of the more interesting touched on family mantras. the family she grew up in struck me as being very happy, very healthy so i asked if there was an over-riding message tha...