River Cats We Barely Knew You...

The River Cat's season is no more.
Griffin's baseball team ended with a one run loss in the semi-finals of this year's championship run.

old pic...couldn't find one from this year

Cooper's baseball season is over as well, and that means a few things:

1.  We aren't at 6 hours of warmups and baseball games every Saturday

2.  Neither of their teams will win this year's World Series

3.  Um...feels like there should be at least three if I'm going to start numbering things...

Griffin had a great playoff run.  He was 7 for 7 in his last two games.  In the final game he threw a kid out trying to steal third base, was 4 for 4 and hit two balls over the head of the centerfielder.  I couldn't think of a better way for his season to end...

...outside of them maybe winning the game...that would have been good too...

Take your daddy to work day

Parker brought me in to the office today.  She's showing me the ropes and helping me to get organized. 

Turns out my desk is a mess...

We're hoping that she'll be able to help get things going for the Summer of Service.

I hear they're finishing up details and still need a bunch of people to help out.

She was hoping to speak one night, but lately she's been thinking more about wrapping the popcorn bags...both are good...

Nick of Time

This isn't a review of the mid-90's Johnny Depp vehicle with Christopher Walken....but I dare you to find a motion picture with two of the greats that is equally as bad as that motion picture.

Nope - I just read the Kindle version of this Tim Downs novel.  Under the title it reads, "A Bug Man Novel".  I didn't see that when I selected this book.  I probably wouldn't have selected it...

It's nothing against bugs - or men for that matter - it's just that I'm generally not jumping on board anything with bugman in the title.

Having said that - this is a pretty solid book.  It reads sort of like the popular television series Bones plays out.  Part mystery - part forensic science - part romantic will they/won't they.

Here's the best thing I can say about the book.  I kept wondering if the main character was in other books.  It just read like one book in a series of books....and the kind of series I'd like to read.

That settles it, right?  If you want to read more books with this character then you obviously like the book...that just makes sense.

So there's a little bit of action - a little big of clever dialogue - a little bit of bug factoids - and in the end Bruce Willis was a ghost.

I'd give this book a looksy if I was picking out one or two vacation novels.

Livin on a Prayer

We're halfway there

Our family has decided to simplify our lives through the reduction of our collective stuff.
I have no idea how much stuff we have, but I do know that it's about to drop by a thousand.

The sad thing is that when I brought this idea up - it seemed like no big deal.  That's a sure sign that we have way too much stuff.

On some level it's difficult to feel like I'm an outsider living by a different rules - walking against the grain of the world and living for the Kingdom...while watching my new flatscreen television and ignoring my neighbors. (still suffering from buyer's remorse from that cursed television)

I'm not sure reducing the amount our stuff actually moves me forward in that direction, but it can't hurt.
Very simply, we have more than our share of stuff.

So we're putting things into boxes.
We have the Keep box
We have a Give Away box
We have a Sell box
& we have a Throw Away box

We've given a bunch of clothese, books & toys to our neighbors, friends and the Healing Center.

We sold 175 books & magazines to Half Priced Books and we still have boxes to go through in our basement.   Side note - those books & magazines went for $37....so that's probably not going to pay the mortgage this month.

We've thrown away a silly amount of stuff.  I had no idea that we had so many half filled notebooks, video tapes and broken electronics.

We're halfway there.  We just hit 500 items and will continue to move forward. 

I hope to one day only own two sets of clothing and Dennis Miller's Off White Album.

one day at a time

20/20

A few notes from our recent staycation:
-Genius idea to get those passes to the King's Island (side note: not really an island...saw no king)
-Good idea to get those Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden passes

Coop flying at the King's Island

-Scheduling something for every single morning and every single night was dumb
-We celebrated Parker's 5th birthday and Annie's as well...not fifth...

Mist tunnel at the Zoo is genius

-Annie and I took six weeks of Foster/Adoption classes in three days (we're super smart)
-Several baseball games were watched
-We enjoyed another awesome night at Prasco Park with free Chick Fil-A, ice cream, t-shirts and more Chick Fil-A


free ice cream, baseball, chick fil-a, and family night out

-We hung out with a lot of great friends
-We cured cancer
-No animals were harmed during the entire staycation (unless you count those delicious chickens that gave up their lives so that the good people at the baseball game could enjoy them)