💉 Go Ask Daddy About needle pain, baking tips and sites for the big game

Know what’d be cool?

It’d be cool if our president and the World Cup MVP would meet. If one of them – doesn’t matter who – put politics aside, for a day. Closed door. Player and President.

When I watched the World Cup final, I didn’t see gay players or straight. There was no distinction between conservative or liberal. All that mattered was the white shirt.

It’s kind of the cool thing about sports.

Advertisements

🧿 #IBelieve IX: On enchilada sauce, life, and timeless cravings

You gotta believe.

It’s an essential part of being a parent. Or a blogger. Especially a Colorado Rockies fan. There isn’t much in this world that doesn’t get a bit sweeter with belief. In fact, the lack of it is grotesque, like those Poptarts without frosting.

Blech.

In the course of my discourse and my writing, I say stuff. Sometimes, it’s about Ingrid Michaelson or enchiladas. Other times, it’s about beliefs. Not just in Jesus or Buddha or the power of the changeup pitch, but sometimes.

🌰 10 Things Grateful – plus possums who somehow make it #gratitudeandshit

It’s been a good weekend.

I’m writing this somewhere over what looks like Arizonewmexitexas. I’d know for sure if I could see if those are Cardinals or Cowboys car flags attached to cars down there. But honestly, Cowboys fans are everywhere like a bad itch.

I’m grateful for what this weekend past became.

A crew of colleagues in new roles for nearly everyone pulled off the improbable. We delivered a seamless international training event, somehow, someway. I likened it to watching a possum cross eight lanes of highway traffic unscathed. 

😕 Go Ask Daddy About Plant Eaters, Color Collections and What Happens if You Cross the Border for College

The questions have begun to dwindle.

The girls just don’t ask as many questions. They have answers. Or, they don’t look to me for them as they once did. This is okay. Seasons change in fatherhood. If they change back, I’ll be ready for that, too.

The list that once pushed 400 is down to 213.

That’s still a lot of Go Ask Daddy. Want to know something? Every single question I’ve answered in this space has genuinely come from my children’s’ mouths. If they never ask another, I’ll have enough for 42 more Go Ask Daddy posts.

10 things grateful, plus a coupla graduations 🎓 | #gratitudeandshit

We’ve got two graduations in three days.

I’m not talking those horseshit half-graduations for third graders, either. Full-blown, leaving this school, taking my game to the next level graduations. Hayden’s done with high school and on to college at Piedmont International University.

Camdyn’s coming to Queen’s Grant High, where I can’t wait to get her on the field.

They’ve both overcome adversity and adverse conditions but found ways to shine in big ways. There’ve been tests of will and tests of character and just a butt load of tests – like, on subjects. We’re ready to get this summer on.

10 things grateful, plus that kickass feeling ✈️ | #gratitudeandshit

I’ve just got that feeling.

I’m not worried about jinxing it. I never have. Things aren’t perfect. Are they ever? But optimism … it’s tough to cover up. It’s like that first day of warm sun in the spring. That first deep breath of a kickass meditation.

Or how your car smells like pizza the day after you bring home takeout. #mmmm

It’s like having your good shoes on with a huge hike ahead. Deciding on a lineup change your rival hasn’t seen yet. I’m not sure it’s a 2019 thing. I don’t know when it started. I know it was good today. Shifts. Adjustments. Rules set for me.

🤯 Guest post: Author Britt Skrabanek, on how to protect your creative mind

A creative mind is a kind of mushy not often found in this world.

Not in a ‘this apple is too old to eat’ kind of way. More in a, ‘you can’t sit on a plate of flan or you’ll flatten it’ kind of way. It’s malleable in all the right ways, and when it’s healthy and strong, the best stuff comes shooting out of it.

Yeah, like sparklers.

Like a new pair of glasses or first-edition Chewbacca figure, it’s best to keep a creative mind protected 24-7 in the box it came in. But what fun is that? And what function? Just don’t sit on your glasses. Or lose Chewie’s crossbow.

🙅🏽‍♂️ Go Ask Daddy about cream science, tequila compliance and the history of stinky schools we hate

My girls always knew dad’s hands were warm.

It’s a good thing when you’re a dad. As they’ve gotten younger, they don’t come to me for hand-warming much anymore. Maybe they outgrew it. Maybe they gained the gift of warming coils in their hands like dad’s – who knows?

In junior high, a girl once touched my hand during lunch.

I know, right? It’s true though. She couldn’t get over how soft and smooth my hands were. That was cool and all. She was touching my hand, for Boy George’s sake! But then teenage me began to wonder if she took it as a sign of weakness.

#AtoZChallenge: U is for using up all your subs (Go Ask Daddy)

I can’t help it.

When the kids say something about subs at a soccer match, my mind goes to steak and cheese. Or turkey and avocado. It’s just how it is and I can’t change it. But the distraction is mostly temporary.

When I sub a kid into a game, it gives us a bit of a forum to talk that we don’t normally get.

You’re my mom’s favorite coach, but not my dad’s one girl told me. A new player told me how nervous she was to get in. Hayden didn’t spend a lot of time there, but as she waited to go back in after getting her first yellow card, we both tried not to snicker too loud.

#AtoZChallenge: T is for Three Hundred Writing Prompts (Guilt)

Way up here, there’s no Wi-Fi.

Which is good. That means I can’t check email or get lost on Instagram. Again. It means it’s a good idea, while I’m on this flight, for me to have packed a couple of books loaded with writing prompts on my way to San Jose.

I got a little help from the girl next to me on the plane – after we’d sufficiently gushed over how incredible the cookies they give out are (I even scored three extra packs from the flight attendant – and folded up an origami peacock in appreciation).

My seatmate chose two prompts for me to write on from the book 300 Writing Prompts (Piccadilly 2017):