Go Ask Daddy About Football Laundry, Wacky Words, and Our Next Outdoors Adventure

Referees and me. Hmm.

You know me. I’m mostly the agreeable type. Sure, I mutter insults to people who tailgate me and blow past me on the highway – all while snapping chats on their mobiles. But for the most part? Live and let live.

Except for, maybe, refs.

Not all refs, mind you. I’ve had enough run-ins with our striped adversaries to write a post on it. I’d be itchy afterward, though. I don’t really want to get into it. How bad does it get?

I wouldn’t go to Sports Clips for awhile because the stylists wore referee shirts.

No More Waiting for My Real Life to Begin

I’ve been hiding a long time.

I had to go with that opening line, because I’d promised someone I would. I’m glad, though, because this friend suggested it as we talked about how things are going for me now, and it perfectly tells the story.

No, I’m not coming out of the closet.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You might have noticed more of a mindful bent on Mondays around here. I can’t help it. Between meditation on Wednesday, yoga on Friday (something old and new), and prayers for world peace on Sundays …

Always Enough Happy to Tell You Something Good, Guaranteed

I can make my famous brown and white sugar pancakes by heart now.

I save time. And a great way to avoid leaving out key ingredients – such as baking soda – or doubling key ingredients – such as baking soda. I’ve flipped these classics – this same recipe – for years, probably since the Milwaukee Brewers (or Jewel) were any good.

I looked Saturday at the dry ingredients in the bowl, mostly white even with the brown sugar integrated, and it started the wheels turning.

Not of Hispanic America’s integration or dispersion into modern caucasian culture. I thought of how sugar – brown and white – mixes with salt, baking soda and flour, to become greater than the sum of parts. To become something delicious.

And if you were forced to choose a single grain of that to eat, you’d wish for sugar, right?

Sunday Reads No. 1: Routines, Reviews, and Roadblocks

I wish I had more time to read.

I wish I had more time for other things, too. Like, watching Elizabeth Banks commercials, or melting cheese on anything, or eating cheese with Elizabeth Banks. I somehow manage, during times I should be doing other things, to read a little every day.

(Don’t tell my boss.)

Actually, tell my boss. Reading’s essential to be a writer. I think Stephen King or Steph Curry said that once. Lots of my blogging friends put together a list of favorites every week, and I’m honored they have the misguided tendency to include me sometimes.

Go Ask Daddy About Saxophone Glory, the Cost to Watch and Celestial Endings

So, this one time, in marching band …

We got to play at halftime of a Colorado State football game in Ft. Collins. It was Band Day, and they played the University of New Mexico. I played baritone sax. I was first chair, I might add. The cheerleaders came with us.

Stick with me … this will tie together eventually.

Her name was Kaylie. (It was actually Shawna, but I don’t want to use her real name.) She was dreamy. Silky, curly brown hair, hazel eyes, braces. Sigh. The universe had a little fun that day and put Shawna – I mean, Kaylie – next to me on the bus.

I Didn’t Die From Writing a Post About a Book I’m in Called ‘But Did You Die?’

I’m just not good at some stuff.

Some stuff you know about. You know, portion control and getting my hair cut at regular intervals. Okay, and there’s that keeping-your-car-clean thing, too. I’m also not good at promoting a book that I have a small part in.

And it’s a book an author who knows her way around the New York Times best-seller list has compiled, with a ton of marquee names.

The book is But Did You Die: Setting the Parenting Bar Low, and it features names many of you know. Jen Mann of the blog People I Want to Punch in the Throat has compiled a series of New York Times Best Sellers in the series I Just Want to Pee Alone.

3+ Uncommonly Good Gifts for a Happy Father’s Day

Stormtrooper in a pickle at Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, S.C.

I just wanted them to pretend.

Kids are busy, though. There are church camps and chicken fajitas with friends in restaurants way past the dinner rush. There’s a whole day spent with a friend from school, laying out at the pool and baking chocolate chip cookies.

Kids my kids’ age don’t have time to pretend anymore.

So I will. My friends at Uncommon Goods have the coolest stuff you could possibly get your dad (outside of one of those sweet Rockies jerseys.) Uncommon Goods has some uncommon traits going for them as a company, too, in an effort for sustainability.

Go Ask (Someone Else’s) Daddy About Childhood Aspirations, Returns from Blog Vacations and How to Make a Bit of Sense of the Wacked-out Universe We Live in

The kids get a break this week.

Courtney of Baking in my Bathing Suit suggested I extend an invitation to the grown-up world for Go Ask Daddy. A handful of readers submitted questions, so there was enough to set the girls’ questions back on the shelf for today.

Mimi of Messy Mimi’s Meanderings asked me to tell the story of when I broke big-league news at a small-town paper.

I covered racing for the Hickory (N.C.) Daily Record. It was my second job out of college. A racing writer at a tiny paper doesn’t make enough to pay country club dues. Hell, it barely pays enough to buy a club sandwich. In the country.

Guest Post: Rebecca of Ninja Librarian, on How to Get Kids Outside

One of my players will study in college to become a librarian.

I think it’s quite cool. She’s a studious sort, who found herself determined to try out for soccer in high school – and make it. She did just that and even scored a few goals along the way. She was inspirational to her teammates and to me.

Today’s guest writer is a librarian – but a ninja variety.

Rebecca writes the blog The Ninja Librarian. She’s the coolest librarian you’ll ever know. (Even cooler than that dreamy one at the Mint Hill Library.) Rebecca writes about writing, and of course reviews books for kids and adults.

Dear News: I Used to Think That We Were Forever Ever

Dear News,

Hi. It’s me. Eli. How’ve you been? Yeah, I noticed you. No, I wasn’t trying to avoid you. I was … hey, we can be honest, right? Yeah, I was ducking you. It’s just … it’s just that I’m happy, you know? No, I haven’t gotten a raise, and I haven’t really replaced you.

I mean, I’m doing things, mingling.

That space you once occupied in my life? It doesn’t really exist anymore. I can’t say that I’ve replaced you, one for one. My life is different right now. It doesn’t involve trying to get the most of you, or understanding you, or making a case for or against you.