Yes you read it right...after a bit of a lull in the action we have our 6th trade up! Thanks to Melisa over at Suburban Scrawl she has put together a package she calls - "Money Can't Buy Happiness" for Weaselmomma's gift of Herself and Stuff. The pakage includes:

A practically new (still has the fill-it-in-yourself id card in it) Brighton knockoff wallet ($25)

A necklace from Coldwater Creek ($22)

Large assortment of new-in-package scrapbooking supplies, including a set of alphabet books, a book of layout ideas, stickers, and layout kits ($120)

Four CDs to use for working out (I am a group fitness instructor); one is 128 beats per minute all the way through and is great for ab work or resistance training; three are custom blends that can be used for spinning or treadmill work (or even housecleaning: vacuuming is awesome when done to these tunes) ($80)

For those who are not the workout type, I have a new-in-package Hallmark CD: "Relaxing Instrumental Music, Volume 1" ($10)

One hardcover, never-read copy of Anna Quindlen's "A Short Guide to a Happy Life". Never read because I'm both too busy and apparently plenty happy enough. ($13)

Total value: $270*The only thing she asks is if the person who trades up from this is outside of the continental U.S., she would request that we split the shipping cost: half each. If the person is in the U.S., she'll cover shipping.

As you can see this whole package is a great one, so my thanks to Melisa for her generosity!

So now comes the fun part, as I have explained in earlier posts, it’s time for trade up #7. If you would like to own this beautiful piece of artwork, all you have to do is trade up for the piece. What do you have that can get me closer to my goal? I hope you all will get in on the fun and look forward to seeing what our next trade up will bring!

So again, the trading continues…what can you trade up? Please send all offers to: dadofdivas@gmail.com

Look forward to working on this project with you - and to your comments!

I have been thinking about the old Six Million Dollar Man Series where they put Lee Majors back together better than before with more abilities than in the past. With this in mind I have decided to start a series that I am calling the Million Dollar Man Series. The idea behind this series is that I will provide knowledge that will allow for Dads to become better and stronger than they were in the past….can’t you just hear the sound effects… wadawadawadawada…. I hope you know where I was going with that.

So what does it take to be a Million Dollar Man (Besides lots of surgery and bionic parts) and in particular, what does it take to be a Million Dollar Dad?

In this new series we will explore this issue and provide you with some add-on’s to your fathering repertoire to help you to become a Dad you always wanted to be.

Watch on every Monday for a new installment to this series!

Do you have milestones in your lives between you and your wife? For me (not necessarily for my wife) it is when we shed the flannel sheets in the spring. All winter long we have our flannel sheets (which my wife loves). You see, for those of you who are newer readers, you may not understand that I have truly come to find that my wife and I have completely different temperature that we live under.

When the temperature and inside goes on and the heater gets turned on for the long winter, the flannel sheets go on and I, who loves the cool light sheets of the summer, many times tends to sleep without covers for at least some of the winter.

In thinking about this, I started to wonder what other things are significant in other relationships. Whether it is an annual trip, activity, etc, I tend to think that I am not alone in annual occurrences.

With my children I would say that the first bike ride of the year or the first time we can play out on our swing set are important instances. I simply love the times when we can get outside of the house without snow (which is a luxury in the frigid north country).

So My Question For The Day?

What Milestones are a Part of Your Relationship With Your Spouse?

What Milestones are a Part of Your Relationship With Your Children?

Are you the type of person that will say “Yes” at the drop of the hat? Do you tend to over-commit yourself to things outside of your family? If so, you probably are a “Yes” man, and welcome to the club.

J-Mom and I have had many conversations about being over-committed, not only with work, but with outside activities. I fill my time outside of work not only with kids and family, but also with Rotary and church activities (I said yes to being on the church council).

So why do I have such a hard time saying no? I don’t exactly know why this is a problem. I think much of it goes down to being an experience junky. I love meeting new people and making a difference in the world around me. Now you may say that having my family and making a difference in their lives should be enough, and I know this, but I still find myself at times falling into this trap.

It also is not just in my out of work life where I do this. I also tend to over-commit in my work life as well. Now don’t get me wrong, I do accomplish my commitments, but I do tend to say yes more than I probably should!

So is there help for an over-commitment addict (as J-Mom would probably call me)? I did some research and found some great resources that I thought I would share with all of you (as I am not going to provide a top ten list of things you should do as I currently do not do them).

http://blogs.payscale.com/job_mom/2007/07/working-moms-an.html

http://www.mommd.com/avoidovercommitting.shtml
So do I think that I can change overnight? Not even slightly. Do I think that with hard work I could make this change? You bet I can. The biggest thing that I know I have to do is to actually do it… this will be the hardest thing for me. It is not that I do not want to be with my family…far from it. My family is my life, but also in my life as I have already mentioned, I crave interaction. I do not have a lot of friends that I do things with here where I live and these are ways for me to connect with people.

I also though understand that I need to be fair to J-Mom to allow her to also have these opportunities and to do things for her as well so that she has an identity outside of being a mom. I think at times my over-commitment gets in the way of her ability to separate herself from her role as mom…which is not fair in the least.

So today I am looking for your advice.

How do I get past this over-committed lifestyle with work and within my personal life?

How have you done it in your own life?

http://dadofdivas.blogspot.com/2008/09/9-11-honoring-past-where-were-you-7.html

I think that for most of us we can all remember the moments that surrounded the 9/11 tragedy that struck our nation seven years ago.

I remember where I was... I was in the my office at the university that I was working at as a Student Affairs Professional. I believe it was J-Mom who called me and told me to turn on the radio because it looked like a plane had collided with one of the twin towers. Unbeknownst to us was all the malice that was behind the first attack, let alone the subsequent attacks within New York City as well as the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.

I remember hearing this and calling my colleagues to fins a television that we could turn on and we watched in our main office as the tragedy revealed itself. I was numb, dumbstruck. Only once before had I felt this way, and that was when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. I simply had never witnessed such hatred, such a loss of life and later that week we found out how close to home this hit our family.

The Saturday before 9/11 J-Mom and I celebrated the wedding of a high school friend of J-Mom. The wedding was a wonderful event full of love and laughter. At that event I was able to meet a friend of the bride named Kelly Ann Booms (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/people/1381.html) who sat in front of us during the wedding. She made a comment that she had to get back to Boston on Sunday because she had a business trip that she had to fly out for (to Los Angeles) early on Tuesday morning (9/11). Later that week we found out that Kelly was a passenger on the first plane that hit Tower 1 (Flight 11). We were shocked that someone we just spoke with could be gone in an instant and it brought the national tragedy to a whole new level of meaning. We now felt a part of this tragedy and not as far removed.

The images of the first few hours, the first few days afterward still are burned into my memory and I think they will never leave. For my generation, I think that this even will be the event that truly defines our generation as it may have been Pearl Harbor for my grandparents of the JFK assassination of JFK for my own parents.

So today, seven years later I take a moment to remember Kelly and the other victims of the 9/11 attacks. May we never again live through such an event.

When my daughters get old enough to understand the significance of this day I will help them understand, but it will not be easy for the to grasp the severity of the events and what it did to the American Spirit that followed. I can only hope that I will be ready for this discussion when the time comes.

So my question for the day?

What are your memories of this event in our collective history?
How will you tell your children about this event in the future?