I received an email from Jordan last week, an old friend who now lives in San Francisco. Jordan and I were buddies in high school . We’ve maintained intermittent contact throughout the years as I got married and became a dad while he built up his career in the Bay area.

Jordan never mentioned a desire to marry or start a family and I just assumed that he was a confirmed, and happy bachelor. About a year ago, he confided that he was ready –even anxious — to settle down. He admitted that he had always assumed that as soon as he was ready, the right girl would somehow pop into view, but that didn’t happen. All of a sudden, just when he was looking for a real partner for life, there was no one suitable anywhere around.

I was really pleased for him when he wrote last week, full of excitement, about a unique program that he had joined called Table for Six. The program organizes dinner parties in cities throughout California. Their matchmakers invite six compatible people to each dinner so that the participants can chat and get to know each other over dinner in a natural environment. Jordan said that it was a great setting in which to get to know someone. The Table for Six staff is very careful to coordinate the dinner engagements so that the participants are in the same age bracket with similar backgrounds, interests and life goals.

Jordan wrote that he has already met someone and is dating her seriously. Since I have
other friends in the same situation in California, I checked out the reviews on their own website as well as some Table for Six reviews on some third-party sites. All indications are that it’s a great program and I’m going to recommend it to my other California friends.

**This post was provided to Look What Mom Found…and Dad too!**

Melinda and I have recently discussed the possibility of getting a new refrigerator because we really aren’t a fan of our current old ugly white one.  The one thing I am debating if we do decide to make this HUGE purchase is if I should get home delivery or borrow my friends’ truck and pick it up.

My ultimate fridge would be stainless steel and maybe have a TV on the front as well but I will settle for one that holds milk and other snack items on the outside of the door.  See how I went from a man fridge to a family fridge, LOL.  The reason I want this is so the kids don’t have to open up the refrigerator a hundred times throughout the day.

In additional to a new fridge another household item we really want is a new washer and dryer.  The one we currently have is not water or energy efficient and sometimes a simple load of laundry will cause it to almost fly out of the laundry room.  We actually looked at a few sets a few months back but kind of backed off due to the expense.  The one thing I did notice is that a lot of places these days do offer FREE appliance delivery which is a good thing.  The only problem is a lot of places sub out the work to a furniture delivery company and I find it takes a few days before it is delivered.  Not that a few days is a long time but If you know anything about me I am an instant gratification type of guy and once I pull the trigger to buy something I don’t want to wait for it to be delivered but I will admit getting it delivered is no hassle which is a huge bonus.

When you buy a large item do you prefer to take it yourself or have it delivered?

Our current house has a garage and thank goodness for that because when we were living in Maryland our house had no garage which totally stunk because we had ZERO storage space.

Our garage for the most part is used for storage but I keep it extremely neat and clean because I do use it as a work area and it’s a place where I store all of my tools but is also serves as a place to store the kids’ games, bikes and excess toys.

Last summer Melinda and I total revamped our garage and lines both walls with shelving so that we could utilize every inch of space which was a good thing. Like I mentioned before the kids have a TON of toys so the shelving allowed us to store things like puzzles, board games and toys that the kids like to use outdoors. We also have about 5 bikes so I utilize hooks in the ceiling which works out really nice so that they aren’t taking up a lot of floors space. I do need to be careful and unfortunately I am not able to use the entire ceiling for bike storage due to the overhead door of the garage but otherwise I use most of the ceiling as bike storage.

I do wish at times that I was able to park my car in the garage but with only having a single car garage that isn’t going to happen. Maybe if we had a two car garage I would be able to but I have a feeling I would just use it for more storage anyways and then I would have twice as much space to keep neat and clean but on the other hand I would have twice and much space for tools, toys and bikes. LOL. I am not sure that is the right way to think about it but that is how my mind works.

Do you have a garage? Do you actually use it to park your car or do you use it for storage?

About six months ago we purchased a 30 gallon fish tank and I must admit I love fish.  I feel that they are so peaceful and calming to look at and that is probably why I have had a fish tank off and on ever since I was about twenty years old. 

The one part of owning a fish tank that is a little bit of a bummer is the maintenance but more specifically the water changes.  You are supposed to change about 20% of the water on a weekly basis so in our case that would be about six gallons.  I am pretty good with the water changes but the one thing I tend to slack off on is the water testing.  I try to test the water every 2-3 days to be sure none of the chemicals have spiked and this is where the fun begins or in my case difficulties. 

When you test the water you need to fill a test tube up with 5ml of fish tank water, add the desired chemical for the test then read the output.  The problem is I have such a hard time determining what color on the test card corresponds to the color in the test tube.  Just two days ago Sabreena asked if I had an issue with colorblindness, LOL. I know that isn’t funny because a lot of people struggle with being colorblind and I can only imagine how difficult that must be.  Everyday things people take for granted like matching a shirt with pants is a struggle for some so I am thankful that mine only pertains to when I have to test the fish tank water.  Now I am not saying I am colorblind but I do have a difficult time sometimes determining shades of certain colors and it is obvious every time I test the fish tank water and have to ask Sabreena or Melinda what result more closely matches just as a double check for my own piece of mind.

Are you or someone you know colorblind?  How does it affect you or them on a daily basis?

I am not sure about where you live but I know where we are in Delaware the weather for the last few days has been awesome. With awesome weather means time to get that patio furniture out on the deck and enjoy a nice BBQ and have some quality family time.

Back in the middle of March we had a stretch of similar weather like we are having now and for my birthday Melinda bought me some nice outdoor furniture as well as some nice patio accessories like wind chimes and tiki torches to make our desk a place for us to relax and just chill.

It is great to finally have a nice patio table where we can all eat outside as a family and enjoy the beautiful weather. Just last night I cooked some hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill and we all relaxed and ate outside and had a great family dinner. The kids actually ask to eat outside when the weather is nice which is cool because they enjoy eating outside on the deck just as much as Melinda and I do.

This is the first time is about five years where we have actually has nice deck furniture and a place to relax and enjoy the awesome weather.

Games are what’s it these days at least for my kids and I because we play a ton of games either online or via some form of electronic device. 

Now for me I like places where I can download games for free online because my kids will play a game for fifteen minutes and decide that they are bored or realize it is too hard or a host of other reasons.  Recently Shaun and I found a place called iplay.com which is pretty cool because they have a ton of different games to choose from.  They have a section that shows the top games of the week as well as newly released games and free daily games.

Iplay.com also has a section for online games or if you like downloading them to your computer you have that option as well.  This site is very versatile and allows gamers to choice what games they want to play and how they want to play them.  I prefer to download games to my iPad or laptop personally so that I have them at my fingertips so that I can play them whenever the mood strikes. 

Iplay.com also offers a section where they will make game recommendations for you once you start playing games which I think is a pretty cool feature.  The list of cool features goes on and on and to me that is what makes this site stand out from a lot of other game sites.  When you have a free moment be sure to head over to iplay.com and look around and see what games are a fit for you. 

Do you like to play games online?  Tell me what games you are playing these days.

MyJobChart.com, an online chore chart was designed to teach young people the concept of responsibility, work ethic and the value of money by giving them a way to earn points for completing their chores.
The free site has always offered a way for young users to ‘spend’ their points on rewards they want, ‘share’ what they earn with a chosen charity, or to ‘save’ for the future.”
Kids are able to experience the tremendous rewards of earning money for themselves and then of accumulating that money and saving for the future. As they do this they will get a $20 bonus into each child’s account just for signing up for a kids savings account.
My Job Chart is easy of use and the high-tech approach have made MyJobChart.com a hit with more than 140,000 kids in just over a year since its inception with kids completing over 9.4 Million chores using the site!

Cleaning the rugs is one of those things that you need to do every once in a while even though it is something no one likes to do. Well, at least I don’t like to but that is where I am right now.

We have been in our house for two years now and I haven’t cleaned the rugs yet. Thankfully I only have the three bedrooms, 2 sets of stairway and a little hallway to do but just typing that makes me realize that is still a lot of carpet to clean. The rest of the house is hardwood which gets swept and mopped on a regular basis so we are covered there.

So here I am at a crossroads; do I clean the rugs myself because we do own a carpet cleaner or do I pay between $200-250 to have it done for me? I am not typically a lazy person but I have ZERO interest in spending four to five hours cleaning the rugs when a professional will probably knock it out in less than two hours but then again I need to pay for that fast no hassle on my part service. It’s not like we have luxury rugs or anything like that so I guess if push comes to shove I could clean them myself but just the thought of having to do it is making me tired and sore. I keep thinking about how I will need to dump the dirty water and fill it with clean water every 15-20 minutes and over 5 hours that is 15 trips to the sink. Do you see where I am going with this now? Fifteen trips to the sink or 200-250 hard earned dollars for someone to do this strenuous work for me.

I am not 100% sure what I am going to do but I am leaning towards doing it do I can spend that $$$$$ somewhere else on something more fun than carpet cleaning?

In your opinion what should I do?

I am not sure about everyone else but the economy is supposedly making a comeback but I am still waiting for that memo because I still have received it.

Money is tight and energy costs are higher than ever. Just this morning I went to fill my car up and gas was $3.82 per gallon and I know that isn’t as expensive as some places like California but to me that is ridiculous. I feel bad for people who heat their house with heating oil because they must get killed ever winter with these crazy oil prices. The only savior may be that this winter was kind of mild so maybe energy costs weren’t over the top expensive for a lot of people.

I feel like gas and electric is a monopoly but we as consumers do have a little say in where we get our energy from. You can compare gas and electricity prices from sites such as money supermarket that try to help people find the best deal on energy.

I never think to compare energy costs because in Delaware our gas and electric supplier is DelMarva and currently they are it. Right now I have no other options but that isn’t the case for everyone. It only takes a few minutes to search for other gas and electric providers and it is free to do so what is the harm especially if you can save a few bucks in this economy.

Do you have energy choices where you live?

Ever since we gave Shae bunk beds Shaun has asked to sleep in her room. If Shae sleeps on the bottom bunk Shaun wants to be on the top bunk and if Shae sleeps on the top bunk Shaun wants the bottom bunk. It’s driving Melinda and I insane so I told her maybe we need to get Shaun a futon bunk bed for his room.

Shaun’s room isn’t really that big so a futon bunk bed would work perfect in my opinion. Shaun could sleep on the top at night and use the futon on the bottom during the day while watching TV and playing Xbox. Shaun and Sabreena spend a lot of time in his room on the weekend playing Skyrim on Xbox and Shaun and Shae seem to be in his room a lot watching TV so the bottom futon would get a ton of use for sure.

What I like most is the top is a twin side bed and the bottom converts into a full size bed so like I said during the day it can be used as a futon and at night a full time bed if needed. I like this idea because when Shaun has friends sleep over they will have a place to sleep and I won’t have to break out the HUGE queen size air mattress.

The only thing holding me back right now is the price but quality furniture will last so this would be a bed Shaun would have for a long time. The bunk bed that Shae currently sleeps in was once Sabreena’s when she was 5 and now she is 16 so it is 11 years old so I know getting one for Shaun would be a good investment and would be around for a long time.

Guess we need to stop eating out and start saving for this bed. LOL.