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.

Now that I am an adult I consider myself to be pretty handy which comes in useful  since I am able to work on my own cars for the most part and I am able to fix most things around the house.  There are a few things that I wish I would have learned when I was younger and that is electric, plumbing and heating and air conditioning. 

When I was growing up my parents bought a house that needed to be totally gutted and remodeled which my dad did most of the work himself but thankfully my brothers and I got to help him which allowed us to learn a lot of different skills.  I was able to learn a lot during the process about framing, dry wall, windows, roofing and much more.  My dad is extremely handy but I do remember my dad having to have a plumber come out to run all of the necessary lines throughout the house because this was one area where he lacked the necessary skills.

Like I mentioned these are skills that I wish I had because these are highly specialized areas and if I was able to do that work on my own I could save a fortune.  Now these areas tend to be a little expensive for a reason so be sure not to do any of this kind of work yourself unless you are 100% sure in your abilities.  If you aren’t 100% sure what to do be sure to call in an expert to do the work regardless of the cost because getting it done right the first time is important. 

I am man enough to say when I need help and electric, plumbing and heating and air conditioning are those areas where I need a lot of help.  Need help hanging drywall no problem but need help with your plumbing you are on your own because I don’t know squat.

Is your husband handy around the house?

They say home is where the heart is but to me home is where the beautiful kitchen and backyard are. When our family gets together for football, birthdays or just random outings most of the time is spent in the kitchen or in the backyard so to me it is important to have an awesome kitchen and yard where everyone can hang and have a great time and eat awesome food.

Melinda and I watch a lot of home improvement shows and I especially like when they show the work being done to the kitchen and the yard. These contractors who do this work are amazing and have some serious knowledge to do the creative and awesome work that they do. I think we have a pretty nice kitchen already and we are in the process of doing some work in the back yard so by the beginning of summer we are going to be ready to host family functions and I can’t wait.

Like I mentioned for me it isn’t 100% about the kitchen it’s also about the backyard because I like to hang out in the summer on our deck and in our backyard. I like to make our backyard functional but somewhere we can just relax and have a great time. Last year we had a garden and will be doing the same this year. We also redid our deck by getting some new furniture and accessories so that will be getting used often this season and we are thinking about putting our hammock back up so we can relax on those lazy sunny weekend afternoons.

The weather here in Delaware was extremely nice last week but will only be so so this week so we might not use the deck and back yard a lot this week so I guess we will just spend a little more time inside in the kitchen.

When you host family functions where do most people tend to hang out?

As bloggers our computers tend to be either desktops or laptops or maybe both and are our life line. Most if not all of us wouldn’t be able to work or live without them or so we think, LOL. If you sit back and think about your computer usage how do you really use it on a daily basis? Do you use it strictly for pleasure like blogging and surfing the interest or do you use it more for work purposes?

My laptop usage is 50/50. Fifty percent personal and fifty percent work related.

For me I use a few things every single day regardless if I am at home or at work. I use Word Press for our blog, Twitter, Facebook, Email and Microsoft Excel for spreadsheets. Not only do I use Excel at home a lot but I also use Excel a TON at work and thankfully I have taken a few Excel classes throughout the years because now I feel like I am very knowledgeable with it which allows me to use it for more blog related things. I do also use Word a lot at home for writing blog posts because even though I have the ability to write them in Word Press directly I still like using Word for some reason, maybe it’s a comfort thing who knows. I do also use iTunes a good amount at home to store all of my music and movies.  I also use my laptop for surfing the internet, reading news and for reading other blogs becasue what kind of blogger would I be if I didn’t use my computer to read other blogs.

So as you can see I am not really using my computer for any hard core calculations or world problem solving but without my laptop I would be lost for sure because my laptops gets used every single day.

What do you use your laptop/desktop for on a daily basis?

I came home from work one day last week and I saw a ninja in my front yard fighting with one of the neighborhood kids. After a closer look I realized it was just Shaun wearing his Halloween costume play fighting and making videos with one of his friends.

Shaun and Shae dress up all of the time and I even had to make a dress up storage area for Shae so that she could store all of her shoes, hats, princess outfits, etc. She has a TON of dress up stuff that we have accumulated and still seem to be accumulating to this day.

Sometimes Melinda and I will buy costumes and dress up items even when it isn’t Halloween for the kids because they enjoy playing dress up that much. Last week I stumbled upon a place called Fancy Dress Ball and let me tell you they have so many children’s outfits to choose from. Shaun even at eight soon to be nine years old likes to dress up in army and ninja outfits while Shae LOVES to dress up like a princess. It is funny because at any random moment Shae will come downstairs dressed up in some kind of outfit.

I like that our kids use their imaginations and dress up and pretend to be someone else for a while because they appear to be having so much fun. Maybe I need to do the same every once in a while.