Dad Therapy

When do you shower?

THERE ARE NO PICTURES WITH THIS POST!

Perverts.

No, I just had this random thoughts in the shower on Saturday that I only take a shower when the kids are sleeping. During the week it's 5:30 a.m. On Saturday it happened to be nap time. On rare occasion I'll shower when the kids are supervised by the wife.

It's just another odd bit of daily life that changes with young kids.

Happy Holidays from Dad Therapy!

 
It's going to be a busy holiday season for us but I thought I'd show everyone what the new house looked like the other night in the winter weather. When I was walking up from my trek form the train station it struck me that yes, we do have a real home (sorry city folk, those condos just don't count).

I mean, can anything look more storybook? Well, storybook and it looks like it needs to be shoveled...which the wife eventually did while I was reading to Carter before bed. But still...storybook right?

The Holidays in our New House

 
Nothing says you’ve made your house a home like decorating for the holidays. After I got home late Thursday night from the L.A. Auto Show I worked from home on Friday to recoup a bit and finish up a few different stories. But I was exhausted from what was essentially 72 hours of work. But being around the kids again was a nice recharge.

For the weekend we had our plans set. Saturday morning we went to get the Christmas tree. One nice thing about having rough rails on the Outback was some easy tying of the tree. What I thought was a large enough tree at the lot turned out to look like a puny tree when I got it on the stand. My first pic on the right definitely showed why I thought it was a Charlie Brown Christmas at the Thomas house.

But thanks to my wife’s spot-on decorating on Saturday night it turned out really really well. It also forced us to unpack the last moving box in the house although we still have some pictures to hang.

I Love Having a Freezer

 
Out of all of our purchases for the new house, my favorite has got to be the freezer in our laundry/mudroom. Sure, it holds a gigantic bottle of Grey Goose, but check out the tray of frozen veggies. We can stock up when they go on sale. Underneath, in the depths you can't make out is the frozen meat/Costco purchases. Salivating just thinking about it. Actually, think I'll grab a late night gimlet...

How To Take Advantage of the Housing Bust via Near Catastrophe

Three years ago the missus and I — married for a year or so — bought what we thought was our dream home in a hip Chciago neighborhood. It was a rather large duplex and it was all new with nice fixtures and top-end appliances. We decked the place out with brand new furniture, built-in closets and a home theater system. Less than a year into ownership I woke up one night to the sound of water dripping. I rooted around in the dark to find it coming from an electric outlet in the bedroom.

“That’s weird” I thought, figuring the night’s rain was causing it or there was a leak on the roof.

House Hunting is a Bitch

>Mrs. Therapy and I are in a strange place compared to most people in the real estate market. We actually need to buy a house and don’t have one to sell. We’re not first time home buyers but have been renting for over a year and literally cannot find a place to buy.

I’ve never been so frustrated with anything in my life. We’ve been looking for the better part of 18 months now too. The good thing is we’ve settled on a town/neighborhood, the first suburb west of Chicago called Oak Park. The bad news is that every home that is remotely nice enough in our price point is literally sold in a week or two weeks. We even put an offer on one place only to be outbid. As one coworker said to me on Twitter, “What the heck, is this 2005?”

Now, we’re thinking that the second we see a place that “might” work for us we better put in an offer the next day. Is that not insane to anyone else? Has anyone else experienced this issue in today’s market? Would love some feedback. 

Logitech Wireless DJ Music System Review: Perhaps the Coolest F’ing Device Ever

Each day it seems another piece of my home theater system is falling into place. Last night I hooked up the Logitech Wireless DJ Music System. While I hate the “DJ” part of the name the rest is accurate. Basically we wanted a way to get our digital music to the new stereo set-up downstairs without another bulky piece of hardware or having to physically move an iPod or other device between the office upstairs and the stereo downstairs.

A very simple software install sets up the music you want to access. I chose iTunes and file folders. Then you hook up one sensor via USB to your computer.

Downstairs I plugged in the remote’s cradle into the Monster Power and some spare high-end RCA cables into the receiver and the remote station was now hooked up to the Polk in-ceiling speakers.

The remote turned on, a cool-looking blue color backlit the display and I selected an “A” band Audioslave. The first song to come out of the system sounded like shit. Oh no, the warning about being more than seven feet away must be accurate. But what would be the point of having this system if it couldn’t jump floors like I wanted it to do? Then I realized the receiver was set to the “Live” music setting. A quick button press got “Pop/Rock” and the room was alive with music.