Happy Father's Day

Today was another popcorn day, although the popcorn included laundry, dishes, and hanging up posters that had long since fallen down. A friend kept telling me to use pushpins instead of the blue sticky tack and today was I thought "I'm going to have to do touch-up painting before I move out anyway, thanks to the previous RC who lived here" and just jumped in and did it.

I also took a little time to prepare for volunteering at Vacation Bible School, which starts tomorrow. I realized today that I'll be the helper for the 21 kids who are in 2nd-4th grade and are the largest group by far. At least there are two other people leading the classroom things, but I'm still wondering how things will go. Of course, it doesn't help that I'm still awake right now.

TC

One of today's holidays was Fudge Day. I did some evening grocery shopping (and felt like a grown-up while doing it) and after that I stopped by DQ and got a fudge blizzard as my dessert. It definitely wouldn't hold up to the "it will stay in the cup even while upside-down" test if I tried, but it was still good ice cream.

The other holiday is pretty well-known, with it being Father's Day and all. My dad is the most difficult person to buy anything for, but I was able to talk with him on the phone for a short time this afternoon. It was good to catch up briefly.

Now, I don't want a holiday to romanticize someone. My father isn't/hasn't been perfect. "Yeah but no one is perfect. Humanity is, by default, flawed." Okay, right. I'll amend that to say that my father didn't have the character traits of a dad you would build a sit-com around. Similar to everyone else, he has flaws.

With it being 2013, Facebook exploded with people changing profile pictures today. Many of the new pictures featured childhood photos with fathers in tow. Some photos were of the friend of mine and his/her mother and a caption of "I'm so happy for my mom and she did so much for me, being both a mother and a father" or something of that variety. I am thankful to say that my dad was a part of my life and while he wasn't perfect, there were things he did right.

- Growing up, he had high expectations for my sister and me. Of course, the joke was that I was going to be a lawyer so he could go around suing places in town. Really though, he wanted to see my sister and I go far and not settle for second-best.

- He definitely did a lot when I was active in Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts. I mean, his woodworking skills did help a lot when it came to Pinewood Derby cars. Plus, he would go out camping and help with food drives (even if a random woman thought my dad was about to kidnap me by driving behind me when I was collecting donations).

- He took on a lot. In addition to his full-time job, he sells metal detectors and accessories, and makes wooden holiday decorations and crafts. In addition to the high standards he had for Tess and me, he held his hobbies/second jobs to high standards and made sure that he was treating each job with the proper amount of time and thought. Plus, he has quite a few awesome wooden crafts - my favorite is the wooden crayons.

- It wasn't something I consciously thought about as a kid, but from my perspective, my family was never scrambling to make a mortgage payment or going from paycheck to paycheck with medical expenses or food.

When it comes down to it, he's my father and I am thankful for him and I do love him. As I said before, he's not perfect, but he does deserve to have his efforts recognized. So, here's to you Dad. Happy Father's Day!

DFTBA