Yesterday we went into the Oregon woods and cut down a Christmas tree, and let me just say, it’s the most masculine thing I do all year. Now, to put this into prospective, if you could see my hands right now as I type, you’d notice how soft they are, almost like I could be a hand model, similar to George Costanza in Seinfeld.

And perhaps “into the Oregon…

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I’m writing let you all know that I’m going to stop publishing on Substack. My final post on this platform will be on December 30th, 2024. I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to those of you who have read my work on this platform. You commitment to my writing has been deeply appreciated.

best,

Clint

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We spent three days in Disneyland with three children under 11. Here are a few thoughts/ highlights from the trip.

Connecting flights with three children is comparable to competing in an iron man.

Flight attendant gave 3yo half cup of juice, and the kid handled it like a drunk woman in heels stumbling on a dance floor with a martini.

Stopped in candy store…

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The other day I asked my youngest, Aspen what she wanted for breakfast. She asked for toast and juice, but as I got the juice, she put her hand on me, and said “daddy… I got this” her face simple, lips flat. Then she strutted up to the fridge, jerked it open, wrangled out the bottle of juice, and set to work cranking it open.

Once she was done, she took …

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I get asked for marriage advice pretty regularly, which I’ll admit makes me nervous because it means people see me as an authority when I’m actually just some dad who buys his pants at Costco. But I will admit, I always tell people this one tip: the person you marry will change.

Now I know this sounds like an easy concept, but there’s more to it. I was o…

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We took a family trip to Seattle. On our last evening, just before bed, my 13 year old daughter, Norah asked if anyone wanted to walk along Pike Street and look at Christmas lights. I was the only volunteer.

And I’ll be honest, it was getting late, and it was cold, and I was tired from vacationing with kids (parents reading this understand, I’m sure), bu…

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I sent my 7yo daughter to her room last night, and when I went in to talk to her about why she was in trouble, she said “I just don’t fit in with this family.”

And I’ll admit, she said it with every ounce of drama a 7yo could possibly muster. Then she buried her head into her pillow and wailed.

I thought about what she said, and what got her put into her …

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I was putting laundry away when I overheard my 7yo, Aspen say, “Today was the worst day ever.” And naturally, I knew her reasoning for feeling this way. A couple hours ago Aspen asked if she could put all of our names in a bowl so we could draw them out for secret Santa assignments, which I must admit is kind of a big deal when you are 7. However, Norah…

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Took my daughter to a trampoline park. Here are a few thoughts, observations, and exaggerations.

We paid for two hours, which I assumed would be no problem, and supposedly it was cheaper per hour, but ultimately it cost as much as a visit to my chiropractor, which I’ll mention later.

I’ve honestly never seen middle aged men move like this. I mean, dang, Trevor, looking at the cargo shorts and work polo, I assumed a double flip was out of your reach, but bam. There it was. Put that on your resume.

I overheard my daughter actually say “my dad gets tired pretty quickly. He’s 40” to some random group of kids. They all just nodded along, probably thinking about their own parents, because clearly no lies were detected.

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This is a Polaroid of Mel from 2003, when we first met. Mel found it while cleaning the garage. We were 21 and and working at a hardware store. This picture hung on the “Get To Know Your Coworkers” board.

I stole it the day she quit.

It was around this time that I told Mel I wanted to go to college, but I didn’t know how to type, and I’d never read a novel, and I barely graduated high school, and I honestly didn’t know where to start. She didn’t run away. She didn’t see me as some pathetic, go-nowhere chump. All she said was, “Don’t worry. I’ll help you.” During that first semester, I handwrote all my papers. My handwriting and spelling were so poor that Mel couldn’t read them, so I’d sit next to her in that dumpy, one-bedroom, across-the-street- from-the-liquor-store apartment of her’s and read my papers aloud as she hunched over a keyboard and typed.

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Mel and I got dressed up for my work Christmas party. I was in a suit, and Mel was in a stunning green dress. We were running late, when my 13yo daughter Norah said “I need a picture!”

She stopped us next to the front door, and asked us to pose, her younger sister Aspen in the background saying “you guys look fantabulous.”

But before she took the photo, N…

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This picture of Mel graduating from college came up on my memories the other day. That’s our daughter, Norah, helping Mel get her cap on straight. She must have been 6 years old. She’s 13 now, and it’s really incredible to think about what was behind this picture.

Mel was in college off and on from 2000-2015, and in that time, she got married, had three …

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I was walking through the Seattle Airport with my 13yo daughter. We were between flights, stretching our legs, her arm around mine. It was just the two of us, and somehow we got into the topic of my wife and I, and our marriage, and how much Mel and I have changed over the nearly 18 years we’ve been together.

“I’ll tell you this,” I said. “I am not the s…

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I took my girls to the park yesterday evening and Aspen, my 7yo was stung by a wasp. Now to put this into perspective, Aspen is absolutely terrified of all things with stingers, but has never actually been stung, so to say she was freaking out because it had finally happened, was an understatement.

It got her right on the forehead, and I’ve never seen he…

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I put the final touches on the audiobook recording of my forthcoming collection of essays Breaking Dad yesterday. As we were doing the final pickups (essentially edits for audiobooks) and I was looking at a collection of words that I’d mispronounced, all I could think about was how, in elementary school, I had a speech impediment.

Yes, I was one of thos…

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I posted awhile back about moving in with my grandmother as a teen. I mentioned how I was a bit of a rough teenager, particularly when my dad was in jail. A woman left a comment that really gave me pause. She mentioned she’d been a high school counselor for years, and that she’s come to realize that the teen years are just a glimpse into a very long life.

And it got me to thinking about how much I personally changed between my freshman and senior year. And how much I’ve changed, matured, grown, since graduation. In fact, I’ve changed a lot since turning 20, and again at 30, and even more by 40.

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Okay guys, wow! After 3 days of recording I finished the audiobook for my new collection of essays Breaking Dad. Yes, it’s cool to record your own audiobook. Yes, it was fun to do so with RandomHouse. They gave me an audiobook director who was in LA and a recording engineer in Eugene. I felt kinda like a big deal. But I will also say, it was exhausting.…

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