So This Is Happening ...

The back cover is still getting tweaked but all the files have been formatted so I'm getting really close to publishing my book.
I haven't set a firm date yet but thinking mid-September because I'm going to have a book giveaway/contest for 4 weeks leading up to the release date.
One lucky winner per week will get an autographed copy of my book and also autographed white thong underwear. Both the book and underwear will be new in case you were wondering.
So what do you think?



Have a great weekend.




I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream.

The Week That Was

Sunday - Tank was smelling like burnt butt hair and shedding like crazy so we took him in for a grooming session at Petsmart. He's usually pretty excited to see me when I come pick up because he's been down there for about 4 hours but on this day he was especially glad to see my face. It was a nice boost to the ego but then when I saw his report card I knew why he was glad to get out of there:

Can you see why?
Tank's not a big fan of getting his anal glands did.
I can't think of too many people that enjoy it.
Normally I don't sign him up for the butt squeeze but it's included with the Furminator package so I spent some time on Sunday apologizing to Tank Tank.
He finally accepted my expression of regret with an offering of shredded cheese.
That dog loves cheese.
Probably will help fill those glands back up.
How's that for painting a picture?

Sunday - Kyle and I went to an air show. We had a good time. A little warm but all in all it was fun. We got to go inside the cockpit of a B-29 Flying Fortress and Fifi (name of the plane) is the only one in the world that is still airworthy. I got a nice picture of Kyle standing next to it but then some dude wearing a Boise State shirt went and ruined the background. Going to have to crop him out.

Monday - Weekend is over and sometimes it just feels like an accomplishment if you survive Monday. Well I did and concluded it by watching the finale of "24." I wish I could say it was a nice way to end the evening.

Tuesday - I went to Jamba Juice to pick up a snack while I was at work. I got talked into the Kale-ribbean Breeze and it looked like shit. Seriously a big pile of green baby poop scooped into a cup but if you got past the appearance it was not too shabby. Well since kale was one of the main ingredients I got a little paranoid that I was going to have kale in my teeth or on my lips. I mentioned this to one of of my co-workers by saying "I hope I don't have kale all over my face." She started laughing and then I did too because it dawned on me that we work with a guy named Cale so that phrase takes on a whole different meaning.

Wednesday - I took the kiddos bowling and Kyle broke triple digits for the first time.

Thursday - It's been a long time since I talked about this but my book should be done by the end of the month. Some miscommunication and other problems occurred during the first efforts so I had to reach out to a new formatter and designer. The formatting is supposed to be done tonight and the cover hopefully wrapped up by this weekend. Once it's done I can start sharing more details about the release date and other goodies.

Friday - Going to the movies with Kyle Bunga to see Planes 2 with Kyle Bunga. I just hope it's better than the first one.

Here's a bonus pic. I was messing around with my camera while the kids were having fun at a giant play land and that little blur going down the slide is Kyle. Isn't it amazing how he can pull himself right back up? =)

Thanks for stopping by. Have a good weekend.





I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream.

To Wash Or Not To Wash Is The Question

Here's something I never thought I would write on my blog: I had a kickball game last night.
There's a kickball league that my co-workers play in and they needed a dude so I volunteered.
It was actually a lot of fun especially since I haven't played since I was probably in high school.
So where am I going with this?
Well after the game ended I had some time to kill because Mrs. Shife was hosting a doTerra party at our house. If you are unfamiliar with doTerra here's a link to become enlightened. You're welcome.
I ended up going to the mall to meet a new friend.
She posted an interesting ad on Craigslist.
She seems normal, right?
OK I lied.
I went to the mall to get a new hat. And a new shirt. I really liked the shirt. Here it is:

What do you think?
I guess World Cup fever got to me and I wanted a shirt of Bob Marley playing soccer.
Sorry I couldn't include my head and arms.
I'm just extremely private.
Ooops how rude of me. I suppose you might want to see a picture of my new hat too.
Here it is:

What do you think?
It's just hard to find a good feathered, horse hat these days.
On with the story.
Eventually I killed enough time to come home after Mrs. Shife's party was over.
I knew I wanted to wear my new shirt to work but I knew it was too late to start a load of laundry so I was faced with a dilemma.
Not as much of a dilemma as that girl in the Craigslist ad must contend with when she goes down the bread aisle at a grocery store.
Should I wear my shirt without washing it?
I'm sure there are plenty of sanitary reasons why I should but I threw caution to the wind and wore it to work without washing it.
Scandalous, right?
Probably going to ruin my chances of running for public office.
I guess if I develop an awesome rash I will not need to hire a detective to solve that mystery.
So is this a guy thing or do ladies wear newly-purchased clothes without washing them first?


Thanks for stopping by. Hope you had a good 4th of July. Here's a picture of the kiddos with a friend of ours while I was lighting off some of our fireworks. Hayden might have been a little surprised at the noise or she was hoping to unhear that her daddy used to be Mrs. Epsteen.

I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream.

Random Acts of Shifeness

--> We took our first trip of the year to the beach – which sounds kind of funny since we live in a landlocked state – but it's our version of the beach. Below is one of the pictures I took from our time there and it cracks me up because Kyle is running up the hill laughing his little butt off like he just did something rotten to the group of teenagers in the background. He was just giggling because he was having a water fight with Mrs. Shife and was getting his squirt gun to level the playing field but the picture might indicate something nefarious was going with the big guy.

--> Do you have World Cup fever? I do and I don't think there's a cure. I can't remember when I have ever been this interested in men and balls. Well maybe that one time in college when I drank too much Jagermeister … I kid. I didn't even drink that night … I kid again. Go USA. Beat Belgium.
--> I don't know if you recall but I'm trying to get a 1,000 miles in this year on my feet. Well so far so good. The halfway point is July 2 and I only need 491 more miles to go.
--> Kyle started karate again after taking a short break. It's safe to say that Hayden really missed her brother. It's going to be a tough transition when he starts kindergarten this fall.

--> Came across this story about two monks who are on a journey. Sometime during their journey they stop at a clearing, and in the clearing is a stream. On the one side of the stream is a fair maiden trying to cross. The first monk without any hesitation picks up the fair maiden and carries her across and sets her down. The two monks carry on in silence. Sometime later on their journey they stop at another clearing. The second monks says to the first monk, "You picked up that maiden. Do you know it's against our beliefs and our religion to touch a person of the opposite sex?" The first monk says, "I set her down back there, but you carried her all the way here."
The moral of the story: Our failures are back there. We move on.
I liked it so I thought I would share as I'm definitely guilty of hanging onto stuff way too long.
--> Enjoy the Fourth of July. I'll be with family and friends so probably going to take a break from blogging next week.





Thanks for stopping by. Talk to you later.



I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream.

WTF?

Have you met this fellow?

Any guesses on what that might be?
A fat Jonah Hill?

Nope.
Guess again?
Congressman Blake Farenthold?

Nope.
It is the one and only Señor Testiculo. Also known as Mr. Balls, he's a mascot for a group in Brazil that is seeking to raise awareness of testicular cancer research.
Well I'm fully aware now because Señor Testiculo is going to haunt me in my sleep for weeks.
Holy balls - pun intended - that is one scary mascot.
I sure hope the baby in the picture with Señor Testiculo doesn't have a nut allergy.
Boom.
Did you hear about Señor Testiculo's friend? Turns out he's quite a dick.
Bam.
Alright I'm done.

And here's a little story I shared on Facebook about my darn kids … Hearing what I imagine a Transformer would sound like if he took a dump, I hurried into the garage a.k.a dojo a.k.a Kyle & Hayden's play room to see what was going on. Seeing a large pile of toys that mysteriously "jumped" to their death from the shelves, I asked Kyle what happened and he said,
"Hayden is in training. She's going to be a ninja."
Well I can't argue with that.
And I certainly don't want to interrupt that.
Carry on little ninjas.
We'll clean up later.


Thanks for stopping by.
Have a great weekend.





I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream.

Mr. Shife's Moronic Misadventures

1) I started off the day by driving to work and then locking my keys in the car. As I was closing the door, time slowed down for just a few seconds so I could fully appreciate my moment of stupidity. As I watched the door elude my outstretched fingertips, I yelled "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" hoping my Viking war cry (I might have mistyped girlish scream) would turn back the hands of time and erase my error in judgement.
Not on this day.
The door slammed shut with the keys still inside the car. Fortunately, we had a spare and Mrs. Shife saved my butt by dropping them off to me.

2) After that ordeal and work was done, I came home that afternoon to start my shift at Daddy Daycare. Besides looking after the kiddos, I needed to fix a broken faucet handle on a water line that was tied into our sprinkler system. I turned off the water to the sprinkler system and then removed the handle. Guess what wasn't tied into the sprinkler system?
The water line was off of the main water line so water was gushing up about 7 feet into the air and flooding the backyard.
Awesome.
After a few expletives, I thought this was no good and maybe I should fix it.
I attempted to put the handle back on the line but that worked about as well as an ejection seat on a helicopter. The water pressure was too strong and all I ended up doing was giving myself a nice bath.
The next step was turn off the water to the house.
I headed inside to get a flashlight so I could find the water line in the crawl space under our house.
Turns out we have plenty of flashlights but none of them work. Kyle had turned them all on so the batteries were dead.
Good times.
After a few more expletives, I continued to think this was no good.
But it's the middle of the day so maybe there's some natural light down in the crawl space and I can find the valve to turn off the water to the house.
Nope. It's really dark even in the afternoon under the house.
I remembered Kyle had a head lamp so I went back inside to borrow that but you'll never guess what happened? If you guessed the batteries were dead then you are familiar with 5-year-olds.
I searched frantically to find something that would emit light and the best thing I could find was this:

A light-up ball that I had to continuously hit to keep the light on.
Well this worked about as well as trying to nail Jell-O to a tree.
The only thing I discovered in the crawl space was that I cuss a lot when no one is around to hear me.
Wet, frustrated, and getting a little worried as the water had been going everywhere for about 10 minutes now, I went to the backyard again to try to put the faucet back on.
I probably would have had more luck putting lipstick on Tank.
I finally called the water company to ask them to send someone over to turn off the water.
Might of been a good idea to make this call in the beginning.
They showed up about 15 minutes later and turned it off.
Can't wait to see the water bill next month.

3) After my midday spa treatment, we needed to head to the hardware store to get the parts to fix the faucet so I had to change my clothes since I was soaking wet. I put on a new pair of shorts but neglected to change my underwear because they didn't feel that wet.
I should've stopped myself there since I've had such outstanding judgement up to this point in the day.
You won't believe it … I was wrong again.
By the time we got to the store I had rather large wet circle in the groin area that looked a lot like this:

Kyle informed me and anyone else that was within close proximity of us at the store that I had peed my pants. When we go out we always try to point out where the restrooms are to the kids so we don't have an accident and of course my son kept telling me over and over (5-year-olds are persistent) that I should have found the bathroom in the store so I didn't pee my pants. And of course Hayden starts chiming in, "Hey Daddy, why did you pee your pants?" over and over (2-year-olds are persistent as well).

4) I figured three was enough but turns out Wednesday had one more punch to the face for me. Our neighbor's boy has just started watching the kids for us and I failed to inform him that the kids were good and didn't need any more food for the day. Kyle and Hayden took advantage of the sitter's lack of experience and my lack of judgement by gorging on an entire bag of dried mangos. According to Mrs. Shife, it was a feeding frenzy as the kids were going crazy when she got home.

Mowing them mangos down down like there was no tomorrow. Well it turns out that Kyle went a little crazier than Hayden and had too many mangos. By the time I got home he was in the bathroom with his face buried in toilet puking his guts out.

Thanks Wednesday. See you next week.

And Happy Father's Day to all the dudes out there. Enjoy the ride.


I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream.

Smell Ya Later

I ran into a friend from college at the grocery store recently.
It had been awhile since we last saw each other so we chatted for about 10 minutes.
I would have lasted longer but I needed some fresh air.
Let me explain.
As the conversation began, I noticed an extremely ripe body odor lingering in the air.
It felt like a hobo's fart had decided to camp out right under my nose.
Naturally I assumed it was me because I barely remember to brush my teeth some days so forgetting to put on deodorant seemed about right for this dumb, white guy.
While listening to my friend talk, I attempted as discretely as possible to sniff my underarms.
First, I pretended that I needed to scratch my face by raising my arm up then rubbing my cheek on my shoulder.
This technique allowed me to take in a big whiff to see if I indeed was contaminating the air.
No odors were detected so onto the next attempt because I wasn't convinced I got a good smell.
I crossed my arms and stuck my fingers in the armpit region so I could rub my fingers around.
Then I uncrossed my arms and pretended I needed to scratch my nose which would allow me to smell my fingers.
I did my best to not look like Molly Shannon's Mary Katherine Gallagher character on SNL.
Do you remember her? (I wasn't as dedicated and only rubbed my fingers over my shirt.)

The fingers didn't smell like a turd covered in burnt dog hair.
Awesome.
One more test.
I mentioned to my friend that my shoulder had been bothering me today.
Must have slept on it in a weird way I said.
Better stretch it out I said.
I raised my right hand over my head and bent my elbow to place my right hand behind my left shoulder.
Kind of like this:

I turned my head to the side as an imaginary cough appeared out of nowhere.
Damn you fake, dry air that I just pretended to inhale.
I fake coughed.
I breathed in through my nose.
Nothing.
What the hell?
Then it dawned on me.
I didn't stink.
My old friend was the one who smelled like hot garbage.
When I realized this, the smell became 100 times worse because I knew it wasn't mine.
It's like thinking you stepped in mud but then you get home and discover it's somebody's poop.
In my entire life I have never wished for a stuffy nose but at that moment I was begging for one.
Oh the horror.
It's funny how the mind works.
Now that the noise corruption conundrum was solved it was time to end this talk because the odor was too much.
What could I do?
Punch myself in the neck? No. Too weird.
Punch my friend in the neck? Nope. Too mean.
Pretend I got a phone call? Nada. My cell phone was in the car.
Pee my pants? Negative. Too embarrassing. I have my limitations.
But that got me thinking.
I said, "Hey Smelly (names have been changed to protect myself from getting into trouble) I need to run to the bathroom. Sorry man I just can't hold it like the good old days."
We shook hands, said we would be in touch (which we never did), and I was on my way to the men's room to pretend to be pee.
As soon I was out of sight of Smelly, I felt like a swimmer who had had been holding his breath too long and camp up gasping for that precious air.

I found out later that my friend had gone more natural and holistic which is awesome if you want to smell like Bigfoot's dick.
So what's the moral of this little tale?
Sometimes those who dealt it don't always smell it.
And my friends stink.



Thanks for stopping by.


I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream.