My wordpress site that allows me to blog is set up for auto renew so I guess I’m on the hook for another year since I just received the email notification that I was charged yet again for this site. That being said, when my debit card linked to this site expires that will likely be the end of this blog. While at times it can be a struggle coming up with material, there has not been a shortage in recent months, it’s just been a matter of sitting down and writing. Last night at dinner, two things of note occurred. The first was the fact that Jacob, one of the neighbor kids, and son to Joe and Stephanie (all real names) told our kids that he thinks we are lazy and not good with our money. Jacob is in fifth grade and I am quite certain he is unable to formulate such opinions on his own. We have spent time socializing with his parents and they have been over to and inside our house. I have yet to step foot in their home but have seen their yard and their garage and if I didn’t know better I would say Joe is a serial killer, that’s how well organized his garage is and how meticulous he keeps his lawn.

Shirley instantly busted out her phone to text Stephanie, to which I immediately objected. “They need to know what their son is saying about us!’ She exclaimed. I was able to talk her off the ledge but she indicated that the next time she saw Stephanie she would address the issue face to face with her. (hopefully they both have a couple of glasses of wine in them when this happens and our ring camera records the entire interaction) While the claims by Jacob seemed to upset Shirley, they didn’t phase me. However, I did explain to everyone at the dinner table, including my dad, that Jacob’s (Joe and Stephanie’s) observations were some what on point, that we, or at least me, are actually procrastinators. I’m not lazy per se, I am actually quite active, but that activeness leads to me neglecting things that need to get done. We have had a garage full of furniture that has been there since our new furniture arrived this summer as part of our home makeover. While I was able to get rid of some of it, there is still a sectional that needs to go up to the play room above the garage (aka Max’s poop room) and there is an entertainment center and some other odds and ends that needs to find its way to Goodwill. Had I not been golfing, skiing, playing pickleball, and or basketball every weekend since the home make over this would have been taken care of months ago. However, my plan was that once the weather began to decline I would get on it. The weather has yet to decline.

Joe and Stephanie are both type A. Shirley and I are closer to type B than type A and as I said we are both procrastinators. The reason Shirley doesn’t stay on task has nothing to do with her extreme activeness, it can primarily be attributed to her ADHD. During the week the ADHD is kept at bay with medication, but on the weekends she typically is prescription free. The only thing that I am type A about is my truck. It is my fortress of solitude and the only thing I have exclusive control over in my life. So, at a minimum of at least once a week I spend a good half hour vacuuming it and detailing it. This infuriates Shirley because this is time that could be spent engaging is vigorous sex. Yeah right, it’s actually time she thinks I should be spending cleaning the house even though we have a cleaning lady named Donna. I do get her point, we have decided there is little to gain in trying to make our kids pick up after themselves so I should she thinks I should probably focus on that instead of keeping my truck immaculate. The crazy thing about Donna is that she comes through our house like a tornado and leaves a trail of shit out of place in her path. Rugs in the shower that normally are on the bathroom floor, waste paper baskets in the other shower that are normally not in the shower.

What’s better, two type A’s in a marriage or two type B’s? I guess you could have an A and a B but I can’t see that working. I think if you want a marriage to last two type B’s. Not because the marriage will be good, probably just the opposite, but two type B’s are much more likely to stay in an unsatisfying marriage because it’s too much work to do anything about it. Whereas an unfulfilled type A is going to say fuck that, I’m out of here. As far as being bad with money, I’m not sure how Joe and Stephanie, I mean Jacob, was able to surmise that we are bad with our money, but I am sure there were clues. Five I pads and three Nintendo Switches along with the latest X box? No less than three Amazon deliveries every day? My kids wanting and getting Prime sports drink which can only be bought at exclusive retail locations like GNC and goes for $30 a case (12 bottles). I have no doubt that Jacob told his parents about Aiden and Parker drinking Prime and that one of them researched what Prime was and how much it costs. Do I make similar judgments about Joe and or Stephanie? Of course not, even though Joe has a pair of Jordan golf shoes, a golf simulator, and just bought Stephanie a gargantuan Infiniti SUV. (There is a bit of pot kettle there due to the fact that I was on a golf trip in Atlanta this spring and stumbled upon a pair of Jordan golf shoes, but they are now my favorite golf shoes of the 12 to 15 pairs I own, admittedly I have a problem)

The second remarkable thing that occurred at dinner was my kids cutting up their own steak. Ok, thats not all that remarkable unless you know my kids. However, Parker cutting up his steak did lead to him saying “this meat is sus”. I lost my shit on him because it was prime filet from Costco (not to brag) and it was quite expensive (that may be another not good with money clue). He claims sus (suspect) was not a bad thing but his explanation for why it wasn’t made no sense. I’m in charge of most of the cooking which is a tall task when you couple that with all the work I do to keep my truck clean. I make chicken tika masala, chicken pot pie, chicken fettuccine alfredo, meatloaf, lasagna, and a lot of stuff on the grill just to name off what can be found on the Jansma dinner menu. I also throw in routine things like tacos and spaghetti when I am feeling somewhat unmotivated. On top of being treated to what I believe to be an outstanding dinner menu, I also make sure our house is always stocked with a number of ice cream flavors and a variety of ice cream novelties as well as a shit ton of candy. In addition, our kids do not lack when it comes to devices and toys. Lastly, I frequently cave in and bring my kids to school instead of making them ride the bus which results in an hour door to door for Aiden, it’s not as bad for Parker. Finally, throw in all the money spent on camps and sporting endeavors and my kids have had led Never Never Land like childhood (without having to be molested by Michael Jackson) in comparison to the prison camp I lived in growing up.

Did I list off all of that stuff to illustrate how awesome of a parent I am at spoiling my kids and doing them a disservice in their adult years, no, I already am fully cognizant of that fact. Also, I am certain most parents are equally as negligent in their parenting as I am. However, I do regret, and maybe this is somehow actually possible but I would probably have to suffer equally as much as them, that I can’t fully replicate my childhood experience and make my kids endure it for at least a couple weeks possibly even until they are 18. I would even go so far as to make them find actual hard copy pornographic material, when they are old enough to look at such stuff obviously, but that would be the ultimate character builder. Having to actually go out and look for porn instead of just getting on the internet? I would have never left my room if the internet existed when I was a kid. Other things my kids would have to endure would be:

Riding their bikes to and from practice and on the rare occasion they would be given a ride I would pick them up at least a half hour late.

Only having three rooms in the house heated in the winter. Yes, our kitchen, living room, and bathroom were the only rooms that had access to heat when I was growing up. We had electric blankets and it was a bitch getting out of bed in the morning in the middle of the winter, routinely there was actual frost on my bedroom window, I was half tempted to scratch “save me” in the frost but nobody would have.

Receiving no more than an hour of TV watching/Device time per day. My mom gave us a certain amount of monopoly money per week to purchase television time with that when rationed properly amounted to roughly an hour a day. If I wanted to watch the entire Lions game, which in hindsight may have been the start of me wasting money, I had to save up for the weekend and forego watching anything on at least two weekdays.

Raking up walnuts, weeding the garden, helping my dad plant grass seed and cover it with hey etc. Basically chores is what I am going for here. I had to do chores and I wasn’t allowed to bitch about it. However, my kids, when asked to do the most basic of tasks act like we are asking them to comprise the role of the main character in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. (its about a forced labor camp in Siberia for those of you who are not as well read and educated as I am).

For those of you who don’t know this, my dad has MS, is in a wheelchair, and lives in an assisted living center. I try to have him over at least once a week and he was over last night because we are heading out of town and more importantly because we switched from Verizon to Spectrum Mobile and he is on our plan so we had to put a new sim card in for him. (maybe we are not so bad with money after all, we are saving a LOT of money with the switch over, enough to cover the cost of at least three new pairs of golf shoes on a yearly basis). As I dropped him off at Railside assisted living center he said to me “I have two words of advice for you, don’t respond to the neighbors and don’t spoil your kids”. If only I could have Shirley and the kids move in with him that might actually be possible.