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We drove a lot today. We left Klamath, CA and drove for 1.5 hours to Prehistoric Gardens in Port Orford, Oregon. Basically across the street we discovered Arizona Beach, which is a beautiful and clean beach with almost nobody there. We had the beach to ourselves. After leaving the beach came the 4.5 hour drive to Salem, Oregon.
Day one of our #HillFamilyRoadTrip2015 is off to a strong start. A nice 4.5 hour drive from Modesto to Fort Bragg and we were playing in the sand and water. We are tired but excited for Day 2.
Happy 4th of July weekend! I hope everybody had a fun and safe holiday weekend. Between enjoying time with my family, I had to get some last-minute work done before leaving for vacation.
Vlogging is hard work when you try to stack it on top of an already busy life. The goal of producing two of these videos each week is going to take a lot of work and hopefully, I can stay committed to it.
Vacation is right around the corner and I look forward to being able to step away from work and focus on time with my family. Don’t worry, the vlog will continue over vacation. I plan to enjoy my camera equipment while on this trip.
Liam’s 5th birthday was quickly approaching and we had no plans. I remember my wife and I sitting on the couch about 2 weeks ago contemplating just having some close family over for pizza or something. Something about that didn’t sit right. I mean it was my first born son’s 5th birthday. That’s kind of a big deal. The idea of getting a bounce house for our backyard sounded horrible. There’s a time and a place for easy entertainment, I kind of wanted to do something fun.
I remembered watching some 3-Gun Competitions on Youtube. 3-Gun Competitions have become really popular over the last few years. This form of shooting sport requires you to go through a course hitting targets while switching between three different types of guns. I began imagining how cool that would be to do in our backyard with Nerf Guns. It was decided that Liam would have an Epic 3 Gun Nerf Battle Birthday Party.
With little actual time to plan this between work and traveling to Seattle for 3 days, I took to Amazon to load up on Nerf arsenal. We didn’t have much, to begin with. Our kids have very few gun-related toys. A year ago I bought four small Nerf guns to my wife and I could battle with the kids, but some of them are too hard to shoot. Today, some of the six-year-old kids even had a hard time with them.
I wanted the backyard to be fun. My wife took to Pinterest and I worked on some ideas of my own. I had a bunch of moving boxes from when we last moved and some wood. We went to Home Depot to buy the wood stakes we used to hold everything up. It took more time to gather and buy everything I needed than it did to set it up. I set up the entire backyard in about 3 hours including painting things camouflage and cutting the wood stakes to size.
List of Nerf Guns & Darts:
The kids had such a great time. Most of my son’s friends are his age with a few of them a year or two older so this was a hit for everybody. My younger son enjoyed it just as much as the bigger kids.
As you can see, the set up was pretty simple. I used a bunch of yard marker sticks I got in a bundle from Home Depot and crossed twine over and around them to simulate razor wire.
The real bottleneck was reloading guns with Nerf darts. I purchased a few extra clips, but the main gun had to be reloaded each time. A couple of parents helped in that process which kept things moving along quickly.
Pool noodles worked great. I just stuck sticks in the ground and slipped the pool noddles over them. I bought these pool noodles.
I had some boxes and boards laying around so I used spray paint to add camo to the boxes and targets to the wood panels. It’s nothing fancy, but for a moment, the boys thought they were in a war zone. I even bought a couple of inflatable tire tubes pool floats that I turned up on their side and made into targets.
The party kept my wife and I pretty busy. I don’t remember standing still for even a moment. I wanted to get more photos of the action taking place, but the sun was kind of at a weird angle and made it hard. With so many kids running around and my focus on them having a good time, I ended up just putting my camera away.
After the somewhat organized portion of the event was over, we handed out little single shooter Nerf Guns that were part of the party favor for each of the kids and they went to battle in the backyard. With plenty of Nerf darts all over the place, there was endless fun to be had.
I have attended a lot of little kid birthday parties and at each one, the Pinata gives after the first few kids. My wife picked out this Avengers Pinata and filled it up with tons of candy. The problem is that this thing would not break. Each kid hit it and then we let Liam at it again, it would not break. I had to hit it as hard as I could with the plastic bat 3-4 times. Next time I will make sure we have a metal bat.
Of course, Liam fell this morning on the playground at church and gave himself a nice goose egg on the forehead. Either he or his brother does that often the morning before a day where many photos will be taken.
Liam’s 5th birthday party was a huge success. After all of the friends left, it was time for baths and the boys fell right asleep. They played hard today, and that is what it’s all about.
Today marked a milestone. From what I understand, it is his “Golden Birthday.” Not sure what that means. I would think your golden birthday is when you turn 100. Regardless, my son is now five years old and I am sitting here trying to figure out just how I got here.
The last five years of my life have gone by pretty fast. In those five years, I have had three children and grown my business about 500%. I have also grown a lot as a person, but this post isn’t about me, it’s about my beautiful boy who is growing up rather fast.
Continue reading “I Have a 5 Year Old”
When my wife and I started discussing what we would do for our 7 year anniversary, the topic of gifts always comes up. This year it was decided that there would be no gifts. My wife knows that I never keep my promises when it comes to gift giving. I am not sure which will be the bigger gift, this project, or the fact that I am doing a tutorial on it and pinning it to Pinterest.
In the past years, I have tried to be creative but have not really come through with anything really nice that would be worthy of hanging onto for any length of time. This year, I wanted it to be different. A quick Google search let me know that the 7-year anniversary gift was copper. Further research led me to a project that involved listing important dates with pennies. I really liked that idea so I went to Amazon to order the items I would need to create my own project (Project List Below).
I already had a few tools, so my list of items needed was not that long. It was a rather inexpensive project to pull off. The hardest part was finding pennies for the correct years.
My wife crafts. She has a room that is full of crafting tools, paper, and other materials. Being a man, I wanted to do this on my own and I didn’t want to leave a trace, so I opted to create my project at my office. I had an X-ACTO knife in my Slot Car Box. Slot Cars are a longtime hobby I have had since I was a child which involves building cars and painting the body that goes on the car. It’s kind of like building model cars, but you get to drive them on a track.
Having decided what I was going to make for her for our 7-year anniversary copper gift, I got started.
Here is a list of items I needed to pull off this project:
It took me a few minutes to come up with 7 milestones that have happened since we met each other. We have yet to purchase a house and neither one of us has graduated from med school so all I had was the day we met, the day we married, and the birth dates of our three children. I felt that I needed to have at least 7 dates on the list. If I could have come up with more, I might have gone for 10. To make 7, I added my wife’s birthdate and my own to the list.
I have Adobe Photoshop on my computer so I used that to create the page layout but I could have easily used Microsoft Word or something like that. The only part I was concerned about was making sure that the text and the pennies would be spaced evenly on the page. I wanted it to look good once it was in the frame.
After the text design was done, I printed the page on my Canon Pro-100 printer that I use occasionally for printing photos. I wanted the text to be crisp. The only other printer I had was a black and white laser printer. A test print with that laser printer did not look that good. The text did not turn out as sharp on the page. I bought a 50 pack of cardstock knowing that I would probably go through a few pages trying to get it right.
The most tedious part of this project was sorting through pennies to try and find the correct year for each of the milestones. I needed a 1980, 1986, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and a 2013 penny. I keep just about all of the change that is given back to me at the conclusion of a purchase so I had a lot to work with. The center console of my truck had about 3″ of change it in and in my office, I had a red solo cup full of change. I poured all of that change into a bucket and my employees and I started sorting. I also occasionally save one dollar bills. All that stuff adds up!
It took us about 10 minutes but by the time we had sorted through all of the pennies we had found at least 2 for each year. I wanted the cleanest pennies so it would be easy to see the year.
Here is the project laid out before attaching the pennies. Looking good so far.
Since the card stock was 8.5×11 inches, I needed to trim it to fit the 8×10 frame. This frame did not have a matte so I could not simply hide the excess behind the matte, it had to be cut to fit.
Attaching the pennies to the card stock could have been done a couple of different ways but I wanted them to be as close to the paper as possible and I did not want to use a liquid which could have made the paper soggy. I happened to have some high-end double-sided tape that I had bought when I changed out the glass cover on a Mac Laptop. Small roles of this stuff are kind of expensive but since I had it, and it’s thin, I used it. I could have just as easily used double-sided scotch tape, but I did not have any. Don’t buy the 3M VHB Tape that I used, it’s really expensive. Just use double-sided scotch tape.
The pressure on the pennies between the picture frame glass and the backing would hold them in place pretty well so I was not concerned with how tough the bond was between the pennies and the card stock. I used the glass from the picture frame as a straight edge so the pennies would stay aligned down the page.
The pennies are attached and it’s ready to see how it looks in the frame.
I was pleasantly surprised by the finished product. My employees were impressed with the idea and that I was able to remember exact dates. I have always tried my best to remember these dates because they are extremely important to me. Not everybody can remember the exact date they met their spouse. I even remember the day we started dating, which was Feb 19th, 2006. My wife is not so good with dates which makes it even more fun that I do remember these things.
Reaching the 7-year mark in marriage is a milestone itself. I have heard it said by many professionals on relationships that it takes about 7 years before you can truly be selfless in regards to your spouse. I was 28 years old when my wife and I married. I had been in relationships in the past where both of us in the relationship was selfish, so I have tried my best not to be since my wife and I married.
I am looking forward to the next 7 years and the next 7 after that. My wife and I have never been happier in our lives. Though having 3 children close in age is a lot of work, we believe it is the best work we could possibly be doing. We both agree that if we could go back and do it over again, we would not change a thing.
Happy Anniversary to my beautiful bride, who is just as beautiful as the day we first met.
I love you Mallory!
Let me apologize in advance by saying that this post is a mess. It’s a mess of thoughts, emotions and frustrations most of which are not in any specific order. I just started typing about where I am at right now and stuff came out. So if you are interested, read on.
Well, it’s 2015 and though I don’t put much into resolutions or starting over, part of me does hope for the best when the new year begins. The last couple of months of parenting have been tough. All three of my kids have been super emotional and they constantly mess with each other. Of course there are those moments where they play nice but its short lived. As I sit here and type this, my kids are watching Clifford. Emmy looks over at Cohen and he kicks her in the leg. They love each other one moment and hate each other the next. I don’t think they know any other way to express themselves yet, but it’s sure annoying to have to constantly be putting out fires as each battle is taken to far. A very naive part of me hoped that something would change and the first of the year would magically start off perfect.
Here is a photo of my daughter. She was screaming for no reason at all. Well, I am sure there was a reason, but I have no idea what was upsetting her. She gets so mad just out of no where. The only way to fix that is to pick her up. If you do anything at all with Liam and it does not go his way, he shuts down and throws a fit. Cohen is quieter but has his moments of complete breakdown where you can’t to anything but put him on his bed and tell him to come find you when he is done throwing a fit.
What is nice is that both of my boys are easy to talk to. They are quick to ask for forgiveness and they know when they have wronged someone. I recognize that they are just going through a phase where they are not sure how to express feeling so they lash out at whomever is in the way. Liam is not like this with anybody but us. He knows that he cannot get away with acting that way toward friends but he knows that he can with us. I have not found a good way of dealing with his outbursts that consistently works. Trial and error I guess. Each kid is different.
This last year was a bit rough for me physically. I have never felt more tired and been less active than I was in 2014. I probably made it to the gym less than 15 times the entire year. There was a time when it was easy for me to get to the gym 6 days a week and spent about 2 hours there each day. I realize what needs to happen to change that, but I have gotten myself into a place of too much demand of my own resources to easily change that. I recognize that this needs to change this year as I cannot continue on the path I am on. Part of what is annoying to me is that I am not an unhealthy person. I don’t eat bad foods and I don’t overeat. I am active compared to most people I know, but for me, it must not be enough.
I have found that I am on a path that I did not intend on heading down. I don’t want to sound like I am complaining as I really love my life and have absolutely nothing to complain about. What has happened is that I have driven myself to a place that was not where I originally had intended on being.
When I was in my early 20’s, I was working a lot. I knew that what I was doing was not sustainable and that I would need to change if I wanted to be healthy and have a family one day. I made those changes by closing off a business I had started and began freelancing as a website and graphic designer. My time was instantly more manageable and I had much more control over everything. Fast forward ten years and I have wound up in a similar situation as I was before. I am not overworking and I almost never work on the weekends but it is not the level of freedom I wanted and was working to create for myself. As we get older, we get more responsibilities but some of those are not necessary. I worked from home for six years and only got an office because we needed the extra room for our growing family. With those added expenses I took on more clients because I wanted to make sure I was able to cover the increase in overhead. As I brought on more clients I needed to hire employees. Then I needed more space so overhead went even higher. There is nothing wrong with all of this as this is part of growing a business into something successful. The issue is that it has not brought me the freedom I originally wanted. I am achieving a lot more than I could be on my own, but it has not resulted in the level of freedom I desire.
Some people want to build a business to make money, I want to build a business to give me more freedom. Freedom to me is being able to drop everything and hang out with my family or be there for them when they need me. Freedom is the ability to attend all of my children’s school functions. Freedom is being able to take off anytime I want to take my family to the coast. For the most part, I do have those freedoms, but I am still not where I want to be. Freedom does cost money. To be able to have a flexible schedule, you have to be able to afford to take that time off.
I do have much more freedom than most. We have vacationed a couple of times each year as a family. I have been able to be there for my wife before, during and after each of our children have been born. My oldest and my wife have had some extended hospital stays over the last few years and I was able to drop everything to be there for them. The business I have built has allowed me that kind of freedom.
I am starting to feel like it sounds like I am complaining about my life. This is not the case as I am blessed far beyond what I deserve. What I am not, is content. Typing that last sentence kind of makes me sad but at the same time optimistic. I know that I am not the kind of person who could ever be completely content, but I am at the point where I would like a season of contentment. My life is constantly in R&D (research and development) but lately I have not been able to spend as much time in R&D mode as I would like. I like trying new things so I can see what works and what doesn’t. I always want to know what will work best. I am not happy until I know the best way to accomplish a task. I have also not been able to cultivate relationships with my friends for several years and that is starting to wear on me. We need community and I don’t really have that on a personal level.
It’s not going to be comfortable, but there will be changes this year. I hate the fact that I am talking about it and even going as far as typing it out on January 1, but it is what it is. I have thought about it every day of last year and not much changed. It is too easy to get into a rut and just let the days pass by while you continuously tell yourself that you will start that tomorrow. My family gets my full attention and my clients do as well. Its time for me to find a way to continue to be available to those who need me while making sure there is enough energy left for myself.
With all of that said, here is the thing I need to keep reminding myself: It’s not about me. It really is not about me. Its about what I find important and where my priorities are. When you have those in line, it is much easier to be where you want to be. The hard thing is that when you have more priorities than you used to, it gets harder to figure out how to keep them all at the top. My family is my most important earthly possession. It is important to me that my wife is happy and that she feels secure. It is important to me that my kids are happy and that my wife is able to stay home with them rather than have to work. I would sacrifice just about everything to keep my wife home with my kids, that is more important than possessions or any kind of freedom I could desire for myself. I don’t think that many people get that, and the only one who suffers is the child.
So where does that leave me? Well, it leaves me tired and sometimes frustrated, but I need to see past that. Last year was a lot about giving into that tiredness and allowing myself to feel like there was not enough time for myself. This year, I will make an effort to assure I fix the things that have been bothering me. No more excuses. Its 2015, which is the year the movie “Back to the Future” gave us a glimpse into what the future would be like. We might not have Hoverboards and we definitely don’t dress like Biff and his crew did, but we are living in exciting times.
With all that said, I’m going to go peek in on my precious sleeping children which erases all memories of the frustrations of the day.
Parting words from Biff Tannen:
So, why don’t you make like a tree and get outta here?
A month and a half ago I decided to logout of Facebook. You can read more about my original reasons here. Now that it has been over 45 days since I have scrolled Facebook looking for interesting posts from my friends and acquaintances I realized how little our Facebook posts really matter.
When we post something on Facebook it is usually to either update our friends on something or to seek sympathy. That seems to be about 95% of what I see posted on Facebook. I would say that the majority of the posting to Facebook is done because people want comments on their posts. People desire that affirmation that they don’t get from people these days due to the fact that we have fewer face to face conversations than we used to. Being that we can share something out to our average of 450 online contacts makes it even more desirable. However, I feel that we have actually created apathy in our abilities to hold conversations with people.
When I would scroll Facebook, and I know others are just like me because I watch them while in public. We scroll down the Facebook newsfeed looking for something that sticks out the same way we rapidly turn pages in a magazine looking for something interesting. Whatever gets us to stop scrolling has to be interesting or at least intriguing. Most of the time these days it is some sort of drama or meme photo. The only people we stop to see on purpose are those who we are truly interested in.
The people who we are truly interested in is what I wanted to focus on. I noticed that I would look at the updates of the people whom I care about most and then take no action. Occasionally I would comment or like the post but most of the time I would just read the post or view the image posted. That is not the way I should be communicating with the people that matter the most to me. Those people deserve face to face communication or at the very least, phone calls.
So what about voyeurism? I think that Facebook has turned us all into voyeurists. You could also call it, “keeping up with the Jones on steroids.” We find enjoyment out of watching the lives of others with out them knowing it. We occasionally interject with our own comment or let them know we saw their post by liking it but for the most part, we just watch or maybe even stalk. It’s not really healthy at all. I am friends with other photographers, business people and a few people who just seem to have very appealing lives to me and I realized that all I did was watch their lives or their work. The problem with voyeurism is that your own mind is what puts context to every post you see and all most people post to Facebook is their highlight reels of life. Not many people are real and post the ups and downs of life.
I have had a few people ask me if staying away from Facebook has caused me to have closer relationships. The answer is yes and no. As I mentioned in my last post about being logged out of Facebook, I converse with my wife much more than before because I don’t see her Facebook updates. I prefer to listen to her recap her day. She posts a lot of photos of our kids to Facebook throughout the week and I prefer to have her show me them when I get home so she can explain them. You know what you don’t see when you read posts on Facebook? The expression of joy, excitement, sadness or any other facial expressions at all. You lose so much by communicating through Facebook, or other forms of nonlinear communications.
I haven’t stopped text messaging, posting tweets to Twitter or uploading photos to Instagram, but part of me wants to. I first got hooked on communicating with people through text when I dialed into a BBS through a dialup modem and was able to make posts and read posts from other people. Since then, I have loved being able to communicate through text. I love sending emails and sometimes I prefer emailing someone over a phone call.
The death of the personal relationship
All of my life I have only had a few close friends. I was never that guy who had a ton of friends and always jumped around between different groups of people. I am a social person but I am also very introverted when it comes with others. I am better in one on one situations than I am in group settings unless I know everybody in the group. What Facebook has done is allowed me to keep tabs on the close friends I have without actually spending any real time with them. I think many of us can relate that we often spend less time with some people because of social media. This has to change for me because I could probably be a person who lived on his own island by himself so long as I had an internet connection.
It’s not Facebook’s fault
I did not logout because I can’t stand Facebook as a platform. I still manage my business pages on Facebook because they are tools I like to use to market and keep those who care to follow my ventures up to date. I actually just revised all of the content for my Facebook Pages Course for Businesses that is on Udemy. The course has over 18,000 students so you would think that I am a pretty big fan of social media and have definitely taught some people how to use the platform.
The truth is, I received a lot of confused emails and comments from people when I said I was going to logout of Facebook. At the time of logging out I had over 4500 friends on Facebook. Many people only know me through Facebook. For many, I was the social media poster child. Once I explained to these people my reasons for leaving, they understood. I think all of us know deep down that we would be better off without personal Facebook accounts, but most could never let it go.
Facebook is like the news
I used to listen to the news when I was driving. That would give me about 15 minutes of news each direction to and from work and some midday news whenever I was out and about. The problem with the news is that it’s horrible. News is bad. Nothing good ever gets talked about on the news. Our world is a horrible place and the news just rubs it into your face and it’s hard to do anything but think about the negative. This is what Facebook was doing to me. I would read some of the stuff that people were going through and it would make me feel bad. Most of this was coming from people who I don’t even know in real life and don’t really communicate with at all anyway. Yes there have been times I have felt prompted to pray for people who post something tough they are going through and for this I am thankful. I have even helped fund some situations that people posted to GoFundMe that I would not have seen had I not scrolled past it on Facebook. The problem is that the bad outweighs the good and you have to cut the fat sometimes in order to be more focused and positive.
There is nothing wrong with posting about life to Facebook. As I mentioned before, since joining Facebook I got married and had three kids. There are countless aspects about my life that have been shared through Facebook. I don’t want to lose that of leave that behind.
Will I ever come back to Facebook?
I have been considering what to do. I have not posted anything other than links to these recap posts since logging out (my website automatically posts them to Facebook). I have considered turning my Facebook profile into a page but then I would not get to view the newsfeed. I also also realize that most people are probably ok with being my friend on Facebook but may not want to “like” my page. That used to be called being a “fan,” which made it sound even more weird. I have also considered converting my current profile to a page and then creating a new personal profile that will only be accessible to close friends and family.
It’s hard to figure out what to do. I think I will continue to wait until the 60 day mark. I do not feel that I have missed much by being logged out of Facebook. Most of the content I consumed through Facebook does not really matter at the end of the day. Most likely, I will spend the time on my personal Facebook profile to create a newsfeed list of just those who’s updates I want to see so I will see more of their updates and less of the stuff I don’t care about. In the meanwhile, I will continue to post to my blog and to Twitter as I have been doing. I am glad that I am posting more to my blog, especially in the photos section, because my blog can go with me even after Facebook is long gone. It saddens me to know that everything I have posted to Facebook will one day be gone. There was a lot of time invested in all of that posting. If I had just posted to my blog instead, all of that content would be somewhere I had total control. Even thinking back to the days of Myspace, my blog could have been a fantastic timeline in and of itself.
I realize that this post could make it sound like I don’t care about people. That is furthest from the truth. I do care and anybody who has taken even a moment to see what I am about knows this. The problem with social media is the lack of context and personal connection. I miss the personal connection that should be a part of every story. Maybe the answer is that all of our posts should be video instead of text. I think that is where it is going as video blogs on platforms such as Youtube continue to permeate our culture. I have tried video blogging or Vlogging a couple of times and have a hard time getting into it. I already know that it is the video content I have created that has done the most good for me and for others. My online courses on Udemy have over 70,000 students taking them. People have said that they enjoy the video format instead of reading books or tutorial papers.
As I write this I am on a Virgin America flight to Boston for a couple of days to photograph and film for a company I often work with that organizes conferences for online marketers. It’s interesting stuff to me and the people who attend are definitely social media people. I also realize that maybe updates like this should be done in video. Maybe my next challenge should be to do all of my updates in video rather than text. That would definitely make my dumb jokes and comments I post to Twitter more interesting, or maybe more annoying…
What do you think about what I have had to say. Is there anything you agree or disagree with? I would love to hear your thoughts.
I have only been on this earth 34 years but I have came to realize that some people are timeless and others are ephemeral. Timeless people leave their mark, a legacy if you will. My Grandmother, Carole Lucille Hill, was timeless.
The issue with timelessness is that it stands the test of time, it’s neverending. I felt that way about my Grandmother’s life. I could never imagine a time where she would not be around. On the night of her death, I spoke to her. We made plans to get lunch together. She had some Dr’s appointments, which she didn’t seem to concerned with, and we were to spend time together the following week. Though she was 85, she kept busy. Not one fabric of my being would have believed that only an hour and a half later, she would pass away.
My Grandmother Carole stood just shy of 5 feet tall but that didn’t stop her from commanding the attention and respect of all of us. She taught me that family is family and business is business. She was a business woman who taught me a lot through her actions and the way she dealt with people. Besides being well known in Real Estate in her time, she founded the Modesto Apartment Association. Before her successful career in Real Estate, her and my Grandfather Kenneth Hill founded Valley Air Conditioning, a company they sold in the 70’s when my Grandfather wanted to retire from the business.
Though I have had many great influences in my life, my Grandmother has influenced me in so many ways, it would be hard to recount them all.
When I hear about business woman theses days complaining about equality I think about my Grandmother. She became a Real Estate Broker and had offices in Modesto and Escalon, CA. Real Estate brokerage at that time was a male dominant profession. She told me many stories about her professional dealings. She never seemed intimidated. She knew what she wanted to achieve and she did just that. These days there are many female Real Estate Agents and Brokers. This taught me that it did not matter who you are or where you came from, you can achieve what you want to achieve if you work hard. My Grandparents are the American Dream. I have been self employed for 15 years now and I credit my entrepreneurial spirit to her and my Grandfather.
When I was a kid, she would pay me to help her with yard work. She had this jar of quarters that she would pull out to pay me from after an afternoon of pulling weeds or spreading bark around newly planted plants. My brothers and I spent a lot of time at our Grandparents home in Escalon, CA. Though my Grandfather had retired from Valley Air, he tried his hand at almond farming. I have pictures of myself around the age of 3 years old driving an Almond Harvest Sweeper. We grew up around mechanics and motorized vehicles such as go-karts and dirtbikes. We would blast around their property. My Grandmother yelling, “Where’s your helmet?!”
My Grandmother was the original early adopter. In the early 80’s, I spent a lot of time on her computer, which ran DOS. I played Lode Runner on it and my brothers and I spend countless hours getting the Soundblaster Parrot to say funny things. They had a whole house stereo system which I loved to spend time playing with. My Grandmother ordered me business cards when I was 5, I wonder if she has one of those cards saved… Every few years she would get a new computer to stay current. Even though she had been using computers for ages, they always gave her trouble; or maybe she gave them trouble. As I printed a photo from her computer today, it printed quickly. My Grandfather told me how it would have taken her hours to get it to print right. There are countless things she taught me such as how to track stocks. As an 8 year old, I was tracking the stock prices of Coke and Pepsi manually on graph paper.
During a week long river rafting adventure through the Colorado River, I had appendicitis. This resulted in her and I being airlifted to a nearby hospital where I had surgery and spent a few days in recovery. This could have been a scary time for me but she created so many memories during that time. I don’t remember any fear, I just remember the laughs we had together.
As I grew into an adult, spending time with my Grandmother was always important to me. We would get lunch and catch up. Occasionally I would ask her business related questions I knew she could relate to in hopes to glean some of her wisdom. I cherish the time I got to spend with her. She would always give me money to pay for lunch and let me keep the change. She still did this into my adult years even though it was embarrassing and I could easily afford to pay for our lunch on my own. To her, I was still her little boy.
I also credit my “photographic eye” to being introduced to photography at such a young age. Back in the film days, my Grandmother would take pictures at the same rate we take pictures in the digital age. She would walk into the local photo lab with a ziploc bag full of film rolls to have developed. She was always the one behind the camera documenting everything we did. She did her best to avoid being in pictures. When we tried to turn the camera on her, she would bark at us. Together, we would take pictures of interesting mailboxes. I couldn’t have been any older than 5 years old when we started that. As she moved into the digital world, she would print just about every photo she took, as a full page photo. Instead of having ziploc bags full of film canisters she now had ziploc bags full of dry inkjet cartridges from printing photos.
When I opened my first retail business, I needed a loan to make an initial purchase to become a direct factory dealer. She offered to give me the loan but there was a contract I had to sign and repayment was to be prompt. I feel like she was harder to bank with than an actual bank would have been. I paid them back within 60 days for a $14,000 loan. What I did learn was that I should do my best to fund my own needs in business. Since that day I have funded all of my own ventures.
My Grandmother always gave it to me straight. If I was in the wrong, she would let me know. She had strong opinions and convictions. You always knew where she stood, even if you preferred not to know. She taught me that you should always find reasons to celebrate. As a family, we celebrate all birthdays and would find other reasons to go out and celebrate. Now with my own family, we have carried on the tradition. We love to celebrate. Though I have never been good at budgeting, she taught me that you should spend 10% of your money for life and enjoyment. The rest is for expenses, saving, investing or donating. My parents didn’t travel much, but my Grandparents made sure we were able to explore and try new things. If we said we didn’t like something, my Grandmother would say, “Try it, you’ll like it.”
When I was 17 years old, my Grandmother signed me up for a Dale Carnegie course so I could learn to be a better speaker. My Grandparents had me around their friends and business colleagues when I was young. Because of that exposure, I have always been able to talk to and relate with just about anybody.
My Grandparents believed in living life. As they got older, they did not travel as much, but my Grandparents have seen the world. They enjoyed this world while they could and they have hundreds of amazing stories to tell because of it. Much of who I am today is because of my Grandparents.
It has only been a few days since her passing and I still can not believe it. I never thought I would see a day where she would no longer be around. I am so fortunate that my kids got to spend the first few years of their lives knowing their Nanna Kaye. My Grandmother’s nickname was Kaye. Liam will remember his Nanna Kaye well. Cohen will probably have some memories of her when he grows up. Unfortunately, Emmy is a bit too young to have any memories at all, but we have photos of her being held by her Nanna who loved her so much. Emerson is the first Hill girl in the family. I know how much my Grandmother looked forward to taking Emmy out shopping once she was old enough.
The Hill side of my family does not really express feelings verbally, but I know the love my Grandmother had for me well. She was a very giving and loving person.
People like this are timeless. Though her Real Estate Agency is no longer, her legacy lives on. It lives on in me and what I will teach my children because of the influences she had on me. Many times she told me that I am living in more difficult times than she did. Even though she grew up in the depression, she would say that it is harder for today’s youth than it was back then. Come to think of it, I don’t ever remember her telling me stories about how hard she had it back in her day. She always had fun stories to tell about every situation. This is how I want to live my life. I want to live life and love those who are closest to me. Even as I write this, I feel like I still expect to get an email from her telling me that she enjoyed my latest blog post.
Thank you Grandma for the countless hours poured into me. I am who I am today because of you. I will spend the rest of my life celebrating you and the things I have learned from you.
This is a photo of my Grandmother Carole Lucille Hill holding my oldest son Liam at a small party we had for my Grandparents 65th wedding anniversary in 2011.
Anytime you put two people together in any situation, there will be ups and downs. It’s how you react to them and how you treat each other through the downs that allow you to have more ups. I saw the below infographic on Lifehacker and as I read through it, I felt proud and frustrated at the same time. So I thought I would break down each section of the infographic with my thoughts and experiences from my own life and marriage. Beware, there will be rants…
1. Happy Couple Ratio: Anybody with any level of intelligence knows that when you keep communications more positive, than they should stay that way. I don’t understand how people let themselves get so negative with their spouse. People are so selfish these days. I hear interactions that some people have with their spouses and I just want to slap them. You chose who you married. Nobody held a gun to your head. You made a choice. Treat that person the way you treated them when you were dating. Treat them the way you wanted to treat them because they were something special that you just had to have in your life. Hopefully this is why you married them in the first place. If you married because of financial reasons, then you were being selfish in the first place. I know so many selfish spouses who seem to only be nice to their wives so long as their own needs are being met. Men like that need to get punched in the face. I know that men are not the only ones who put themselves first but I do feel like we were the ones who did it first. In my experiences, selflessness comes easier to woman than it does men.
You need to communicate more with your spouse and keep it positive. I have three kids under the age of 4 at home. Sometimes they run my wife into the ground. It’s hard work raising three kids so close in age. Do I dare try to put my day on the same level as hers? No way! I know that my day can be tiring, but it’s not the same kind of tiring at all. I compliment my wife on the job she is doing and remind her of how amazing of a mother she is to my children.
We laugh and enjoy moments new and old as often as possible. All of the photos we take with our smartphones play through our Apple TV. At least a few times a week we just sit there and watch photos of our family scroll by. It’s a happy time that I would not trade for any show that could be playing on our TV.
2. In the Bedroom: Yes I agree that intimacy is important, but I don’t think it is “the key” to a happy marriage. It helps, but no amount of intimacy can make up for a selfish spouse or a spouse that does not appreciate the other.
3. Appreciating Each other: My wife and I love to share personal triumphs with each other. When I land a new client, I celebrate with her. When she creates something with her bare hands, I celebrate with her. When our kids hit a new milestone, we celebrate together. My wife knows that I take pride in my work and when I triumph, I get excited about it. That makes her excited, and it makes me feel good that she gets excited. When she creates something, or someone asks her to create something for them, I get excited because I know my wife enjoys it and is good at what she does. I like seeing her happy. That makes me happy. It’s as simple as that.
4. Sharing New Experiences: I love experiencing new things with my wife. I am a few years older than she is so there was some catching up to do, but now we experience new things together. We get away for a weekend and try new restaurants. Sometimes “new” doesn’t even have to enter the situation. We love going to Dewz, which is an upscale restaurant in Modesto. Most of the time, we order the same items, but it is an experience that we enjoy together. The TV shows that we get into are shows we both like, that way we can laugh together.
5. Marriage and Our Happiness: This part of the infographic I did not agree with. Sure everything is easier at the beginning because you have not experienced any difficulties together. This tells me that much of the world does not do a good job dealing with conflict together. My wife and I are not the best at conflict resolution but we respect each other enough to let things go. We don’t hold on to things and let them eat us away. I am sure there are countless things about me that my wife would have never imagined having to deal with when she got married one day, but she deals with them and most of the time I don’t even know it.
Having kids has definitely added stress to our lives but we both agree that our lives are vastly enriched because of our children. If you are less happy after having children it is because you are a selfish person. I would gladly adopt your child and let you go back to your selfish ways. If you did not intend on having children yet got yourself into a situation where you now have a child, you need to suck it up and stop being selfish. Your time of selfishness ended when that child entered the world. Hopefully you realized this when you got married. This does not mean that you can not have the things that you want to have. You just have to recognize the order in which things should happen.
My wife’s happiness is my #1 priority under the sun. When she hurts, I hurt. I know that my life would suck exponentially if she was not in it. Because I recognize this, I will always strive to make her happy. I may fail at it at times but she knows how imperfect I am. My kids come second to her. Yes they have needs that may seem more immediate. I do make sure to take care of those needs and I do not neglect my children. I always check in with my wife to make sure everything is good. I put aside things that I may want to rather be doing to be with her and make sure she is cared for. It is my job alone to care for her and to make sure she feels safe and loved. I took that job from her father the day I married her.
6. Why Get Married? I can honestly say that I come across more people that shouldn’t have gotten married than I do people who I am glad did get married. This is a sad fact. Those who I have been close enough to know enough about their situations I know for a fact that selfishness comes down to the root core of their problems.
7. Kids Impact on a Couple’s Happiness: Sure kids add a new dynamic to a relationship. I am not going to lie and say that it does not make it hard. My wife definitely snap at each other more often now than we did before we have kids, but I have much more satisfaction with my marriage to my wife now that we have kids then we did before. Before we had kids my wife and I had never created anything together. There was nothing that we did that had much of an impact on anything. Sure we took some fun trips and experienced a lot together (we were married a little over 2 years before having our first child), but none of that compares with bringing our children into this world. The Infographic below says that couples are unhappiest when their kids are in preschool and that their happiness levels do not return until after their kid graduates. That is sad and it sounds like a lot of people just can’t seem to let go of their own selfish ways and take joy in their families.
Let me tell you why my marital satisfaction has increased since we had children:
Is it easy? NO! It’s not easy, but if you think that easy is better than your parents raised you wrong. If you are going to be happy as a married person and happy with having children then your mindset needs to change. You need to be able to find joy in other people’s happiness.
I love taking my wife places and experiencing things with her. I love teaching my kids to do new things and watching them experience new things. God willing, my kids will not know what it’s like to grow up in a daycare. My kids will know what it’s like to grow up with their mothers love and direction. They will know what it’s like to have a hard working father. They will know that their mother could have done great things in the world as a professional of her choosing but decided to stay home and raise them because her love for them was greater than other worldly achievements (plus I remind my wife all of the time that she will still be young when our youngest reaches age 18).
The Michelangelo Effect: I agree that the happiest relationships come from those who bring out the “ideal” selves in each other. Everything about my wife makes me a better person and even though I believe that my wife is just an amazing person regardless, I am sure I do things that make her want to be a better person as well. My wife and I encourage each other to grow. I want her to become the person she wants to be and she wants me to achieve that as well.
Final Thoughts: It all comes down to respect. If you do not respect your spouse, you will be unhappy. You will never be able to put your selfish needs and desires aside if you do not respect them. I respected my wife enough not to live with her before we got married and I decided that when we got married that it was not going to be all about me anymore. My struggles did not need to become her struggles. If you think that your spouse is the selfish one, take a look in the mirror first. My guess is that you are probably more selfish than you think. Happiness is not science nor is it difficult to understand so long as you can make yourself the type of person who can put others before yourself.
Enjoy the Infographic.
So far my 30’s have came with many challenges I have never faced before. Though I had many life changing things happen to me during my 20’s, none of them compare with what has taken place in the first four years of my 30’s. Quickly, I will list those things:
My 20’s were not easy on me physically or emotionally. There was a lot of stress I endured and some crazy life situations I had to deal with which I won’t get into here. My mind and body seemed to absorb those difficult and stressful times and I moved on. What I did not realize is that stress like that does it’s damage and sometimes that damage does not show until later on.
Now that I am in my 30’s and have had some big life changes, that damage has started to show. Though having children and expanding your business are great things to have happen in your life, they are also stressful in their own ways. It has also been recently that I have even been able to associate hardships in life with stress. Though I feel I do a good job of dealing with stress compared to others, I realize that stress still affects my body.
It seems like directly after we had our first child I started experiencing symptoms that have required me to watch what I eat, how much sleep I get and how active I am during any given day. These are things that I did not have to pay much attention to during my 20’s. For the last few years I have been battling what my doctors diagnose as an acid reflux problem. I have tried several medications prescribed by my doctor which have not helped. I have also had multiple tests ran that confirm that I have minor acid reflux, but what I experience is much more than minor acid reflux.
In an attempt to figure it out on my own I decided to strip anything from my diet that could be producing an allergic reaction. I basically just ate plants and plant based foods for almost an entire year. Though I felt healthier and cleaner, it did nothing for my symptoms I was experiencing.
Dealing with a medical issue is emotional in it’s own way. When Doctors tell you that it is something simple that should be easy to clear up with medication, you want to believe what they say. I spent just about a year on meds and tried their suggestions and found nothing to help. I have spent countless hours online trying to find others discussing issues similar to mine and have yet to find anything.
I am tired of feeling like garbage in the evenings when my kids want to play with me after a day of me being away. They want me to chase them and all I can think about is acid making it’s way up my throat. I’m done with worrying about that.
A Change In Mindset
I have told myself many times before this week that I am not going to let this affect me mentally any longer, but I always end up letting it get me down. I have done my best to keep up with my kids and not allow myself to ignore their needs or the needs of my wife because I don’t feel well, but I can do better. I also have my own needs which are to stay happy and healthy. It is hard to ignore something that is bothering you physically, but it is time that I start doing just that. I am not going to be ignore the problem, because I don’t want it to turn into something worse, but I will not let it bother me any longer. I feel like I can somewhat responsibly ignore the issue because I have had every test short of surgery ran on me and all have reported back with “minor acid reflux.”
I am going to cut back in some areas to make more time for others. I do my best to only work 8-5 hours. I don’t rush out of the house each morning as I like to see my kids before I leave as often as possible. I rush home after work so I can spend time with my kids before they go to bed and time with my wife before we go to bed. That has not left time for me to make it to the gym or do much else, so I am going to cut back in some areas on work to make time for that. I know that I won’t be able to do this every day and sometimes I may have to put in full days to keep up with my work, but I will make every effort to get to the gym.
I have also scheduled a lot less on the weekends this year than I have in the past. Though I love photographing weddings and events, they take a lot of time away from my family that I can not get back. My kids are very young and don’t have anything they want to do other than have me around. Money is important, but it is not as important as time.
Work and my achievements used to be the driving force pushing me forward. Now I find them as challenges that allow me more freedom to spend time with my family. The ongoing challenge is to find better ways to work that allow me even more freedom than before. I love being able to take off for a week or two with my family and get a little bit of work done while my kids are napping. I truly have an extraordinary life and should not allow anything to slow it down for long.
Challenges that come with parenting have been hard but I feel like most of them have ended up being more stressful than they should have been because I was not feeling up to par due to my digestive issues. When you are in the hospital with your child who is dealing with something that could be pretty serious, you don’t have time to think about your own issues or problems. What is hard about that is that they seem to just boil up and then become even more of a problem later. I feel like this was the case with the two major times I was in the hospital with my oldest son and when my Mother was in the hospital with heart issues.
Though it will be hard, I am not going to allow any of these physical issues I am experiencing to mess with me emotionally any longer. I want my mental strength to be readily available for my family. Life moves fast and can get tough at times. We all deal with that. As I write this, I can feel the acid in my lower esophagus starting to bother me but I am not going to allow that to change me mentally or mess with my focus. Stress and these medical issues have lost their hold on me. God gives me strength to do so many things and endure so much. Why would God give me the strength to do so much and allow me to be held back by something like acid reflux and bloating? I can get past this.
