Category Archives: Uncategorized

Snow Days 1/5 Stars, Would Not Recommend 

We’ve lost that loving feeling  
Remember that time that our kids went to school? I think it was called 2015 and it was pretty awesome. I admit I was a little bit excited about seeing the pretty snow and having a day off but the truth is, when a snow day overstays its welcome, the harsh reality sets in. This is the part when you see what you are really made of, when the loving family dynamic gets put to the ultimate test. Cabin Fever.

It starts out innocent enough; a board game, an extra snack, a glass of wine or beer a bit earlier in the day than usual, a sarcastic remark to your spouse, a snap at your kid for making a mess. We don’t catch any of the warning signs because we don’t know how long we will be here. Somewhere along the way the sanity rope feels like it is starting to fray a bit and the local weather man showing the snow in the area becomes some bizarre backdrop to your family’s de-evolution.

In what feels like an instant you are turning a blind eye to your kid eating a bowl of “skittles cereal” and you are dreaming about that Amazon droid helicopter thing delivering a case of booze to your frozen snowy doorstep. You become a bit numb to what your kids are up to as long as they keep it down and don’t get blood on anything as you settle into your own little wi-fi fueled haze. Cycling through social media, weather apps, and random google searches, you suddenly convincing yourself that you will start a blog to right all the wrongs from Making a Murderer and find yourself in some weird unsolved mystery chat room on the outskirts of the internet. Eventually you start to wonder how long you have been sitting there. When did I take a shower last? Why are my children’s collective worldly possessions all in the living room? Did I just eat this entire can of Pringles? How long have I been wearing these pajama pants? Is it still snowing? No school again? What day is it? What year is it? Netflix is the only one in this house that truly understands me. How many lunches have we had today? Is there anything left my kids haven’t fought about?

Sound familiar? You start organizing games like the nap game where the prize is whichever kid falls asleep first doesn’t get a spanking. You gather the family around the table to work on a 1000 piece argument. You start wondering if you should send the internet a Valentine’s day card. You try to make the best of it by thinking of all of the great family memories the snow storm has provided but get interrupted because someone is bleeding. Now that your kids have lost interest in every single toy that they have, they havedecided to combine their two favorite things, fighting and jumping off of furniture and you are pretty sure you need to find an ACE bandage so you can tie them up with it and MAKE IT STOP.

Being cooped up for days on end can push us right to that edge but somehow we hold on. Sibling rivalry wears itself out and sleep gives us the short respite we so desperately need. The thaw is coming and we just have to hang on.


20 Life Hacks You Didn’t Know You Needed Until Now!

I wrote this a while back, we need to be done with these ridiculous Life Hacks.8

 

1. Remember the name of someone you just met by writing it down in an old tattered spiral notebook you keep folded in half longwise and hanging out of your back pocket. Bonus points for asking them to spell it and give country of origin.

2. Keep track of all of the cords around your computer or entertainment center by randomly unplugging them and looking to see what device won’t work. I can’t keep up with those little bread bag holders during the 10 days I have the loaf of bread, how am I supposed to avoid losing them long enough to build a cord labeling system?

3. Keep your car from running out of gas by looking at the fuel gauge and add more when the needle gets close to the E.

4. Look thinner in pictures by going on a diet and losing weight.

5. Use stuff like a paper clip or clothes pin or scotch tape or a chip clip or rolling tightly to keep your bag of chips from getting stale. Don’t use pant hangers, what are you some kind of freak?

6. Throw a Frisbee like….you know what? If you don’t already know how to throw a Frisbee, don’t bother trying now. There are some things you should just be able to figure out without the internet.

7. Make a grilled cheese the way your mom taught you and the way that has worked for a hundred years. Do you have any idea how hard it is going to be to clean the melted cheese out of your toaster, not to mention once you turn that thing on its side guess who has 3 years of crumbs to clean up?

8. Leave ketchup and mustard in the bottle they came in and set it out for a cookout. No one wants to scoop mustard out of your rusty old muffin pan and you know what is less than one dish to wash? No dish to wash.

9. There is a right way to put your daughter’s hair in a pony tail, dads, and it doesn’t involve the dirty hose from a vacuum cleaner. Stop being a stereotype.

10. Open a banana by pealing from the stem like a normal person. Stop making monkeys your life coach, monkeys don’t care if their banana is smashed but you have a shirt on.

11. Just turn your windshield wipers on low, there is no prize for spending your entire commute trying to lock in the perfect intermittent setting.

12. If you want extra ketchup grab another little paper ketchup cup. There is a stack of like a million right in front of you and they are free. Don’t hold up the line by unrolling the top of your little paper ketchup cup to hold 1/8 of an ounce more. What are you, a serial killer?

13. Use household cleaners to clean things around the house because vinegar smells like someone just peed on a pile of rotting fruit.

14. Get free on demand movies by calling your cable company when you finish watching it and telling them that your toddler did it by mistake, threaten to cancel your service if they don’t agree. (this one only works like 1 or 100 times depending on the direction of your moral compass).

15. Wear goggles when you are chopping an onion to keep from tearing up.  They also keep blood out of your eyes when you are chopping up people because what kind of psychotic freak cooks with goggles on, Dexter?

16. Use a crayon, brown marker, or furniture polish to cover scratches on wood. Or go out and find a place that will sell you a single walnut so you can try this thing you saw on the internet.

17. Keep milk from going bad by drinking all of it in a reasonable amount of time and never ever under any circumstances believe some nonsense on the internet that tells you to keep drinking milk past the expiration date. Gross.

18. Use a toilet paper roll for an iPhone speaker because that was the one decoration you were missing in your cubicle. Congratulations, you just became the weird guy people are afraid to talk to. Good luck dodging all of the ladies when you start rocking out to your toilet phone.

19. Instead of taking pictures of your friends holding the thing they are borrowing from you, get new friends that don’t try to steal your stuff.

20. Just pour your pancake batter out with a spoon or measuring cup. We don’t need it in a ketchup bottle. Stop creating fixes for things that aren’t broken. Have you ever tried to wash the inside of a ketchup bottle? Do you know how hard it is to pour pancake batter into a ketchup bottle? Just stop it, this wasn’t a problem or life struggle before the internet saved us from it.


15 Reasons Summer Sucks for Parents

1. Your kids act like you are coating them with fire when you try to apply sunscreen.

2. Your kids’ favorite activity when it is 100° outside is leaving the back door open.

3. You thought you would be a cool parent and let your kids pick out snacks on this road trip and now you’ve been standing in the gas station for 25 minutes.

4. All of your time at the pool is spent “watching this” and adjusting goggles.

5. Your daughter just asked if that kid that you can’t stand can spend the night.

6. You brought a chair down to the beach with you but you have a toddler so that was pointless.

7. Is that a back to school ad in the mail on July 2nd?!?!

8. 22 seconds into swimming your daughter needs to go to the bathroom even though you asked her before you got in.

9. Now you have to get a wet bathing suit off and then back on in the restroom.

10. Swim diapers (holy gross).

11. Even though they came from the same package, your kids have resorted to fighting over whose Pop Tart is biggest.

12. No matter how long they stay up past their bed time, they never sleep in.

13. You thought it would be fun to buy one of those variety packs of small cereal boxes for your children but what you really bought was a 6 pack of fights.

14. You had a dream last night about the school bus.

15. It’s called summer break because that is what your kids will do to everything in your house until school starts back.


My Christmas Card to You

Sometimes if we have Christmas cards left over I will wait until Dec. 22 and mail them out to our “fringe friends” just to make them feel guilty. This year I thought I would try to get on the good list for once and share what we sent to our friends and family with you. It can’t be all great but even with the weak parts, it is still my favorite time of the year.

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This is me. Christmas morning nineteen eighty awesome

 

Some parts of Christmas make it the best time of the year. Other parts, not so much.

Sweet

  • The look on tiny faces as they peer up into the attic anxiously awaiting the first box of Christmas decorations.
  • That moment when the tree is finally lit and decorated and the floor is vacuumed and you can sit back and take in one of the first moments of Christmas.
  • Electricity is in the air, presents are being hidden, elves are up to mischief, children are on their best behavior. The anticipation starts to build slowly and if you’re lucky it becomes almost tangible.
  • The best sing along music of the year, even when your wife tells you to let Whitney hit the high notes in O Holy Night by herself.
  • Pausing the hustle and bustle to read aloud about what happened that night in the little town of Bethlehem.

 

Weak

  • Shouldn’t Christmas decorations come with coupons for couples counseling?
  • Sorry honey, I tried to dry my hair without following the steps on the Christmas light electrical flow chart you made and now all the lights in the house are out.
  • Stands of Christmas lights that only light halfway are the reason for the first spiking of eggnog.
  • I think I just found a Frasier Fir needle in my underwear.
  • Do people still use the word tight to mean cool? Because that would make me feel better about how last year’s Christmas sweater fits

I hope you have a safe and wonderful holiday and 2015 brings happiness to you and yours.

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I lost a dear family member this year that was one of my favorite people to laugh with. We made this the day we were remembering him. Miss you Uncle Wayne.

 

WAIT!

Oh, one more thing. I got to be part of a very cool project this year and join with 30 other writers to create The Big Book of Parenting Tweets These writers are insanely funny and I was honored to be included with them. If you are a parent, have a parent, know a parent, or are thinking of becoming a parent, you should buy this book. It is full of short snippets of the raw and honest side of parenthood and it will leave you laughing out loud. Seriously, it is great. Ok, pitch over.

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I’m not saying it can teach your kids to read but I think this photo speaks for itself.

 


Will there be Canned Cranberry, or Should I Bring My Own?

Simon C. Holland

Sweet

The Thanksgiving Sandwich 

I know that the Thanksgiving day meal gets all of the hype but come this time of year I start to crave one thing.  The Thanksgiving sandwich.  Either that night or the next day, cramming as many leftovers that you can fit between two slices of bread is the way I like to usher in the Holiday Season.

I am taking a break this year as I have been the CEO of the bird for the last 6 or so years.  Cooking the turkey can be one of those manly culinary exhibitions like making a pot of chili or grilling.  Last year I put a turkey on a giant Foster’s beer can and cooked it on an open flame just like baby Jesus intended man to cook.  But this year I am taking it easy.  So, since I don’t have to worry about targeting that 12 hour window…

View original post 584 more words


140 Characters Walk into a Bar…

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Some people call Twitter micro blogging. I haven’t written very many posts here lately but here are some of my “microblogs.”  Feel free to follow me on Twitter at @simoncholland

 

https://twitter.com/simoncholland/status/525392187140620288

 


Last Day of Summer Vacation


Giving Standup Comedy a Try (again)


20 Pro Tip Life Hacks that will Literally Save Your Uninteresting Internet Dependent Life.

If this changed your life, is it really worth living?

If this changed your life, is it really worth living?

1. Remember the name of someone you just met by writing it down in an old tattered spiral notebook you keep folded in half longwise and hanging out of your back pocket. Bonus points for asking them to spell it and give country of origin.

2. Keep track of all of the cords around your computer or entertainment center by randomly unplugging them and looking to see what device won’t work. I can’t keep up with those little bread bag holders during the 10 days I have the loaf of bread, how am I supposed to avoid losing them long enough to build a cord labeling system?

3. Keep your car from running out of gas by looking at the fuel gauge and add more when the needle gets close to the E.

4. Look thinner in pictures by going on a diet and losing weight.

5. Use stuff like a paper clip or clothes pin or scotch tape or a chip clip or rolling tightly to keep your bag of chips from getting stale. Don’t use pant hangers, what are you some kind of freak?

6. Throw a Frisbee like….you know what? If you don’t already know how to throw a Frisbee, don’t bother trying now. There are some things you should just be able to figure out without the internet.

7. Make a grilled cheese the way your mom taught you and the way that has worked for a hundred years. Do you have any idea how hard it is going to be to clean the melted cheese out of your toaster, not to mention once you turn that thing on its side guess who has 3 years of crumbs to clean up?

8. Leave ketchup and mustard in the bottle they came in and set it out for a cookout. No one wants to scoop mustard out of your rusty old muffin pan and you know what is less than one dish to wash? No dish to wash.

9. There is a right way to put your daughter’s hair in a pony tail, dads, and it doesn’t involve the dirty hose from a vacuum cleaner. Stop being a stereotype.

10. Open a banana by pealing from the stem like a normal person. Stop making monkeys your life coach, monkeys don’t care if their banana is smashed but you have a shirt on.

11. Just turn your windshield wipers on low, there is no prize for spending your entire commute trying to lock in the perfect intermittent setting.

12. If you want extra ketchup grab another little paper ketchup cup. There is a stack of like a million right in front of you and they are free. Don’t hold up the line by unrolling the top of your little paper ketchup cup to hold 1/8 of an ounce more. What are you, a serial killer?

13. Use household cleaners to clean things around the house because vinegar smells like someone just peed on a pile of rotting fruit.

14. Get free on demand movies by calling your cable company when you finish watching it and telling them that your toddler did it by mistake, threaten to cancel your service if they don’t agree. (this one only works like 1 or 100 times depending on the direction of your moral compass).

15. Wear goggles when you are chopping an onion to keep from tearing up.  They also keep blood out of your eyes when you are chopping up people because what kind of psychotic freak cooks with goggles on, Dexter?

16. Use a crayon, brown marker, or furniture polish to cover scratches on wood. Or go out and find a place that will sell you a single walnut so you can try this thing you saw on the internet.

17. Keep milk from going bad by drinking all of it in a reasonable amount of time and never ever under any circumstances believe some nonsense on the internet that tells you to keep drinking milk past the expiration date. Gross.

18. Use a toilet paper roll for an iPhone speaker because that was the one decoration you were missing in your cubicle. Congratulations, you just became the weird guy people are afraid to talk to. Good luck dodging all of the ladies when you start rocking out to your toilet phone.

19. Instead of taking pictures of your friends holding the thing they are borrowing from you, get new friends that don’t try to steal your stuff.

20. Just pour your pancake batter out with a spoon or measuring cup. We don’t need it in a ketchup bottle. Stop creating fixes for things that aren’t broken. Have you ever tried to wash the inside of a ketchup bottle? Do you know how hard it is to pour pancake batter into a ketchup bottle? Just stop it, this wasn’t a problem or life struggle before the internet saved us from it.

 

 

 


The Time I Tried Stand-Up Comedy

Last summer I got a chance to cross off an item from the old proverbial bucket list.  I tried my hand at stand-up comedy and pretty much had a blast.  I’m not sure why I never shared the video but I’ve been looking into giving it another try and thought it might be worth posting.  Apologies for the video quality, if I do it again I will try to get a better recording.