I don't mean to brag, but surprise! We're preggers (1:40-2:40)... Or at least we think we are. The silly yet expensive pee test (heh, pee on this!) says we have a legible yet faint cross on the testable side. And so the long hard nine month road to fatherhood begins.

Am I excited? Sure. Am I jumping up and down like a schoolgirl? No, not yet. We have to get it confirmed with the witch doctor and all, plus we were thinking of telling the parents either this weekend (if we can be graced with the presence of our witch doctor) or on the 4th of July when we will have face-to-face access to everybody. With four parents in three states, it's not exactly a "y'all come" kind of phone call.

So if any of you folks feel that I've been just a bit more on edge than normal, especially on the topics of anything child or pregnancy related or of the still-born economy, then your instincts were right. Things of this nature have been dwelling on my mind as of late. They are important to me and therefore my priorities have once again only slightly shifted from those of before. Those who show up in the "friend" category will certainly understand and those in the "tool" category will still be scratching their ass in a corner somewhere saying to themselves, "Well what did he mean by that?" Either way, it's hardly worth re-hashing at this point.

Now for the journey ahead, which still includes : renovating the house, selling the house, stocking the child's savings fund, groveling back to corporate, attempting to maintain whatever business I have and whatever ends up existing after I take up a corporate job, buying a new house, paying off all my old debts, and then whatever else may come in the meantime which does not exclude : family issues (on both sides), family health problems (on both sides), financial stability issues, time management issues, the elimination of cluttering items and any so called "free time" that may escape like vapor in the next nine months.

Renovations on the house are slow but finally kicking in. We finished all but the trim and the closet door in the bedroom. Without surrendering my personal sovereignty, I'll just tell you that for a slab 1950's home kit, the wood flooring was a great addition. Next we demolish the kitchen (remove cabinets, walls, etc) and the "wet wall" that connects the bedroom that is now a decent laundry room (the facilities were in the kitchen before). We're expanding the wall and removing even the hint of any mold that may (or may not) be there. Once the "wet wall" is a solid 2x6, the kitchen will be put together to a functional point and then we're fixing up the laundry room to be solid. At this point we'll re-insulate, re-drywall and paint the kitchen and putting in the rest of the lower cabinets (upper cabinets are no rush at this point). Meanwhile, we'll be putting in an attic access in the laundry room. With this, I can get my wish granted to wire the whole house for phone, cable, data, stereo and the necessary control interfaces to make this house "smart"-ready.

After that, we plan on getting a voluntary crew (many a friend close by who will work for beer and BBQ) to help us rip out the front wall of the house. That day will include swapping the bath tub, changing out all the windows ($3,000 tax credit... Yay!) and doing maintenance on the water heater and HVAC. At the end of the day the siding on the front of the house will finally match the other three sides. The following weeks will include re-flooring the "office" and possibly moving around the closet in that room to be more posh. There's a little bit of wall work to do, so it will probably be a pit stop compared to the remaining work. The bathroom will be next -- floor, walls, trim, fixtures, etc and then the living room. The living room is hardly a task, because once floored all that we will have to do is re-paint.

We thought about doing landscaping (it runs in her family), but it will depend on when the front of the house goes up. By that time it may be fall... And with an expecting date (tenatively until the witch doctor blathers otherwise) of late February, we may simply have to meg-shift something to get through winter.

About stocking the child's savings fund. My original idea on this was to put in $50 per pay period per kid (or $100 per month per kid -- she's suseptible to twins) for nine months or so, then flipping the accounts into a trust that can't be touched until they are at least 18 or so. If we put it in a CD at 6.75% (good luck there) and put in $100 per month per kid, then that will barely cover college for them. We still expect our kid to (at 15-16 years) to seek a scholarship for college and if they're going out of state (or military) then they can pick up the niceties themselves.

On groveling back to corporate -- I hate the corporate mentality, but a good friend of mine has already offered me a straight (8-5 M-F) job at the local college doing IT work. If I put the right people in place, I can still run my business just fine, but that's all subjective at this point. I'm just going to go with the flow of applying for this gig and see what happens. I'm used to doing most of my growing during the third quarter, but given the climate of the economy, I think I'll count on consistency more than my own abilities, since it is going to affect more than just me at this point.

Well, I could go on for days, but I have to go gear up to be a responsible person now... Not that I wasn't in the midst of doing that before, but now it's game on!