On grad school, blogging and Cleveland sports championships

Hello. It's nice to see you again. It hasn't really been that long (a little more than three months), but I feel like we haven't talked in forever.

The following things have happened since March 25th, the date of this blog's last post:

• I started school and completed classes in public relations theory & ethics, and public relations management.
• I decided to quit school.
• I went to Europe, and over the 10 days I was there, two of the sports teams that I support passionately won championships. (NOTE: I puzzled a bit over how to construct that sentence. In the event, it almost seems as if "passionately" describes the way those teams won their championships. And I'm sure they were passionate. What I meant, though, is that those are teams I passionately support.)
• I came back from Europe, and now I'm on vacation in Delaware.

To that last point, I'm sitting with my laptop on the patio of our rental condo in Bethany Beach, Delaware. It's nearly 80 degrees at 9 in the morning and very humid, but I love being outside, drinking my coffee, and doing a little writing.

That is, after all, the point of vacation, right? You do things you love, and maybe do them with people you love. I get to do both this week.

We'll be going to the beach, of course, and there's a nice pool right outside of our condo. I am not, it has been documented, much of a water sports guy. But I'm going to be in my bathing suit every day because I think in recent years I've somehow gotten away from being Fun Dad.

When the kids were little, I think I was Fun Dad. I did all sorts of Fun Dad things, from swimming with them to playing kickball with them to riding bikes and whatever.

Then, for reasons I can't quite identify, I got away from being Fun Dad. I became Serious Stressed Dad. Not good. Yeah, work got more intense, and I stupidly added the graduate school thing, but there really are no excuses. I feel like I have lost time to make up for. Maybe this vacation is a start.

As for the grad school thing, what can I say? I tried it, and I loved it. Or at least, I loved the material. And the writing. And even the heavy academic journal reading. But the time it took? I hated that. I hated that with a passion.

So I weighed my options, and on balance it seemed best to just walk away. And I have. Yesterday I completed my final class assignment, and I have no plans to return to the program any time soon.

Everyone tells you, "Oh, don't worry, you'll find time for it someday." And maybe I will. But for now I'm at peace with the decision to hang it up.

Because I really just need to live life, you know? I need to spend time with my family. I need to sit and think. Sit and read. Sit and...do nothing sometimes, I guess. I hardly ever do any of those things, but now is the time to get back to them.

I am one of those people who always feels the need to fill up any Time Vacuum that exists in my life. I quit doing this? Great! I can start doing that! Only recently has it occurred to me that you don't have to do "that." You're allowed to have stretches of free time in which you just live and breathe and grow and be.

So that's what I promise to start doing. Which is why I'm not going to bring this blog back on any regular basis. I'll occasionally dash off a post or two, but I'm not doing the three-days-a-week thing or whatever. I hope you'll still come back to read my very sporadic missives, because I so appreciate it when you do.

Finally, the sports championships...I don't know what to say, because this is entirely new territory for me and for every person over the last 50-plus years who has supported a Cleveland-based professional athletic team. With the exception of the old indoor soccer Cleveland Crunch, none of those teams had won a title since 1964 until my beloved Lake Erie Monsters and Cleveland Cavaliers did it a week or so apart recently.

And I was on another continent for both title-clinching games. The Monsters won the American Hockey League's Calder Cup while I slept peacefully in a London hotel, while the Cavs miraculously came back from a 3-1 series deficit to beat the vaunted Golden State Warriors while Elissa, Chloe and I were snoozing in Barcelona.

As a Cleveland sports fan of my generation, you defined yourself by resiliency. That's all we had was next year. We came back again and again, and usually the reward was just more misery. And now...we won. My teams are the best. I would write more about this, but I can't even grasp what it means. Maybe there's another post in me at some point in the future once I come to terms with the whole thing. It's just stunning.

Suffice it to say, this is a weird and delightfully wacky time in my life, and in the life of the whole Tennant family. We're on summer break, vacation is starting out wonderfully (other than the bedbugs Jared found in his bed last night...really), and the chaos that is normally July for us won't start in earnest for another week or so.

I am blessed. And so are you in some way, I'm guessing.

That's all we can ask for. And so it goes.

This blog is going on hiatus until Spring 2018 (though we'll occasionally post between now and then)

NOTE: I wrote the following post in early February 2016. And now, sitting in a hotel lobby in Southern California on March 13, 2016, it seems a bit...I don't know, abrupt? This particular blog has been in existence less than a year and a half, so it's not like I'm bringing some long-running institution to an end. I'm not bringing anything to an end, actually. This is just an extended break, and it's absolutely the right decision.

But I've been blogging on and off for more than five years, and I feel like I should say something that expresses some degree of the appreciation I feel for everyone who regularly reads these little missives. Many readers have come and gone, especially back in the days when the blog was titled "They Still Call Me Daddy" and drew a wider audience thanks to The News-Herald's now-defunct Community Media Lab. But there's a core of you who regularly read and react to my posts, and I'm so happy you've always taken the time to do both. Thank you for your efforts, because you make the whole thing worth it. You know who you are.

Anyway, here's the original post, which as you might have guessed by now (and certainly from the headline) is announcing the suspension of the blog, for the most part, for a couple of years. I just wanted to make sure you knew how much I appreciate the fact that you ever visited this little site in the first place...
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Every couple of years, I start up a blog that ends 12-18 months later because I don't have time to maintain it.

Guess what I'm going to say next, kids!

Actually, this isn't an "end" so much as an extended pause. I told you a couple of weeks ago that I'm now going to grad school online, and that's unavoidably time-consuming. So I'm not even going to try and fight that fight.

Instead, I'm going to take a planned break of about 24 months. That's when I should be graduating with my master's degree, at which point I'll presumably be able to come back and do the blogging thing again. And presumably I'll have something to say that you want to read.

In the interim, I'll very occasionally throw up a post if I feel the itch, which I'm sure I will. I'll post links to those pieces on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, or you can just visit www.5kids1wife.com directly and take a peek every once in awhile to see if I've put something up.

I'll maintain this domain name in the meantime, which is something I didn't do last time I gave up www.theystillcallmedaddy.com and some Japanese person snatched it up. Really, that happened. I don't know why.

This particular blogging stint has been going regularly since December 2014, which is pretty good for me. I appreciate the fact that you take time to read this stuff. I honestly do. And I hope you'll come back once I do.

So for now, it's so long and thanks for all the fish. Please keep in touch via the social media platform of your choice. Take care, stay healthy, and tell people you love them. That's all I've got for you.

We'll talk again.

At what point do your birthdays suddenly become a lot less exciting?

I think it's when you turn 23. And I'll tell you why:

Every birthday you have from 1 to 20 is exciting because you're a kid, and kids get excited about their birthdays for various reasons (even 20-year-old kids). That's a given.

Then you turn 21 and that's cool because ADULTHOOD. Self-explanatory.

Twenty-two is also pretty good, especially for college kids, because it's generally the age when you graduate with your bachelor's degree. Life is about to begin in earnest and you can feel it.

And then you turn 23 and...well, nothing. You're either in grad school or out working. And 23 is just a really, really nondescript age. There's nothing vaguely interesting or special about it. It's even a prime number, for gosh sakes.

Twenty-three just kind of sits there. And I think for many people, it's the first nearly meaningless birthday they experience.

All of which is to mention that my daughter Elissa turns 22 tomorrow, and she's on track to graduate from college sometime this year, so there's that. It is perhaps her last exciting birthday, and I don't even know if she's excited about it because I don't see her very much. I'll have to ask her.

Every Elissa birthday makes me reflect on the passage of time because she's our oldest and therefore is always the first among our kids to turn a given age. I suppose the next time her birthday will really, really affect me will be when she turns 30 because...well, by then, there will be no denying the fact that we her parents are old. You can't have a 30-year-old and be a true young'un.

So until then, I'm going to hold on for dear life to her 20-something birthdays. Even the boring ones.

BLOG RERUN: To my children - Just pick up the blanket

(NOTE: Hey, it's Blog Rerun time again! Let's go back into the musty blog archives and resurrect a post from the past that I happen to have liked, for whatever reason. This particular one first ran on July 31, 2013. And for the record, in the three years since this was posted, not a single person in my house apart from Terry has yet picked up the #@%^! blanket...)


I was down in the basement a few minutes ago, and I was disheartened to find that one of you has, yet again, left a blanket on the floor.

You know the blanket I'm talking about. It's the one that has a green and blue plaid design on one side and white fleece on the other. I won it in a work raffle, I think, 15 or 20 years ago.

At least three times a week, I will come downstairs and find this blanket in a heap on the floor. And I know how it happens: One of you wraps it around yourself as you sit on the couch and watch TV (which I totally understand, given that it's a perpetual 27 degrees down there).

Then, when you're finished watching TV, you simply fling the blanket onto the floor, get off the couch, and go upstairs to attend to other things.

And there sits the blanket, which you got out of the storage cabinet in the entertainment center.

My plea to you is simple: Pick up the blanket.

It's not hard. When you're finished using the blanket, just fold it up and put it back where it belongs in the cabinet.

Heck, you don't even have to fold it if you don't want to. You can just crumple it into a big ball and throw it in there. But the important thing is that you pick it up and put it away.

Got that? Just pick it up and put it away. I've asked you to do this before and you have repeatedly failed to comply. All you have to do is pick it up and put it away. That's it. That's all I ask.

If I go around and ask who left the blanket out on the floor, chances are that all five of you will say it wasn't you. And since I know it wasn't me, and I'm 99.9% sure it wasn't your mother, then one of you either has a very bad memory or is outright lying.

Speaking of your mother, you need to think about her when you leave the blanket on the basement floor. She spends her days cleaning up messes you created, and she is now at her absolute limit. If you leave the blanket on the basement floor again and fail to pick it up and put it away (which, you'll recall, are the simple instructions I gave you earlier), she may snap.

I'm not kidding. She may lose it. And by "lose it," I don't mean that she might yell at you or anything. I mean she may literally murder one of you.

Again, you think I'm joking. I'm not. If she walks down into that basement and finds the blanket on the floor one more time, just one more time, I think it will be enough to push her over the edge. It won't surprise me in the least if she grabs a screwdriver and plunges it into one of your skulls.

I'm not condoning this behavior, mind you, but I'm also extremely sympathetic to her frustration. And when she goes on trial for this crime, I promise I'll be testifying on her behalf.

Because there's not much you're required to do here. This is maybe a 12-second job. When you're finished using the blanket, you just need to put it back into the cabinet. Don't leave it on the floor. Pick it up, then put it away. The folding part, as I mentioned before, is completely optional. Just put the blanket away.

I'm not home as often as your mother, seeing as I spend my days working so as to earn enough money to buy products for you to leave on the floor. You don't only do this with the blanket. You leave everything from cups and plates to toys and chip bags on the floor. Where did we go wrong with you?

Seriously, at what point did we convey the idea that using something then leaving it on the floor and walking away is OK? When was that even implied? Because it's not acceptable. Not in the least. Pick up the blanket. After you use it, pick it up and put it away. OK?

The temptation, of course, is to just put the blanket away myself when I see it. But all this does is perpetuate the problem. You'll just keep doing it unless we point it out to you and make you go back downstairs to put it away. Experience suggests you'll keep on doing it even then.

Which I don't understand, because I fail to see any complicating factors here that would prevent you from performing this small task for us. I will break it down into three steps, in case that helps:

Step 1: Pick the blanket up off the floor
Step 2: Fold the blanket (AGAIN, OPTIONAL)
Step 3: Put the blanket into the cabinet in the lower left corner of the entertainment center

Aaaaaaand, you're done. Finished. Nothing more to see or do here. Just put away the blanket. Please, when you're finished with it, just put away the blanket.

Put away the blanket.

My wife turns...a new age today

We don't need to get into the specific number, do we? Of course not.

Actually, Terry is pretty chill about the whole age thing and probably wouldn't mind if I told you that she turns XX years old today. But I'm not going to take even the small chance of getting into trouble by filling in those X's with an actual age.

Although it should be said, she looks awesome for that age. She has always looked awesome. This, you see, is what attracted me to her when I was 16. It's not like I was looking at her back in high school and thinking, "I'll bet that girl will be an excellent mother to my children."

No, I was thinking, "She's hot. I'm going after that." For that is the full extent of the 16-year-old male's thought process.

Now of course I've come to appreciate the full range of her attributes, not just her beauty. But I ain't gonna lie: It's not a bad thing that she never lost the hotness.

And so another year passes by and we have entered Birthday Season in my family. It starts with my mother-in-law a couple of weeks ago and stretches through April. For whatever reason, we have a lot of late-winter/early-spring birthdays among the Tennants and associated clans. (Insert your joke here that there's something about the summer that just put our parents and grandparents into a certain mood...)

Anyway, happy birthday to my wonderful wife, though no amount of attention and presents can account for everything she does for me and the kids. She is selfless, strong, honest and resourceful. She is the most admirable person I know. And somehow I hit the Pick 6 in the Life Lottery and ended up married to her. Talk about dumb luck.

Oh, and she's hot, too. Did I mention that?

I'm just smart enough to know how dumb I am

That, I think, is the crowning achievement of my 46-plus years on earth: I have finally figured out how much I don't know, and it's a lot. And more importantly, I'm OK with it.

There was a time when I guess I just assumed I would eventually learn most of what there is to know. Which I realize is incredibly naive, but I learned so much early on in life that I figured I would continue to learn at the same pace.

But that's not the way it works, is it? You get out of college and your attention turns away from knowledge gathering – which is where it has been since you were in kindergarten – to simple survival. You have bills to pay and things to do, and if you're like me, you have only so much mental capacity to handle it all. Learning new stuff quickly takes a back seat.

Or at least that's how I think it is for most people. Only the most dedicated among us are true "lifelong learners," and I envy them. They are far smarter and more insightful than I'll ever be.

Which is another thing I've come to realize: MOST people are smarter and more insightful than me. And I don't say that out of false modesty or anything. It just appears to be true, based on my experience to date.

I used to think of myself as a smart person because I got good grades. And I somehow got voted Most Likely to Succeed when I was a senior in high school, though I personally voted for Brian Fabo (he was our very deserving class valedictorian and, true to form, has turned out to be very successful).

But none of that really means anything. As I've often said, knowing facts and spouting them back on command is not intelligence. It's a bar trick. And I'm pretty good at it.

But taking information, processing it, and coming back with a workable solution to a problem or having a truly original insight? I'm not so good at that. Or at least not nearly as good as I thought I would be.

Because again, I figured I would keep getting smarter and smarter as I got older, and it didn't happen. I'm lucky to get myself dressed and out the door every morning, if I'm being honest with you.

And that's OK. It really is. I live an enjoyable, highly fulfilling life. I don't know that anyone could ask for anything more than that. The truth is that I'm blessed beyond words, and even if there WERE words to express it, I would probably forget them anyway.

So there you go. The best thing about me? I've accepted my limitations. I think that's a pretty cool thing to come to terms with.

I'm comin' home...

The title of this post? It's the name of a song by Skylar Grey that my daughter Melanie always, always sings when someone takes her to Wendy's (her favorite fast food restaurant). In fact, she records herself singing it each time she pulls into a Wendy's and then sends the recording to everyone in her family via Snapchat. True story. Terry's kids are so weird.

Anyway, I didn't mean to make reference to the song. I really am literally comin' home today after nine days on the road for business travel. I started off in Chicago two Saturdays ago and then flew out to Anaheim, California, the middle of last week. Both trips were for trade shows. Terry and our daughter Elissa joined me in Anaheim, and now we're all flying back to Cleveland today.

I used to semi-like business travel. And when I say "semi-like," I mean just that. I've never loved it. In fact, I've written before about the hassles that are involved in seemingly each and every business trip I've ever taken.

So I try my best to avoid it. I've been to most of the U.S. and several countries, and now I'm really only attracted to travel opportunities that are 100% fun and 0% business. As those are few and far between for me these days, I tend to stay away from airports and airplanes to the greatest degree possible.

I was trying to think what I dislike most about business travel and I had trouble settling on just one thing. It always feels good coming back to your own bed, of course, but most hotels I visit have nice, comfortable beds, so it's not that.

Some people don't like the food choices when they travel, but I'm essentially a goat and will eat anything, so it's not that, either.

I think it's just the disruption of my routine. Yes, I have five children and thus am subject to varying levels of chaos each and every day, so you would think I don't even have a routine. But roughly speaking, I do. And the older I get, the more I like to just stick to that routine: Getting up at roughly the same time in the same place, doing the same things, enjoying the company of the same small group of people.

That may sound boring to you, but it's heaven to me. What an old guy I am.

Anyway, nine days is more than long enough to be away, so I'm anxious to get back to the sunny(?) North Coast of America. I like Chicago and I like California, but I love Wickliffe. Always have, always will.

Comin' home, comin' home. Tell the world I'm comin' home...