Going Paperless: Scanning to a easier life

I've gone completely paperless.  Bills, receipts, school work, letters - all come in, get scanned and shredded. There are very few exceptions of things that I keep. 

As a single dad, documentation is your friend.  Being very organized is so important.  I cannot stress these two things enough. 

In a later post I will talk about OurFamilyWizard.com (OFW) which is a site my ex and I use to communicate.  Often I will scan things in and send them to the ex on OFW. Another tool that I will talk about in a future post is QuickBooks by scanning them in receipts and attaching them in QuickBooks.    

When I was going through my divorce, I did it from several states away. That meant emails, and lots of them to my lawyer.  There is a ton of documentation that goes back and forth and in todays world email or Dropbox (or similar cloud service) is the fastest way to transmit information.  But to email or share documents digitally, you have to get all this paper scanned.

I choose the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 Scanner for PC and Mac (PA03656-B005) (http://amzn.to/1y50Sq7) after doing a lot of research and reading reviews.  This scanner is a little pricy at over $400, but it is worth every penny.  

This scanner works at over 25 pages per minute and thats double sided in color. You can feed in receipts and full size sheets at the same time.  The software it comes with does optical character recognition which means your files are searchable.  While the OCR isn't perfect, it works pretty good.  You may have a scanner on your all-in-one printer, but the speed of this scanner makes going paperless practical. 

So far I have not used the software that it comes with to organize files.  I've found it much easier to manually sort my scans.  When I first used the scanner, I was using it wirelessly.  I found that every now and then the wireless connection would break and that scanning wirelessly was slower.  I've moved the scanner next to my desk and use it with the USB connection.  This scanner supports a USB 3.0 connection. 

Here is my workflow: 

The software will let you set up different profiles.  I have one that I have set up to scan receipts, letters, and other documents.  I have another profile set up just for the kids homework, since I email this off to my ex every night.  The profiles are set up to make a PDF file and you can set the resolution which will determine the file sizes. 

I have a specific folder inside my Dropbox that all my scans drop into.  The software will let you chose a specific folder.  From there I sort my files into folders by category (usually by company name). I also have a folder called "receipts" and inside that folder are folders named for stores and businesses.  

It's important that you use a folder inside Dropbox or some other cloud service that sync's automatically. That way in case your hard drive crashes, your data will be safe. This will also allow you to access your scans from your mobile device. There are a lot of times that I have accessed scans on my iPad or iPhone.  This also gives me the ability to email or share these documents instantly.

Dropbox also has a cool feature that you can enable inside your account. Most of the cloud services have a similar option. You can log into your dropbox on a computer and set the option to allow you to email attachments to your dropbox.  Simply save this email address to your contacts and when you have an email with an attachment, you can forward it to your special dropbox email.  Dropbox will automatically save the attachment to your dropbox in a special folder.  

Sometimes I get emails that have receipts that I want to save PDF's of (like amazon orders or iTunes), but they do not have an attachment.  If you forward this to your dropbox account, it will not save anything since the Dropbox Email only saves attachments.  You can save these as a PDF on your computer and move these into your dropbox folder, but this takes some time and requires you to be in front of a computer. Many times I'm mobile. In that case I forward these emails to pdfconvert@pdfconvert.me and it emails me back with the original email as an attachment. I then forward these to my dropbox email.  Another option if you are using a mobile device is to use a PDF Printer program. Many of these programs will let you save the PDF files to a cloud service.   

So get organized.  Go paperless. it's worth it.

Because Cake Balls are Awesome

When I was married, my sister-in-law would make cake balls for the holidays.  It was one of those treats that I really looked forward to.  Instead of being cake-ball-less this year, I decided to take matters into my own hands and learn how to make them myself. Turns out it's not that hard, and kinda fun.

Before I start with the recipe, I just wanted to say that cooking doesn't make you any less of a man. For years the male/dad/father role in the kitchen has been limited to firing up the grill while making grunting noises and dragging our knuckles between the kitchen and the patio.  I joke with people about dropping my man-card off at Bed, Bath and Beyond around Thanksgiving and picking it up after the first of the year. But thruth be told, there is nothing wrong with cooking without a vagina. I've gotten many complments and found that people actually respect my cooking, especially my kids! Well, maybe it's because I let them lick the chocolate off everything.   

I feel that it's important to learn to cook on your own for a few reasons. The first is that you need to be able cook for yourself and your kids. Seriously, you can't eat out every night!  You need to teach your children to cook. It's an important life lesson and it will come in handy when they move out on their own.  Especially when they are in some college dorm and trying to eat more than Ramen Noodles.  When you move onto your next relationship, cooking for your date gets you major brownie points.  Besides, cooking is actually fun - and yes there are gadgets and power tools in the kitchen. 

Back to our cake balls. 

What are cake balls you ask? They are a sweet cake center coated in chocolate. They are little balls of pure joy and proof that balls taste great (wait that doesn't sound good).  They are pretty easy to make, and I'm going to give you the recipe and a few things I learned making them.  

I usually make a double batch, one of chocolate and one of vanilla.  The recipe below is for one batch and makes 30-40 balls. 

What you will need: 

-One box of cake mix (chocolate or vanilla works well, stay away from mixes that may be too moist like those that have fudge in the title. Just plain old cake mix)

-Vegetable Oil (for cake)  

-Milk (for cake)  

-Water (for cake)  

-12 oz Tub of Cake Frosting (or instead a can of condensed milk)

-1 lb Chocolate Wafers or Chocolate Chips 

-Solid shortening (Optional - 2 table spoons depending on the choclate you get) 

-Chocolate melter, double broiler or glass bowl and a pan

-Wax Paper

-Cookie Sheet

-Plastic/Rubber Spatula

-Dipping Tool (You can make this. I used Aluminum Welding Wire) 

-Cookie Scoop Tool

-Whisk or Mixer

-Large Bowl

Note: The above is for a single batch. If you make a double batch just double everything.

Step 1) Bake the cake per the directions on the box. Let the cake cool throughly. 

Step 2) Crumble the cake into the bowl, the mixture should not be lumpy
Step 3) Mix the 3/4 of the frosting or the whole can of condensed milk with the cake in the bowl   

Step 4) Put wax paper on the cookie sheet and scoop the cake/frosting mix onto cookie sheet using the cookie scoop tool

Step 5) Put the cookie sheets in the fridge and let set 12 hours

Now we get to play with chocolate.  This is the good part.

Step 6) Put the chocolate in the melting pot, double boiler or glass bowl. If you are using the double boiler or glass bowl do a google search for how to properly use them.

I use the Wilton Chocolate Melter Pro (http://amzn.to/1HIw9lv). It takes 20-30 minutes to melt 1 lb of chocolate. 

If you grab Wilton Candy Melts (http://amzn.to/1tmL0II)  from Wal-Mart or similar add 1-2 teaspoons of the solid shorting to the melting pot and pour the chocolate wafers in. The shortening will thin the mixture out and make it easier to coat the cake balls.  This REALLY makes a difference!  If you do not add the shortening, the cake balls will still taste great, but the chocolate will be hard to work with and will get clumpy after you coat a few balls.  

If you get dipping choclate wafers like "Ghirardelli Candy Making & Dipping Melting Wafers" you don't need to add the solid shortening.  

You can easily overwork the chocolate, don't stir more than you have to. When working with the chocolate  make sure that everything is dry. Water will ruin the chocolate. Try to use dry rubber or plastic utensils with the melted chocolate and avoid metal ones if you can.

Remember: The chocolate has to melt slowly!

Step 7) Coat the cake balls and place them back on the cookie sheet. This is the fun and messy part. 

You may find that using a fork or stick will help you coat them. Basically anything you can stick into the ball and get it to stay upside down.  Just swirl the cake ball in the melted choclate and you may need to twirl it to get some of the excess choclate off. 

Step 8) Let the cake balls set, you can put them in the fridge if you like but do not freeze them or they will crack

Step 9) Enjoy your sugar induced coma!

Quicktip: For maximum fun, feed your kids as many cake balls as they want before exchanging them with mom (kidding - sorta!). If mom is on a diet, she will definitely enjoy a big bag of these babies! 

Mr. Grumpy Pants

Tonight I was cutting the lawn and my daughter (who is 5) came out an said “I am gonna wash your truck because it’s dusty”. 

She melted my heart right there. I helped her hook up the garden hose and finished cutting the lawn. When the lawn was done we washed the truck together. We wiped soap on my old truck together and she washed it off with the hose. She had a smile on her face and suds were everywhere! 

My daughter was doing something nice for me. I was proud to be a daddy. I’m not terribly sentimental, but that old truck brought both my kids home from the hospital. It had been with our family through many moves and family trips. For me it has a special link to my kids and to me as a dad. 

I leaned over and kissed her and said “I love you” to which she replied “I love you too daddy”. 

When you get divorced, you life will change dramatically and being happy will probably be the furthest thing from your mind. The problem is if you don’t find some bit of happiness you will be miserable and your family, friends and kids will pick up on that.  They will treat you with caution and distance themselves from you. Let’s face it, no one wants to be around a grumpy person. 

I would have missed the moment with my daughter if I had chosen to be grumpy. Let’s face it grumpy is only cool in dry and drab British Humor. It's easier said than don, to be happy when your whole life has changed.  It is probably one of the hardest things that you will have to do post-split. 

How you get to that “I’m not Mr. Grumpy Pants” attitude will depend a lot on how your personality works. The good news is that in getting divorced, you will learn a whole bunch about yourself, and how you work. It’s a learning experience that makes you a much stronger and resilient person. 

So decide to be happy. You may decide this and not be happy every day. You will have days, weeks and maybe months where you're dragging.  But make a conscious effort to decide to be happy.  

For me, I had to compartmentalize my emotions.  My new life had to go in my happy box and my divorce debacle in another. 

My emotions of anger of losing my wife, of dealing with the ridiculous crap from her, of realizing that she was not who I thought she was, of realizing that child support sucks and that she does’t get held accountable. 

Ya, all those emotions - I had to learn that they go in a special box labeled “this royally sucks box”. It’s important that you deal with all these emotions, don’t seal the box and forget about it. You need to sort the contents of your divorce box to move on. Just don’t do it in front of your kids. It’s best to have a licensed therapist or councilor help you.  A trusted friend can also be good, but be careful it doesn't interfere with your friendship.

I had to learn to live my life and be happy while making sure that I delt with my “Divorce Emotions” away from my kids and in the appropriate setting.  I had to learn to be nice in front of my ex and no matter what she said, put a poker face on and smile. I had to learn to deal with whatever she said when she was not around. In other words when she’s dishing it out put it in the divorce box for later - don’t deal with those emotions on the spot. 

As I share more on this blog I will share things that I’ve done to make my life easier and happier.  The goal of this blog to to help other dads out there and help make their lives and their kids lives as bright as possible.

I'm a Single Dad

I started this blog because I figured that there have to be other dads like me.  I'm divorced and I am raising two kids and a dog. I wanted to be able to share my journey. I never realized how complex divorced life would be.  Think of this blog as part parenting advice, psychology column and part soapbox.  I'll also try and cover a few gadget reviews along the way.

My life this year is radically different than it was the past few years. I moved to a different state. I got divorced. I had to figure out how to raise my kids. I had to deal with communicating with my ex. 

I had a relatively normal American life, then I took a job which didn't work out and I found myself unemployed.  After two months of fruitless job searching I took a job several states away. My then wife who was a stay at home mom promised to move to the new state, but asked to stay until our son had finished first grade. I reluctantly agreed and headed north to start my new job. 

Almost exactly a year later we were in divorce court and decided to reconcile before the trial started.  Almost immediately leaving the courtroom things started falling apart. I realized that she was mentally abusive and wasn't really sure if she really wanted to reconcile or if this was another game.  I cried for 3 days. 

I never wanted to get divorced, but there were a few reasons that I had to get divorced. It was an amazingly difficult decision.

The first was that I was afraid that she would take the kids from me.  If we were married, I had absolutely no legal protection from her moving the kids against my will. 

Then I realized that she was mentally abusive.  I had convinced myself that I could live with this but I would have to give up any of my aspirations and goals and submit to following whatever she wanted.  I had to give up my identity to be her husband. I knew from experience that it makes you a completely miserable person to be under someones control. 

Then one night on a Skype call she accused me of being a bad father - and this wasn't the first time.  I had had enough.

In the months that followed I moved my kids to where I lived.  I started them in school and made daycare arrangements. A week after I moved the kids to my new state, the soon to be ex followed and started living rent free with the kids and I until the trial.

We were divorced 4 months later and the court awarded us 50/50 joint custody. So we're now divorced, trying to get used to the week-on, week-off custody arrangements. She now has her own place now too in the state where she refused to move to in the first place. 

The kids are adjusting well, although it's not been all smooth sailing.  We've had some issues with the oldest one and being behind in school.  He also was diagnosed with ADD, so we started him in therapy. 

My hope is that through this blog I can help other fathers, and for dads to know your not alone! There is a path to a better place.