Books - Funny Parenting Stories for Fathers (and Mothers)

The Estate Planning Handbook for Beginners

In addition to making sure everything is in place, it’s important to make sure you have communicated those wishes to the proper parties. If you want someone to take care of your children should something happen to you, make sure those people they are the chosen guardians. It’s bad enough trying to deal with a family emergency without finding out you’ve been charged with caring for little ones.

As Wife likes to say, “Life is what happens when you make plans.” Even if you don’t make plans, life will happen. All you can do is try to prepare yourself, and hopefully, you’ll be ready for the next challenge Life throws at you.

Daddies and Mommies are busy. We have our regular jobs, and then there’s the cooking, shopping, getting to practices, games, school plays, and doctor’s appointments. Parenting comes with a lot of responsibilities. We want to take care of our families.

Taking care of the kids can take on a lot of different meanings. There are the obvious tasks: meals, health, clean clothes. As our kids get older, though, we are taking care of them in different ways.

Taking Care of Your Family

We want to take care of our families, especially our children. You can only do so much for your own Miracles of Christ, but whatever it is you’re trying to do for them, you want to make sure it’s done right.

Part of making sure things are done right includes ensuring your family is taken care of after you leave this mortal realm. You may have this under control already. Some of the more prepared Daddies and Mommies have things taken care of. Important things like wills, deeds, powers of attorney, and trusts are just some of the things you should have when it comes to making sure your final wishes are honored and your loved ones are getting the assets you’ve worked hard to attain and keep while you were on this planet.

This can seem like a daunting task to some. It’s not always easy making sure things are in working order. However, this isn’t something that needs to be done all at once. If you take these tasks on one at a time, these problems will solve themselves. As I once heard someone say, if you take care of the little things, the big things will fall into place.

The Estate Planning Handbook for Beginners

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way, the title is long, and the subject matter is dry, but what’s inside is priceless information that will help you and your family.

Patrick Herring (photo: Harner Legal Forms)

Patrick Herring is someone who knows about getting things taken care of. Patrick has spent over twenty years helping clients deal with the pitfalls and hurdles of making sure money and other assets make it safely to the next generation. He’s a lawyer, but believe me, I’ve met some lawyers who are decent people.

Patrick has written “The Estate Planning Handbook for Beginners: A Plain-English Guide to Protecting your Family and Planning Ahead with Confidence”. Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way, the title is long, and the subject matter is dry, but what’s inside is priceless information that will help you and your family. It’s bad enough when emergencies or surprise losses in the family occur but making it worse is when there is no contingency plan, or there was a plan, but you don’t know where instructions and final wishes are stored.

Estate planning doesn’t begin with mastering every legal detail. It begins with a few clear decisions.

There could be other problems when it comes to managing your final wishes or what to do in case of an emergency. Relationship dynamics can change. Relatives can have a falling out with each other. Couples can get divorces. People can remarry. Relatives you were prepared to trust with your life’s work or your children could die before you. Ther are many things that can happen as you get through this thing called life. It’s not enough to file documents and forget about it. You need to have periodic reviews of everything to make sure everything is in working order and things can be as turn-key as they can possibly be when an event happens and paperwork needs to kick in.

This includes making sure everything lines up. If one form says something, but another form says something completely different, it could cause complications when your family is trying to handle everything. Worse, it could also cause some conflict between family members if there are to different sets of instructions regarding the same episode.

A Great Plan. Does your Family Know?

The question isn’t how many documents are in the folder. The question is whether the documents, the asset setup, and the decisions behind them all tell the same story.

Having old documents isn’t the same as having the right documents.

You also need to let people know where things are stored. It’s important to know what needs to happen in case of such emergencies. When you are explaining your final wishes to relatives, make sure they know where things can be accessed when it’s time. This will make things easier for your next of kin and also for yourself.

It’s not easy when you need to take care of your family, but having an updated plan that everyone is aware of can make it a little easier when the family is blindsided with news of an illness that leaves a loved one incapacitated. If everyone knows the relative’s wishes for such an event, it won’t make it less painful, but it will make it easier to deal with shout the moment arise.

Dealing with these things isn’t fun. Talking about these things isn’t pleasant, but if you can make things a little easier for your family when a crisis emerges, take comfort in knowing you are helping them make a difficult time a little easier. Patrick wants to help you alleviate these difficulties. His book can do just that.

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Learn Homeopathy with a New E-Book

This post features products I may receive a commission on.

“The Homeopathy Primer” is excited to announce the book that helps you learn and understand Homeopathic remedies is now available as an e-book.

This newly available version is accessible as a PDF version. Readers will not be able to copy or print anything they need to research, but they will be able to search important information such as symptoms or remedy names. Having the e-book stored in your phone or tablet means a more convenient method of transporting the answers you need for your health compared to a 384-page book.

“Most people keep their books at home, but life doesn’t always happen at home,” said Abby Beale, the author of “Homeopathy Primer”.

The e-book can be purchased at this link. Anyone wishing to purchase both the hard copy and the e-book can do so at a discount.

“Pete’s Beat” Teaches Confidence through Music and Practice

Pete loves music. He loves playing drums. Luckily, he had enough encouragement to continuing practicing his drumming from someone who saw his talent and potential. It’s important to help kids when they are practicing and ensuring they don’t get discouraged. It could be easy to feel frustrated with something and walk away from it permanently. Whatever it is my children are working on, music, homework, putting together an arts and crafts project, I try to encourage them as much as I can. If they are discouraged or frustrated, I have them take a break and rest their brains before going back to it for another try.

Some people try to find their rhythm when it comes to music. Others try to find their rhythm in the grand scheme of things. Some feel they need to fit in, and if they do, they’ll be able to find their rhythm. It’s common, especially with kids. No one wants to feel left out. It’s not always easy finding your way. Along the course of life, people will try things. It could be literature, art, music, cooking. People will try different things or new hobbies. It’s a great way to let out your creativity. Plus, it gives you the chance to try something new, and you can meet new people.

There are plenty of things that can hold people back when it comes to trying things. One of the biggest things holding people back is the fear of failing when they try something. Trying and practicing is how people get better at things, but it can take a while to get good at something. Sometimes, the biggest thing that is holding you back is YOU.

Read “Pete’s Beat”

Your child can learn a lesson from Pete when it comes to trusting yourself and your talents. Pete is a young drummer and the main character in Matt Robinson’s “Pete’s Beat”. The book is illustrated by Scott Hubeny.

Pete is an aspiring musician who is always practicing his drumming technique. He is practicing at school using pencils, at the dinner table using his fork and knife. He’ll practice on his bed using a pillow for his drum, practicing away using his bare hands.

“By the end of the month, Pete had tried so many instruments that he was not sure which to play next. All he knew was that he had yet to find his own beat.”

-“Pete’s Beat”

People notice Pete’s work and encourage him to practice and play more. Pete lacks the confidence to take further steps with his playing. It’s a common thing with children and adults alike: Their lack of confidence holds them back. They don’t think they’re good enough, so they stop practicing, and they are stuck in that rut.

Always Encourage your Children

Between sports, academics, and music, I try to encourage my children to do their best. Practicing is how you get better. It’s not just with my own children, but also the children I coached in sports. Work on your game, your art. Practice. Continue to study your niche and sharpen your skills.

Circle Man (That’s his name) notices Pete’s talent and he encourages him to be confident in what he has and share his skill with the listening world. It’s not always an easy thing to do, but sometimes the only thing holding you back is you yourself.

The book talks about people being brave enough to try, confident enough to out themselves out there, and it also talks about a love for music. I love music. I’m not talented in the musical instrument category, but my children are. The Boy is a trombone player. The Oppressed played a tuba. When both Miracles of Christ were in elementary school, they played recorders. I knew a little about recorders thanks to “The Legend of Zelda”.

Lessons in Music and Life

“Everyone can play. All you need to do is find your own beat!” – Circle Man

In addition to the story, “Pete’s Beat” also has a glossary introducing music novices to the key terms in the book. There are also puzzles to do to help the reader learn more about instruments mentioned in the book and other instruments in the world of music. Not only does the book show what a little encouragement and practice can do, the puzzles make for a little break from practice.

Sharing My Finds

Like you, I do what I can to stay healthy. I ride a bike. I take walks. I went to a gym before Coronapalooza. I have been trying to lose or maintain my weight for a while. Some weeks are better than others.

I recently took a walk one night and someone was smiling down upon me on this particular constitutional. I passed a house with a table of boxes. These boxes contained books, CD’s and movies. I still read hard-copy books and collect and listen to CD’s. I read digital books and listen to digital music but I still like books and CD’s.

I was excited to return home with my new finds, one of which was a Genesis CD. I love Genesis. I was listening to it on a CD player (an earlier birthday present) as I was dealing with the mountain of dirty dishes and making dinner. Dinner just happened to be a recipe from a cookbook; another find. I was preparing a delightful batch of Pork and Red Chili and listening to my new find when one of The Gaggle come into the kitchen. Said Gaggle asked me what it was I was listening to. How old was it? What? Oh my God! This turned into another lecture about my questionable taste in music, which led to my questionable taste in movies. I told her I can’t help her if she can’t appreciate or recognize good music. She says, “Whatever,” she says. I’m old. She can’t help me.

Time for dinner. The Pork and Red Chili was enjoyed by everyone except for The Oppressed, who is a vegetarian. Even The Boy seemed to like it. He tends to skip meals that contain spices or more than two ingredients, or don’t involve takeout

A similar incident occurred when I was driving with The Oppressed. I had a CD in the car. She was not impressed with my selection and proceeded to take my phone for more acceptable music. Fortunately, The Oppressed likes the Veruca Salt album I downloaded on my phone and she proceeded to play “Benjamin.” It’s one of the very few selections I have, CD or digital, that The Oppressed will tolerate.