Quick tip for the husbands: Your wife needs a break. Whether she tells you or not is irrelevant. Give her a break frequently. She needs it and she will be very appreciative of your thoughtfulness toward her. And even if she isn't, you should do it anyway.

Quick tip for the fathers: Your kids need to get out the house. They need to blow off steam and they totally need to do that with their dads. This is not to say that they cannot get that with their moms. In fact kids need mom time too. But dad time is crucial, so if you have kids make time for them doing something you all can enjoy together.

So we set off on a walk, the six of us, to the 7-11 just down the street from us. The weather was nice, a little chilly but sunny, so the walk was pleasant right off the pop. We hit up 7-11 and grabbed slushies for all of us - well I prefer coffee so I did that instead - and a couple of bags of chips to snack on. Then we headed out to the front of the store to kick it and snack.

But that is something we always do, so I decided we would change things up a bit so instead of sitting out in front of the store we walked a little bit further to Mission Boulevard where we found a bench and sat on it, snacking and slurping and watching the cars pass us by. This is what it might have looked at from the cars' perspective:

After our snack time and car watching was over was decided to cross the street and check out Mission San Jose. It wasn't until we got there that we realized it was going to cost more money that I brought with us so we just sort of hung around the outside and checked out as much as we could without spending any money doing it.

After a short while we decided to start the walk home with a planned stop at the Olive Hyde Art Gallery. This ended up being a much shorter trip than I wanted it to be seeing as the gallery was displaying quilts and artwork that ran as high as $10,000. If not for the fact that four of my kids suddenly had to go to the bathroom at the gallery we would have only been there for a couple of minutes. In fact we were there for almost a half hour.

After that we took a slow stroll home and ended our two hour walk by coming home and resting. So when Sandi got home from her alone time she was able to come home to a quiet, resting house. Now how could this day have gotten any better?

Think BBQ. I know I am.

Within four hours the missing persons report was filed and the police began investigating. The media began to report it and the community rallied around her and became hopeful that she would be found. It was a touching story and one that served to bring awareness to all families that no matter where you live you need to teach your children how to defend themselves, who to trust and what to do in situations that could result in their harm, abduction or worst of all, their death.

Well yesterday the worst of all possible scenarios was broadcast all over the central valley and bay area. Sandra Cantu, the eight year old girl who had gone missing just 10 days ago, was found dead in a suitcase in an irrigation pond on a farm just two miles away from Sandra Cantu's home.

As the father of five kids, four of whom are daughters and one of whom is eight, I was rattled by the news. Entirely too many children die each year for the stupidest of reasons. It sickens me and angers me when I hear that any kid has been violated in any way. Even worse is hearing about kids whose lives have been snuffed out because of someone with a penchant for causing harm to a child. I still get confused by acts like these, cowardly, selfish acts for which there is no logical explanation.

As a parent I feel it is my responsibility to make sure my kids are safe as much as possible. Doing that sometimes requires shock and awe tactics. Like relating to my kids that at any time, anyone that seeks to do them harm could very well present themselves in a way that appeals to my kids. My wife and I train up our children as best we can. And sometimes the best course of action is to let them in to stories like that of Sandra Cantu.

If you have kids I hope you take the time tonight to tell them just how much you love them. Make it a point to discuss this case with them and the importance of not trusting anyone they don't know. And make sure you take some time to pray for the family of Sandra Cantu. I cannot even imagine what they must be going through right now

As a parent I can live with almost all of these things. All, save for the staying up way too late bit. See when a kid stays up too late he/she tends to get crankier than a hungry hippo that is tied up 20 feet away from food with a chain that is 18 feet long. In fact, the only thing worse on this planet than a cranky kid that has stayed up too late is multiples of said cranky children that have stayed up way too late.

Such is the case with my day today.

I picked the kids up this morning at about 10:30 and found out that they had stayed up until about 3:00 in the morning. Not too unusual for a sleep over (heck, there are times when they stay up almost that late, er early, at home under normal circumstances). The unusual thing was that they woke up early so that they could get their breakfast on and prepare to go home for the day. How early you ask? Around 7:00 this morning or so.

Yep, four hours of sleep. Nope, not nearly enough.

As was evidenced by the extraordinary fighting that ensued almost immediately upon them entering the car. 45 minutes is a long time by itself. Put five kids together in a car and let them loose on each other and that 45 minutes begins to feel like 45 weeks. Why five kids you ask, when only three slept over? Well, the law of child physics states that "... whenever a child is in a state of crankiness borne from lack of sleep, food, water or toilets said child will exude crankiness at a distance and to a degree equal to that of their nearest sibling, parent or other human with whom such crankiness might bear resemblance; ...". So in effect three cranky kids makes for a truck full of seven cranky people.

So right now they are all in bed. No, not just their rooms. Their beds. They need sleep. And because of the work involved in just tuning out their crankiness I now need sleep. And so does the wife. So it would seem that because of my three oldest daughters' refusal to get to sleep at a decent hour last night the entire house is now subject to a property wide lockdown.

Now if I jut had an island that I could send all my kids to in times like this I would be able to sit back, relax and watch some Pro Bowl, seeing as it is the last NFL of the season. Actually, seeing as the Pro Bowl is played in Hawaii, perhaps it isn't the kids that need an island all to themselves so much as it is me.

It's a simple concept really. Walking through the hallway, see a food wrapper of some sort just sitting there, stop and pick it up and put it in the trash. Really, it isn't that hard.

So I figured I'd adopt that principle today and as I got home I noticed a few things that could be handled. First off, the garbage bins were still on the curb from yesterday. That is easily overlooked and I figured that really no one else in my family could see the three and a half foot tall, two foot by two foot square carts with wheels on them and smelling really bad in the front of the house for the past 24 hours, so I put them away.

As I put them away I noticed that both of the passenger side doors on our Suburban were open. Knowing how difficult it is to see two car doors open I decided that I would just handle it and close the doors, checking first to make sure nothing was stolen from it and the the lights and everything on it worked properly.

I came in the house, loved on the wife and kids for a few minutes then went in my room to change. I noticed that my little shelf in my room with my router, printer and modem on it was kind disheveled and while I thought that maybe Sandi was in the middle of something, I thought it might be a good idea to put everything back the way it was when I left. Not to mention that in order to have a place on my bed to fold the laundry that sat in my room since yesterday I would need to take care of it. So I handled putting the pieces back from whatever pulled all my electronics out.

Then I folded laundry because it was there. All night. And all day. And if you see it you should do it. But since it is difficult to see a hamper full of laundry sitting right in front of a TV it makes sense that it would not be done. But since I happened up on it, I did it. And I did the other laundry that had been sitting in the dryer since yesterday, too. And I moved laundry down and started a new load because if you see it you should do it. And I saw a mountain that needed to be done.

After removing some trash and a coffee cup from my bedroom and taking them to the kitchen I noticed that there was a large stack of dishes sitting in the sink. Well, not large enough for anyone to see during the day time. But just large enough for a guy that just got home to see. And since I saw it, I did it. I put away what was already clean and dry, washed the rest, dried many and put those away too.

And while I was seeing and doing things I realized that I forgot to look for something that I should have looked for when say hi to the kids. Did my kids do their homework today? For Sarah, the answer was no. So seeing that she needed to get some homework done, since that is only visible after 8:00 PM, I had her start it.

Then I was finally able to sit down, take a breathe and start working for myself.

See it. Do it. Got to bed.

I try, as often as I can, to take time to spend with my kids individually to sort of gauge how they are doing in our family. I like to get their point of view to see how they are seeing what is happening in our household and in the affairs of the Gonzalez family. There is so much insight to be gained from the experiences of a child if you take the time to dig deep enough to find it. I love taking some time every now and again to get back in touch with my kids.

That said, this is something that I have been planning for a while now. I already had a date with Sarah a while ago and it was my intent to have one with all of my kids shortly after that. For some reason that never happened. Until today.

So we had made small plans to go out to get something to eat and maybe grab a coffee or something. We ended up going to this great little burrito place in Newark and eating these freaking hugemongous burritos that I could barely finish (but Bekah kept up pretty well). Then we headed to the mall to try to find a card for my brother for his birthday party tomorrow. After a few laps around the place and a quick browse of the Hallmark store we found a card and headed to the Starbucks for fraps. Then we walked more.

All in all we spent about three hours out and about having fun, eating, getting coffee and talking. Yes, talking. The entire point of the date was so that I could reconnect with her, get a feel for what was going on with her as of late and see if things are manageable in her life. And it sounded like they were.

Altogether it was an awesome day and an awesome date. We had a good time, were able to talk, were able to laugh and were able to just spend some time with each other. Which was desperately needed for the two of us.

A wide table is a useless table. It had to be shortened and the only way to do that was to run it through the table saw. Which is not really a difficult thing to do. When your saw is set up. But mine was still in the box it came in. Which meant I got to become Bob the Builder for a time.

The nice thing is that the assembly of this saw was not rocket science. It did take some time, but it wasn't hard to do. In fact it was easy enough that I was able to set it up almost completely before we had to take a small break and head out for a little while.

See, three of my daughters were performing in a recital. So we had to head to Hayward in the middle of the day so they could awe the throngs of parents (all 10 of us) with their magical fingers and playing prowess. A nice little surprise in the midst of all this was that my daughter Alaynah was on the performance list. I had no idea she would be singing. And it was awesome.

The kids did great, the parents had fun, and after a little bit of snacking and mingling it was time to head home so I could get back to work on the saw. It didn't take long to get the saw completed. I wish I could say that for cutting the door.

The door, as I said, was a solid core door. It was heavy. And it didn't want to be cut. At least not by some small little table like the one I have. Don't get me wrong. My saw is fine for cutting smaller pieces of wood. But for solid core inch and half think doors, making a seven foot long cut is probably too much to ask it to do.

In the end though the saw won. It did what saws do and it cut that door. And I was able to assemble it and give my wife the counter space she has wanted for a long time now. Plus I was able to to play with power tools. Heck, I was able to even build the power tool I used. Throw in the fact that I was able to watch about three minutes of football and I'd say today was a pretty cool day.

And if nothing else I now have even more surface in my kitchen to stack crap that never gets cleaned.

For those unfamiliar to this proposition (have you been living under a rock?), the entire premise of the proposition is the adding of the following text to the California constitution:

"Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California."

Somehow this has gotten the name of the "Same-sex marriage ban" proposition. The "OFFICIAL TITLE AND SUMMARY" as "PREPARED BY THE ATTORNEY GENERAL" in the California voter guide was "ELIMINATES RIGHT OF SAME–SEX COUPLES TO MARRY". It was even referred to in some circles as the "Gay Marriage ban" proposition.

I have to tell you I was extremely disappointed with just about every aspect of Proposition 8 with the exception of it's passing. The text of the proposed constitutional amendment was the exact same text that was proposed in the 2000 election under proposition 22. The text of the law specifically states "marriage between a man and woman". Minor apologies to those of you who believe that this was a same-sex issue, but the reality of it is that this proposition was for people that believe marriage to be between a man and woman. This was not a "same-sex" issue, it was a "marriage between a man and woman" issue.

I found it ironic that so many people turned the desire of a group of people that want to protect marriage into something that was based on same-gender marriage or homosexual marriage. That is ludicrous. And to say it eliminated rights is just as ludicrous. In 2000 the people of the state of California voted to make marriage valid only when between a man and woman. 52 of 58 counties voted for Prop 22. It was passed overwhelmingly by the people of the state.

Eight years later four judges, four, on the California supreme court overruled the people's decision stating the Prop 22 was unconstitutional because it discriminated against couples of the same gender that sought marriage. Since when have judges been given the right to overturn vote results? If they can do that, why vote at all? Why not just ask judges to pass all of our laws for us?

So they did. They overturned Prop 22 and for the last five and a half months marriages were being performed between couples of the same gender. They in effect handed the right of marriage to people that up until that time did not have the right to marry under that context. Keep in mind that people of the same gender that have sought to become united have been able to do so for some time now under California's and America's laws recognizing civil unions. The only difference is that the term "marriage" has not been recognized in California as marriage unless it was between a man and a woman. Until the judges got involved.

So their decision then gave the Attorney General the ability to label Proposition 8 as "Eliminates the rights of same-sex couples to marry". Astonishing. Why not read the text of the proposed law and label the proposition as such? "Recognizes marriage as being between a man and a woman". That sounds more like the proposed law to me.

For the record I want to say that I have no ill feelings toward anyone. I don't hate homosexual people. I am not afraid of homosexual people. I am not mad at homosexual people. My opinions on marriage are not about the choices people make in their lifestyle. They are about what I believe marriage is. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Period.

I do, however, get bothered somewhat by folks that believe that because someone makes a choice they should be granted rights that they would not normally have had they not made that choice. These are the people that make statements associating homosexuality to ethnicity or gender. People that believe the struggle of the homosexual community is akin to the struggle of African-Americans that marched with Dr. Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. People that associate homosexuality to me being a male or me being Mexican. Thanks for trying to make your point but please do not place your sexual preference in the same category as my ethnic heritage or my gender. I didn't choose to be a man nor did I choose to be Mexican. Homosexuality cannot be compared to these.

It can be compared to being a Christian. Or being a smoker. Or being a Republican. Those are all choices that are made. And not one of them carries with it a privilege afforded it simply because one aligns himself or herself with that particular group. A smoker that is told to smoke outside a restaurant because it is a non-smoking restaurant is not being discriminated against. The smoker chooses to smoke and must smoke according to the law.

A man that wants to marry has every right to marry. But if that man chooses to wed another man, according to the law, he cannot. He can unite with the other man in a civil union. But he cannot marry him. Simple. Understandable. Nondiscriminatory.

I am glad the political campaigning is over. I am glad the elections are over. And I am glad that Proposition 8 passed. I know this is not over yet. We live in a state where when certain people don't get what they want they throw a fit and scream until someone bends. I can assure you there will still be noise on this matter for some time.

But I can also assure you that the state of California has spoken in a mighty voice and it has said clearly that marriage, regardless of your position on it, is supposed to be between a man and woman. It is clear. It is understandable. And now it is constitutional.

All day long all I heard was "Is there anything I can get for you?" "Is there anything you need?" "How are you feeling?". Even my daughter Alaynah got into the mix when she brought me sliced peaches in bed while I was resting at lunch time. I was half awake and told her that I was so thankful for the peaches and that they looked delicious. As she walked down the hallway I could hear her tell her mom "See mommy I told you he would like them."

I gotta say when someone takes care of you when you really really need it it can mean the world to you. At least it did to me. I feel a world better today. I am still feeling a little weak and wobbly so I am working from home today, but I feel a lot better than yesterday.

And I might have a task ahead of me... my wife is starting to feel like I felt a few days ago. That means that showing the love needs to come from me now instead of coming to me. I hope I am up to the task. My wife and kids certainly gave me a great example to follow.

The effects of a cowardly man are far reaching. Everything that requires the strength of a man are shot to hell when a man refuses to be strong. And I believe things are designed to be that way. Men are made strong so we can use our strength. We are made aggressive so we can be aggressors. We are made to withstand because we need to withstand. It is in our makeup. Strength is not supposed to be something that looks good on a model or handles itself well under circumstance, strength is a meant to a be a lifestyle, a characteristic that is exuded daily by all men.

I have not lived that lifestyle. I have indeed allowed myself to be swayed by many different circumstances. And in so doing I have surrendered my position as a man, a leader and head of household to my wife. I have not only stripped myself of the authority and dominion inherent to me as a man but I have also placed my wife in a position where her identity as a woman is cloudy because of the things she has to do because I have chosen not to do them.

One area of long standing contention in my marriage has been finances. I am the sole provider of the house and have been for about five years or so. In the 13 years that Sandi and I have been married she has worked outside of the home for about five years with the remaining eight years being spread out over several periods in our marriage when we had new children or some other life event allowed/necessitated her be home with the kids.

Up until a few years ago I had managed the money in our home. I was diligent, relentless and incredibly passionate about making sure our bills were paid and our obligations met. I had the bank account balanced against my register every morning. I knew, to the penny, how much money I had available to my at any given point of any given day. I was on it.

Unfortunately at that time we did not make a whole lot of money so even though I had things firmly under control we did not really have a lifestyle. We had kids, a place to live, cars to drive and a little bit of food in the fridge. But that was about it. And Sandi felt like she was being locked out of the finances.

So in response to her feelings I decided to offer control of the finances to her. I am not one for two people handle the same task at the same time so I told her that she could have it if she was willing to take it all. She agreed and a few years back I gave her everything I had in relation to our finances. And you know what? For a couple of years she did a kick ass job of making sure everything was handled appropriately just as I had done. She also saw to it that there was money for other lifestyle type things so we were not always so stuffed on what we could do or when.

She even made sure our credit improved. From very early on in my adult life I seemed to do everything under the sun to make sure that my credit was craptastic. She actually improved our credit standing and in late 2005 we began taking on credit again. It was nice to be able to qualify for things that required good credit because had, for so long, been such a huge credit risk that we were either completely unable to do things based on credit or we paid a huge premium for doing things on credit. So I felt great about her handling the money and the success we were having.

In September of 2006 I changed jobs. I began to earn about 50% more than I was earning at my old job. We had lots more money and what appeared to be a growing lifestyle. And then things began to take a turn for the worse in our finances. We had amassed an enormous amount of debt. Things were not getting paid. We began to get calls from creditors. We began to not have money. This was about summer 2007.

Being faced with some troubling circumstances ahead I made a few decisions and didn't make a few others that led to an increased lack in my household. The long and short of it is that I ended up costing my family my retirement to get us out of hock in June 2007. The biggest bills were paid, some smaller ones were paid off completely. We put some money (about $6,000) into savings and put a little more (about $2,500) into savings for our children ($500 each for five kids). It felt good, but in a bad way. While the bills were paid and we had some savings immediately I knew that withdrawing $60,000 worth of my retirement would have a negative effect on our lives.

Spring forth to December 2007. Even though we had paid off almost all of our debt just six months earlier we were maxed out again. I had about $200 cash to spend on Christmas for my entire family, my wife and my kids. My credit cards were shut off or at their limits. Times were tough. Bills were not getting paid again. Calls were coming in again. The kids began to understand that Privacy Manager, or 1-800 Services on the phone meant that neither mom nor dad wanted to take that call. In January of this year I was faced with another decision to make.

I chose to borrow against my paid off car so I could pay down our American Express bill. Again. We paid a few others too but the AmEx bill has always been the one that has gotten us into trouble. And mind you we had burned through the $6,000 grand in savings (I was saving that for the tax bill on the retirement withdrawal that I knew was coming) and the kids savings had been wiped out too. We had nothing at our disposal except my car. So I had to do something. I hocked my car.

Now in the midst of all this I had made a firm decision in my head to take back control of the finances of our home. And each time I was completely swayed by my wife's tears and heartfelt sentiment that she could get things back under control if she just had a little more time. Plus she said that she didn't want to be kept out of the finances again and that when I was doing the money before I would just push her down and not listen to her. So again, I caved. Each time we hit rock bottom I would try to get us back up to a point and still let the situation run. I was scared of my wife's reaction and feelings.

Let's come back to here and now shall we? We are just about to move into August. The last time we paid anything to American Express, I come to find out, was April. Our truck payment is behind. Most of my cards are behind a month or more. Some have even gone all the way to collection agencies. I am getting multiple calls daily from various collectors that want to be paid. And, even though I was just told a few weeks ago that our car payments were up to date and that we are good, I also find out this past Saturday that we are overdrawn in our back account by $800.

"What? How could we be negative?" she says. "I was watching that."

This morning we are up to $1,000 negative in our account. If it gets any worse we will not be able to pay our rent. We are already not going to be able to buy groceries. Our utility bills are mounting because they are months behind and I have a truck payment that is about to get to 60 days late. How much longer should I wait to see if this thing gets better?

Granted things have gotten out of hand in terms of cost all over the place. The economy is crap right now thanks to fuel prices. The cost of gas is driving the cost of everything else up so things that we rely on daily are getting harder and harder to afford. But when it comes right down to it, how would that explain the condition of our expenses?

I blame myself. Sandi should never had been put into a position to handle this. It is my role as the leader of our household to take care of things like this. I have failed her, my family and myself. I have let this get out of control. That gets fixed now.

A man with no balls allows all sorts of mischief to take place right under his nose because he is too damned scared to make a change. Today, I take my balls back. This will be fixed.

One of the things that my wife and I try to do from time to time is allow for parent/child time that takes into account the childs age. To foster this we sometimes schedule time with the child(ren) for whom the time spent will be most appreciated and enjoyed.

Last night we did that with the two older girls. Sarah and Rebekah have been putting in a lot of time and work into the home since Sandi has been sick. They are working probably a little harder than kids their age should and they have needed a break almost as long as I have. So to give them a little time to cut loose Sandi and I decided that after the three younger kids went to bed we would have Sarah and Rebekah join us for a board game in the living room.

Sarah suggested Scrabble and, since Scrabble can have a definite end to it, I was all for it. We set the board up, picked out tiles and picked who was to go first. We started playing and as is common with me I busted out the Fritos, Cheetos and Funyuns.

We played, we ate, we learned. We were have a grand old time. And then it happened. 10:30 PM. This is the time that Sandi and I usually have to start yelling at our two oldest kids to stop talking, turn their lights out, be quiet, stop whispering, stop laughing, stop yelling and all that other stuff that is totally not conducive to a couple sleeping kids.

What made it even funnier was that as my daughters entered into their goofy stage, the imaginations and creativity began to show brighter and brighter. The icing on the cake was when they started trying to help mom user her "Y". Some of the combinated words that the kids came up were:

• tuftedYkit
• funkYpanty
• greensYhim
• weenYbeefy

In addition to these beauties, there was much laughter, rolling on the ground, snorting and all sorts of other goodness that even got mom into the groove. While sitting there looking at the madness of three tired females rolling all over the place laughing their bootYis off I realized something: I was at a home brewed slumper party. Crikey!

Not wanting to feel too left out I decided to throw my own little bit into the mix. No, it was not a wordYword. Instead it was a Lord of the Rings spin (which Sarah was doing plenty of as well). My contribution to this little shindig: Foghoggin Baggins

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that my new nickname is now Foghoggin Baggins.