A Holographic Holiday

If everything were crossed of on Wes’ wish list, Christmas would look a little different.

1. A holographic Christmas tree, preferably battery-operated as to not run up his electric bill.

2. The advent calendar would have 26 days, because he’s living for the day after Christmas.

3. All presents addressed to him would be envelopes, filled with Amazon gift cards.

4. Peace on Earth. I don’t know, but when I was a kid he used to tell me that’s all he wanted for Christmas. Now I realize that was another attempt to veto homemade presents.

This Christmas season I got to go home for over a week. It was nice to be back and visit with the family. 

However, before I got to make the trip home, my dad made a trip to see me. I moved from Gainesville to Ocala and he came to help with the move. He was obviously thrilled, because this is the 5th time he has moved me since 2009.This move added a whole new level of fun because it was my first unfurnished apartment.. so he would have to move all my furniture from back at home.

But Wes never gives up. 

 

Of course it always helps to bribe him with his favorite restaurant. The God-sent of restaurants. The land of large cups and unlimited refills. The haven of affordable meals.

Sonny’s BBQ.

 

He loves Sonny’s, but that smile is even bigger because I picked up the tab. 

This,however, is his much more common reaction when he gets the bill at places like Olive Garden.

 We made it through the move with only a few incidents. My dad and Mr. McCurdy loved moving around the stairs.

I got back home and was given my first Christmas project from my mother. I was supposed to go through my old room and make everything fit into the closet. I’m being replaced by baby land. 

Anyways, I found a box of my leftover high school graduation invites.

To quote from the most relevant Christmas story,

“You know, that old Grinch was so smart and so slick, that thought up a lie and he thought it up quick.”

What a great find around the holidays! We could just send out all the extras and see if we get anything back. 

So to the general public, please always check dates on graduation invitations. Wes might have just thought of a better plan the people hacking Target.

To sum up. Christmas was great. Dad got a couple Amazon gift cards, so all was not lost. Although there was some confusion over his Die Hard movie. There was a “promo” sticker on it, so he was upset that we got him an entire DVD just promoting the Die Hard series…Not exactly.

There was one portion of the day when all the grandkids were opening gifts and he kept asking me to find him a gift to open. He said “just please hand me something to open, this is just sad.” Good grief. 

We tried to find a new tree for next year, since none of the lights work on ours anymore. However, my mother didn’t like any of the ones my dad and I found.

So Christmas 2013 is in the books. We made it into the New Year so be looking forward to Wes achieving some lofty goals.This year he plans to lose 100 pounds.

It’s important to know that is his second goal. His first goal is to hit the big 300. 

Bring on the pie!

 

Thanks-saving

As we just passed Thanksgiving I am reminded that there are so many things I have to be thankful for in my life. One thing for sure, this year my dad got to spend Thanksgiving with us.

If you have been following Wise Wes for over a year now, you may remember his plans last year were to “go to work all night and then come home, curl up around a can of turkey tuna and cry himself to sleep.”

Always dramatic.

I got to spend the whole week of Thanksgiving with my Dad and I can probably tell you what he is most thankful for:

1. His wife

My dad told me the other night he was reminiscing about their relationship. He said he looked over at my mother and asked her, “So what do you think our secret is? 4 years of dating, 33 years of marriage–How have we lasted so long?” Expecting a Hallmark answer, but instead he got….

“Because I can’t fit you in a trash can.”

That’s true love people. My Dad told me he is thankful he doesn’t fit in a average 30 gallon trash bag.

He thought he would be able to frame what she was about to say…

but now he just has hopes to always exceed the size of your average trash bag.

2. His kids

I think my Dad lives in anxiety for when I come home. I called him to find out where he was when I walked in our house and he told me he was at Home Depot. I swear he goes there twice a week, just to see what’s going on.

Anyways, he went over via telephone the usual checklist for when I come home:

1. Do you have a key?  Every time. I feel like they are going to change the locks on me one day.

2. Recite the golden rule: Do not touch the thermostat unless you can see your breath. Amen.

3. The hanging up the phone ritual: “God Bless you and the work you do sister. Love you, Go Gators. Bye.” Sometimes he spices things up with “don’t drag your family name through the mud,” but he tries to just use that for big life moments like finals, graduations, etc.”

The biggest issue is that I am out of training on the light detail.

I know to turn off lights when I leave the house, but my dad is much more strict than that. It’s every time you leave a room. I was packing to leave and walked to the kitchen to grab something and when I got back the light was off. He literally turned off the light in the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth, because I was running water at the same time.

3.  Pumpkin Pie

I don’t know how many times he asked for pumpkin pie over the break. I’m pretty sure that’s what got him through the Thanksgiving season.

Because we all know what’s just around the corner. Christmas. Wes’ least favorite time of the year-lights are skyrocketing his electric bill, my mother is buying Christmas gifts for her hair dresser and we all want to turn the heat on, breaking the golden rule.

Pearl of Wisdom: Remember to be thankful for your loved ones, small trash bags and always have “punkin pie” on hand.

In Very Specific Kinds of Weather

I want to say my Dad is a Gator fan.

But that’s not exactly true.

My Dad is really just a fan of winning.

He has zero shame in being a bandwagon fan. Last year after Florida lost our bowl game, he told me Florida embarrassed him for the last time.

So he jumped ship.

He didn’t have high hopes for Florida this year, but remained slightly positive.

However, after the first couple games UF wasn’t looking so hot, but someone else was…

Clemson.

Clemson was looking really great. And he’s been to one Clemson game, so it’s not a complete bandwagon situation I guess.

But then things didn’t pan out for Clemson either. After that FSU loss, he couldn’t have Clemson attached to his rep. So they got dropped too.

This weekend my parents came in town for Florida’s Homecoming game against Vandy.

My Dad’s theory so far is that the Gators have looked the best on bye weeks.

Appreciate that.

Anyways, he gave the Gators one last shot. After all, it’s Vandy, right?

I’m not exactly sure what he is doing in this picture. I think he thought that’s what the “baby gator” hand signal meant.

But yet again, the Gators failed him.

I didn’t sit right next to him, but every now and then I just heard him cry out “for God’s sakes, it’s only Vandy!”

They recognized the UF Volleyball team during a commercial break and my Dad was hoping they were filling in for our offensive line.

He actually started a chant that caught on in our section “Mus-Champ! Must-Go!”

I don’t blame him. We were terrible. Just terrible. And I’m actually a consistent fan.

He did feel a little bad for Florida though. He thought this would put a damper on the dance…the homecoming dance he thought was happening after the game.

Needless to say you can only guess the bandwagon he just hitched himself to……

He yelled “Fear the Spear” right before he left Gainesville today.

So enjoy him while you can FSU fans, he won’t be there for long.

The go-to Facebook status for any Gator fan after a loss is the classic, “In all kinds of weather….still love my Gators!”

Not with Wes.

That ship sailed.

He lives in the sunshine state for a reason. He is not hanging out in the storm. He’s headed to higher land.

Pearl Of Wisdom: There is no shame in being a bandwagon fan, because there’s a lot more shame in losing to Vanderbilt.

 

 

33 years of Wes

I feel like there is a huge question that looms when people meet my wonderful father.

What in the world was Theresa thinking?

Because I would never have the joy that is my father without my mother being crazy enough to marry him.

She swears he used to be normal. They started dating in high school and were married by 20. Sounds pretty romantic, right? High school sweethearts are adorable. Except depending on which one you ask- you get two very different responses.

My mother says he lurked outside of her dance practices until he finally asked her out, but my dad swears she was the band girl creeping outside of his football practices.

I honestly don’t know who to believe. My mother has a terrible memory and my father, to say the least, has a habit of embellishing the truth. Regardless, they started dating.

They dated through high school. During this time my dad tells stories of “peddling his bike over the bridge to work all the time to take my mom out as much as she demanded.”

This is usually the part where my mom rolls her eyes, during his version of the story.

Then one day my dad popped the question and they decided to get married.

This is where the happily ever after part is supposed to happen, but Wes likes to keep it real. Getting married at 20 posed some problems financially so they certainly weren’t living the fab life.

“You know how everyone says, ‘when you look back on your marriage to those years at the beginning when you were broke, you realize those were the best times?’ Yeah, that’s a lie. It sucked. Living in a trailer, buying rat traps, waking up to defrost the window AC with a hair dryer, bringing your car battery inside because someone might steal it, buying bigger rat traps…..not the best times.”

And yet for some reason they haven’t made it into a Nicholas Sparks book yet.

But their luck has turned around some financially in the past 33 years. Granted they are not millionaires, despite the numbers of Dave Ramsey books my dad has read.

I kind of messed up their anniversary this year by having them help me move on their anniversary. Help is really a stretch. I was at work all day, so they basically did everything. But to make up for it, I surprised them with dinner reservations at a really fancy restaurant in Gainesville. My brother and I set it up in advance to have their tab on one of our cards for the night as a gift from us.

Needless to say my dad was thrilled.

33 years of marriage, 25 of those years being a father and he finally gets a free meal out of it.

He ate like a king.

My mom said he was ecstatic when he found out we had the tab, saying “well then I want to pay for that guys meal, and that family over there…”

This was obviously a high risk gift, allowing the ultimate free-loader to have this, but they had a good time.

33 years of marriage and he has the same advice: Always get a complete psychological evaluation before you ever get married.

They aren’t your traditional-sweet-adorable couple, but somehow they are pretty perfect together.

I have a Relay great Dad

I love my job. I get to work in four different communities raising money towards cancer research. I help plan Relay For Life events.

My Dad has never done a Relay before…until now that is.

My Dad usually gets on board with things if I beg, but that comes at a price. He asked me how much it costs to form a team. I told him $100. Then he asked me how much it costs to get out of it.

He came around though. Once he got out to Relay he really shined.

Team Floyd Fam came out with great spirit.

Both of my parents,my roommates and my second family (the McCurdys) came all the way out to Lafayette County to support me.

Mr. Mccurdy and my Dad even came out to help set up. They were yelling at each other the whole time, but they set up all the lights around the track. Granted they busted a fuse, none of the lights matched and I believe they used bush lights too. But what a team.

 

The lights they managed. Decorating the booth….that had to wait for the mothers to arrive. Because while the booth next to us looked like this…

 

Ours looked kind of like this…

Team Floyd Fam did great though. They had a ton of raffles that people could buy tickets for and thankfully my Dad is quite the salesman. I think an 11-year-old came up to him and my Dad was trying to convince him to spend all of his money on the raffle. When he started to walk away my dad kind of yelled at him across the field to come back with his money. It’s all for the cause.

He also made DJ Fresh (not his actual name) announce that a renown artist from the University of Florida was coming.

AKA Autumn was coming later to do face painting.

He talked to this little girl for about 20 minutes asking her if she knew Autumn because she was a famous artist. She was asking if she could get her face painted for $3….he told her she might be able to get a 3-legged horse.

But, hey, the marketing paid off.

My Dad was dedicated to the cause. When we went to breakfast that morning he told the waitress he was off to beat cancer.

My Dad was so dedicated he swore he would not stop eating until he beat cancer.

So in the end I would have to say

Team Floyd Fam: 1

Cancer:0

 

 

The Golden Years

Sorry it has been entirely too long since I last shared the knowledge and wisdom from my dad.

My life has been kind of crazy with finishing college and starting a new job. But now starts the Golden Years. No, not for me, but for Wes Floyd.

Just like Martin Luther King Jr., Wes had a dream as well. A day when his kids would be financially independent. That day has come…ish.

He’s been talking about this dream since I was a kid and my letters from Santa said,

   “Dear Ryan and Kaitlynn,

    Make good grades in school so you can get a really nice job and put your parents in the really nice retirement homes.

    Love,

    Santa”

I kid you not. How I believed for as long as I did, I will never know.

He was so excited about this financial freedom on the horizon, we took a family trip to California this past summer. Every time we stopped to take a picture, eat a meal or just when we woke up in the morning–he made sure to remind us to soak it all in because this would be the last family vacation ever. At least the last one on his dime. 

Even at my graduation, he told me he might take me out to lunch afterwards to celebrate, and then he’s cutting me off. 

He loves me, I swear. He is just the cheapest man to walk the planet.

Tonight my mom sent me this picture.

My dad has now decided to stop paying for drinks in restaurants. So now he orders water and adds his own flavor. This is is his “and that’s how it’s done face.”

And the man has a point. He’s at the ripe age of 53 and is living life to the fullest. Kids off of his dime…eating Firehouse every Sunday, where they know his order by heart…and the sweet satisfaction of going home to the only resident of our home left, the cat. The man has it made.

So this begins, the Golden Years.

Hogsmeat, Huffinpuff and Harry Potter

If you know me at all, you would know that one of my great obsessions in life is Harry Potter. I love it.

I was even able to get my mom into it and my brother will watch the movies. My dad, however, not the biggest fan. But he is a big fan of my mom and my mom wanted to go to Harry Potter world. So, off we went.

When we first entered the park I knew we were off to a great start, because my dad immediately found a new hobby. Photo-bombing. 

That poor little family will have one Wes Floyd in their family photo.

For awhile I was surprised at how much my dad was enjoying himself in the theme park. Normally he hates theme parks with the blazing temperature, long lines and outrageous costs. I kept asking him when we were about to get on a ride, “what has been your favorite part of today?” and every time he said “this, right now.” When he said it in line at the churro cart I realized he was just appeasing me. But I know he had a blast. Look how happy he was.

One line was much longer than the others. We waited outside of Ollivander’s wand shop for like an hour. I decided to start quizzing my dad to see how much Harry Potter knowledge he actually had.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qr0LJ9_O3M&feature=youtu.be

The trip was an overall success, of course. When you get the Floyd family together, it’s going to be a great time.

For True

My dad may be a southern, white, male Republican but don’t let that fool you. He is full of a diversity of culture.
For my spring break I went on a mission trip to New Orleans.

If there is one thing my dad has taught me it is “immerse yourself in the culture,” Kind of like the whole “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” concept.

So when I was talking to my dad he asked if I could speak Cajun yet. 

I told him I hadn’t mastered it yet. Luckily my parents lived in New Orleans for a little while when they were first married so he dropped some knowledge.

“When people are asking if another person is being serious, in New Orleans they say ‘For true?'” (emphasize a higher octave on the word true)

My mother swore to me that she never heard anyone say that when they lived there, but my dad was of course screaming in the background “That’s because your mother was a social recluse! I immersed myself in the culture and became one of the people.”

I believe him.

Then he wanted to know if I had a beignet.

Check.

Trying to make him proud. 

Because you see my dad doesn’t miss a thing.

He has even immersed himself in the new-age, hip culture.

Life Lesson: Immerse yourself.

The Christmas Chronicles of Wise Wes

I am a failure and haven’t blogged about my wonderful father in awhile. 

Normally I come up with a clever title and have a general theme for the post, but just so much has happened. Therefore I will just present it to you in a series of short stories called “The Christmas Chronicles of Wise Wes.” These will happen over a series of the next couple of posts.

Christmas is my absolute favorite time of the year to spend with my dad. He really thrives with pessimistic humor in times of holiday cheer.

My dad doesn’t really like all the glitz and glam of Christmas. Hauling down all the decorations from the attic, putting up lights, buying presents and all those special times are not his favorite. His dream is that one day he can just turn on a projector and it will project a tree onto the wall.

One night over the holidays we went to Hobby Lobby, because my mother was on some sort of crazy garland hunt. My dad and I found this Charlie Brown tree which he absolutely loved.

Side note: When my parents got to the register my dad is about to hand me the tree and says “you and your mom checkout, I’m going to run to the bathroom.” But at the same time my mom says “wait no, I was going to say that.” They pause and stare at each other and then in one fowl swoop a tree was throne at me and my parents just started running, racing each other to the bathroom. So there I was alone, with no money and a Charlie Brown tree at the register. Pathetic I know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVPi7EBRsE0&feature=youtu.be

If you missed that at the end he says that the tree represents his Christmas. Also sorry it’s sideways, I don’t know how to fight that.

My dad’s least favorite thing about Christmas is Christmas Eve. He got sent to Walmart three times on Christmas Eve and described it as the “Apocalypse” because it was an “absolute zoo.” So my brother threw a wrench in Christmas traditions, because he has a job as a nurse now. We had to forgo the traditional Christmas Eve party and opening presents on Christmas morning so we could open presents on Christmas Eve.

A little saddened by the lack of traditions I asked my parents on Christmas Eve night if we were still going to have cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. They didn’t even know it was a tradition. So while we were all out we asked my dad to run into Walmart. Forty-five minutes late he emerges from Walmart, hands me two cans of cinnamon rolls. In a staggering, voice like he had just fought a war he said “Chooooke on it.”

He loves it.

Oh and it helps to know that at dinner he said he was “on his last Christmas nerve.”

He always freaks out about the weather on Christmas. His logic is if rains then everyone will not want to go outside and they will wait out the storm. So then they stay in his house, and sit on his furniture and eat his food forever.

So he was depressed that it was supposed to rain on Christmas. But he tried to make the best of it….until his Charlie Brown tree ornament was broken. Christmas canceled.

No my dad is a trooper. As long as there are still gobs of ice and free refills in the world he will continue to “barely make it” in a world that “fights him every step of the way.”

Life Lesson: To quote the Grinch (my dad’s favorite Christmas movie) “Cheer up dude, it’s Christmas.”

Thanksgiving of the sea

Unfortunately I almost never see my father on Thanksgiving. He always works Thanksgiving so he can get Christmas day off. Fortunately, I decided to skip all my classes this week and spend some quality time with the family.

I have missed my home, particularly my wonderful dad.

My dad around the holidays is my favorite part about the holidays. Now, Christmas is my all-time favorite, but Thanksgiving is a close second.

He is already pretty jazzed about Christmas. The other night we went to see his mother and he told her he was expecting a big gift. She responded by saying “Suga, I’m sorry I don’t have a dime to my name.” His face turned to shock as he exclaimed,”but I thought we were going all out this year?” He quickly came up with the solution of getting her the dates for the blood bank so she could sell her blood to buy him a present. I’ve said it before, he does not want his Christmas ruined.

Tonight I called him up at work on the eve of Thanksgiving to ask him a question for an assignment. Then he went into the usual “your mother is trying to kill me, she keeps making me ‘special’ cookies” conspiracy theory.

Next came the pity party. He told me to bring him a to-go box back from the Thanksgiving feast. He said he would probably just get “turkey tuna” to eat. Except he doesn’t have a can opener so he said he would just curl up next to it and cry.

“So when they are passing around the Who-Hash and mashed potatoes piled high as the eye can see just remember some people are still trying to get into their can of turkey tuna.”

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Life Lesson: Be thankful for what you have, because there is always someone out there trying to get into their can of turkey tuna.