Geeky Catholic Dad

This past weekend, I finished a project that's been in the works for over a year: a custom box for The Han Solo Card Game (referred to within the Star Wars universe as Sabacc). I've written in the past about my love for tabletop games . Occasionally, that hobby has inspired me to dip my toes into the DIY world. I made a few custom inserts for some of our board games (one for Legendary: A Marvel Deck-Building Game and one for Killer Bunnies). But this project was by far the most extensive. So if you'd like to see how I did it, just keep reading.

There comes a time in a man's life where he starts seriously thinking about the future. He ceases to think only about his own wants and needs, and begins to consider more important things. Instead of worrying about trivial matters, like which Star Wars movie he's going to watch that night, he shifts his focus to other people. I remember this happening to me when I was in college. I asked myself a very important question: "How am I going to introduce Star Wars to my kids?" You laugh, but there are a myriad of issues to consider there. At what age is your youngling old enough to watch the films? Which film do you start with? Do you go in order of release, starting with the original? Or in chronological order, starting with The Phantom Menace ? (When I was in college, there were only two trilogies to think about, but now there is a new - and incomplete - trilogy being made, and stand-alone films coming out in between the saga films.) What if you're too forceful (n...

As many of you probably know, Charles Robert - our fourth child - was born a few weeks ago. He is our second living child. Between Timothy (our oldest) and Charles, we had two miscarriages. We lost Lucy at 11 weeks and Elliot at almost 17 weeks. Because of this, and because of the circumstances of Timothy's birth (see Timothy's Story here), this pregnancy and delivery was very different than our first.

Father and son, making faces When Jess and I were engaged, we had several discussions about how many kids we wanted. Ultimately, we settled on at least three, and at most twelve. Really, we just wanted to have as many kids as God would send us. After we got married, we started trying to get pregnant right away. But month after month, we were unsuccessful. Jess had been told previously by a doctor that she probably had endometriosis, and might have trouble getting pregnant. So she asked her OB at the time about it. But everyone she talked to said that we would have to try for about 2 years - or 1 year at the very least - before they would even start investigating any possible causes of infertility. Meanwhile, the endometriosis was also causing Jess to have very painful periods once a month, but her doctors refused to look into it.