This is Corny. You’ve Been Warned: I’ve dubbed this The Mint Drewlep

Oh god, my heart hurts for making that drink title. All I wanted in life the other day was an adult beverage that would cool me off as the temperatures rise here in Southern Mexico. When I dug around and found “mint julep” I thought for sure I had a winner, but this god forsaken drink is primarily bourbon.

I’m a scotch drinker.

The recipe went as follows:

• 2 oz Bourbon (For the Drewlep version, use scotch)
• 1 tsp sugar (Personally I would at least double that amount of sugar)
• 2 tsp water
• 4 sprigs of mint

Grind up the sugar, mint and water in a cup. Fill a second glass with shaved ice, pour in whiskey, pour in sugar/mint. Stir.

I don’t have a small enough measuring cup for two ounces. I do, however, have an infant.

The verdict? I sort of prefer my whiskey straight with a piece of ice, but that doesn’t work on a hot summer day. This does. I dig it, and will try it again with more sugar in future versions of the Mint Drewlep.

In case it is in any way unclear: No children imbibed any alcohol at any point, no matter how curious this one was. It was Tuesday after all. We save the hard liquor for Fridays. I mean, duh.

It began, as these things always do, with Christine saying “Yes, go for it.”

We’ve talked extensively for years about parenting philosophy. Intellectually, I am on board with her more flexible “free range-ish” idea, that we want to foster independence and fun in our children’s life. However,  I grew up in an environment that allowed me a lot of freedom to adventure on my own but was also fraught with constant worry over pretty much everything I ever did or might do or what might happen. This has created a truly obnoxious combination of Free-Range-Helicopter parenting.

It’s frustrating to be this person. It’s very likely more frustrating to be around this person.

Somehow though, when I heard Christine utter the word “Yes” as Cole looked up at us with a large bucket of flour, I just released any hope of trying to control this moment at all. If you had witnessed it you may have seen my shoulders slump in resignation, but it was actually liberating. Stella needed to be bounced to sleep, so I sat at the end of the bed and witnessed, Clockwork Orange-style, as my toddling son covered the dogs in flour, covered the guest room floor with flour, and basically had the most excellent time that a kid could possibly have.

It’s what makes parenting a child at this age worthwhile. I hope I can resign myself to allowing awesome experiences to happen more often, because it was totally worth the cleanup the next morning.

When the house came up on craigslist, we contacted the landlord immediately, less than an hour after it was posted. The American owner told me “It’s a very Mexican neighboordood”. We have come to learn that all this really means is that it’s loud and dusty. We absolutely love it.

Roof dogs are a thing here. Often loud and annoying, occasionally curious and adorable.

All foods seem to taste better in Mexico. Pineapple, which I never cared for, is amazing. Apples taste like candy. Even my arch-nemesis cilantro is bearable.

This one is a bit of a cheat as it’s in “downtown” bucerias, half a kilometer away. Cole is telling me to mind my own business and go eat while he plays.

There is no shortage of places to eat. Our general rule: If there are other people frequenting a place, it’s for a reason. Eat there.

I’ve developed some creative and workflow habits over uh, my entire adult life that I’ve feel like I’m starting to address, and I thought it might be useful to anyone else who feels blocked up creatively.

I get most of my work for the day done before anyone else wakes up – this is the way it has to be, I have too many moving pieces looking after two wiggly children all day. I’ve always been a morning person, but any parent will you that sleep is a luxury. I’ve had a nightmare time trying to actually get up early enough to be productive, and when I was getting up, I would sit at my computer with a coffee, barely awake, trying to make sense of emails and figuring out what part of The Wireless Generation needed to be worked on. What ended up happening is I check Facebook, Huffpo, BoingBoing, look at porn, all the BS ways people get sucked into the vortex of “HOLY SH*T YOU GUYS ARE AWAKE WHAT HAVE I DONE?” Everything suffered.

I’ve read most of The Power of Habit (link goes to Kindle version) by Charles Duhigg, and while I don’t know if everyone would find it useful, I did take one important bit of information away from it; sometimes the way to change a habit is to change just one thing, that may or may not even be related to the habit you are trying to change. I decided to only change what I did first thing in the morning.

Instead of trying to cram emails in or goof off, I would make horrible, horrible drawings.

This is the only one I dare show you. This was done in Sketchbook Pro for the iPad, unlike the Hulk piece from the last post which was done in Paper, also for the iPad.

Every morning, as soon as I wake up, I pour myself a glass of water, take my son’s iPad and a $9 stylus and spend 20 minutes drawing while standing up. No coffee, no breakfast, no emails. Just a blank screen and whatever my sleepy brain thinks of. Many writers swear by this for writing, so I thought it might work for me as well. It has.

At the end of the 20 minutes, my synapses seem to be firing in a different way than they would if I were engaged in some other activity.The act of having to make decisions from scratch seems to make me generally more alert, so after doing a horrible drawing, I look up and my first thought is “Okay well that was painful. What’s next?” I make myself coffee and get started on something else that is productive and usually creative, holding off on emails until later in the day.

The results have been pretty great so far. I very rarely take freelance jobs these days unless the project is fun or some old co-worker of mine really twists my arm, but I found time to design this monkey for these guys.

I have been promising Christine for years that I would grow her shop into something big and fun, and now in the margins of my day I have finally started doing that. I’m particularly happy with how this one came out:

I have a ton in the queue as well, but I actually wanted to send out a challenge to whoever is up for it:

SEND ME YOUR DUMBEST IDEA

Do you have a very dumb idea you would like to see on a T-Shirt? Let me know in the comments, and I will choose one winner’s idea to immortalize on clothing. Clothing is immortal, right? I won’t be picking these randomly, and you get points for thinking of the most insanely dumb thing possible. Seriously, I’m thinking this level of so dumb it is totally awesome:

The reward for your dumb idea is that it becomes a t-shirt that Christine has for some reason insisted can go in her shop. I will also send the idea maker a Tee of their own (or to whomever you wish we send it to). Just leave a comment with your idea to enter and I will choose a winner sometime mid-week, and announce it next Monday!

This seems like a simple contest, yes? Enter as many times as you like, and may the silliest idea win!