For me, discovering the Shaytards’ daily video diary back in August was like stumbling upon a secret, alternate media universe that operated far away from the staged, dysfunctional antics of cable reality programs.

In a nutshell: After turning 29 in March, the dad (ShayCarl) decided to vlog each day leading up to his thirtieth birthday.  Eventually the vlogs included more footage of his wife (the lovely Mommytard) and their three young children (Sontard, Princesstard and Babytard).

In some ways, this has become the online equivalent of a reality show, although much more genuine.  Instead of being followed around by a production crew, ShayCarl and Mommytard record all their own footage with a single Flip camera.  Sometimes the camera is treated more like a toy, which adds a spontaneous element to the filming.

The result is a random series of observations, encounters and general shenanigans.  We’re literally carried along as this family works, eats, plays and goes shopping.  It’s unpredictable and very entertaining.  Of course, having a cute baby around helps.  But the most charming aspect is watching parents who obviously love one another spend time with their children.

There might not be any more daily videos after Shay turns thirty.  However, while it lasts, I’m just thankful this family decided to share such a sweet chronicle of their lives.

I didn’t receive an unemployment payment this week.  A few weeks ago, I filled out a form and was notified I’d been approved for an extension.  And then, even though I still had money left on my old claim to keep me going into January, I was given the same form to fill out again.  Then after that I learned I could file this upcoming Sunday, but with no guarantee that I’ll receive a deposit.  Was this supposed to be some sort of waiting week period?  Did I answer a question wrong?  Was this all some sort a data base hiccup?

I had helped a person in their home office for a few hours this week and expected to get a check for $90 when I saw him on Friday.  But there was a family emergency, and I won’t see him until Monday.

The thing is I thought my checking account was still hunky-dory.  In fact, on Thursday when I wrote checks for the phone and water bills I paid extra, so when I got around to balancing the checkbook doing the subtraction would be easier.

On Friday, I shopped for my family ornament exchange.  I used my bank card to purchase an angel ornament for my sister and a little snowman and Santa for myself.  Then I withdrew $60 from the ATM and found a glass bell ornament for my mom.  I also bought a venti coffee frapaccino and a Pick4 ticket for myself.

However, when I got home and started to balance my checkbook and see how close to zero I was getting, I learned that–with the mailed, not-yet-cleared checks–my checking account ended up being about forty-six dollars overdrawn.

Well, of course, the first thing I did was check and see if my Pick4 ticket was a winner.  Nope, it wasn’t.  Darn you, cute little snowman and Santa, even though you were 20% off.  Darn you, venti coffee frapaccino.

I had $41 dollars left over from my ATM withdrawal.  But where to get the other five dollars and some odd cents?  I dumped my penny jar, found dimes and quarters around the house in places like my laundry basket and on top of the refrigerator, but was still short.

Thank goodness, I recycle.  In fact, when I come across aluminum cans in parking lots I put them in a bag in my car trunk.  People toss beer cans into my yard.  I add those to the bag as well.  The bag wasn’t anywhere close to halfway full, but on the way to the bank this morning I stopped by the scrap yard and received $1.35 for basically collecting other people’s litter.

Once the phone and water bills clear on Monday, I’ll have a total of 91 cents still left in my checking account.  The lesson: it pays to recycle.  (Also: don’t put off balancing your checkbook)  Next time you’re driving and see aluminum cans on the ground, remember it’s the same as spotting loose change.  It adds up over time.  Or, in this case, at 45 cents a pound.

I’ve needed to get some exercise.  Parking my car and walking around short distances and picking up cans could be a way to burn calories and earn some quick change.  If one can is worth 2 cents then on the way to the bank and back home this morning I saw at least thirty cents lying along the streets.

Today has been cold and windy.  For me, the first day of a Midwest winter is when you must accept that your light jacket or sweatshirt just isn’t enough to keep you warm anymore.  The season for heavy coats has begun.

This morning at the gas station I watched other people standing beside their cars, miserable and freezing.  This one woman kept pulling half of her leather dress jacket tightly across herself with one hand while pumping gas with the other.

A week ago I had hopes the warm weather would last.  Ah, silly me. 

When autumn summer extends late into November and into December it’s sort of like going to school and having a substitute teacher.  And you get optimistic that the regular teacher, Winter, might be absent long enough, so you won’t have to deal with all that tough homework Winter assigns, such as coping with the wind chill factor, scraping ice-covered windshields and handling  slick pavement or digging out of snow banks.

In fact, you think when Winter returns he might be milder this time.  But then a morning comes and Winter is back with a snap quiz on what coat you should be wearing in December.

I dreamed I was driving on the east side of town, past a row of renovated businesses that I’d never seen before.  I think about stopping in one day and checking out this area, especially this cafe I spot.  Then I’m walking into that cafe, and immediately this black waitress starts calling me by my name.  She offers me pie.  She’s so happy to see me.

However, I have trouble remembering her first name, which is a problem I have in real life.  I’m terrible with first names.  But I know we attended school together.

I really want to know her name because she’s so pretty.  She wears a pink uniform with a little pink hat.  Her hair is shoulder length and  there’s something about her smile.  Also, for some reason I keep noticing her arms and how dark and smooth they are.

Eventually, her name comes to me: Veronica.  I tell her I stopped in because my new job involves working outside the office.  In fact, the person I work for needs an accountant.  Because I know she’s an accounting major perhaps she could apply for the position and mention my name as a reference.  We talk some more, and eventually I wake up.   I hope this dream is more prophetic than symbolic.  I’d really like to meet someone like Veronica.

I dreamed I was in what looked like an old abandoned factory.  I’m pouring gasoline on the floor of this large room.   The floor is covered with a least an inch or two of gasoline.  I can see the ripples in this large, shallow puddle.  I want to cause an explosion to escape the bad guys pursuing me.

All I need is to ignite something that I can toss into the room from a safe distance.  I look on the ground for something, but all I can find is an earthworm.  For some reason–perhaps dream logic–I think an earthworm will light up like a wick or paper.  I flick on my lighter, but I don’t want to burn this innocent worm.  I search for some other material or object.  Eventually, I give up and hope the people chasing me are smoking or somehow create a spark that causes the gasoline to explode.

I continue on through the factory, trying to make my escape.  It’s very dark., but I see the trio of men pursuing me because they have flashlights and laser scopes on their rifles.  Suddenly, I hear a narrator’s voice describing my actions.  I come across this ladder and equipment blocking my way, and the narrator says, “Then, just as he was about to make a clean getaway, he knocks down the ladder and alerts the gang to his whereabouts.”

I think, “Well, I had better be really careful getting around this ladder.”   But as cautious as I try to be,  my leg still gets snagged, causing the ladder to fall on me and make this clattering racket.  I get up and take off running with the bad guys close behind me.

I was raking leaves this evening when I noticed that my clematis was still blooming.  I also noticed blossoms in my strawberry patch. 

Usually, at this time of year, my goldfish barely want to eat, even on warm days.  A few of the larger ones might nibble on a pellet or two.  All a part of getting ready for winter.  But these last two weeks they’ve been gobbling down food as if it’s still summer.

It doesn’t do much good to put too much faith in Ohio weather; but I am hoping for a mild winter.

Today, I ended up solving someone’s website email problem.   Good thing too because the day before I had actually made the problem worse.  But they never found out, so I just call it a private learning experience.

This evening I attended a Hallmark club meeting where I mopped up playing Keepsake bingo.  I had an insanely good card.  I even called double bingo when I got a diagonal and a vertical row filled at the same time.  In all, I won a certificate for a free year’s membership, a lighted gingerbread house that plays “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” and so many coupons I ended up giving four away to the people at my table.

I dreamed I was driving on I-75 through downtown.   But then I was still on the interstate, but I was on foot rolling this large blue exercise ball.  It was snowing.  I remember a group of kids came up to the interstate to watch me push the ball, and I took some of the snow that was coating it and tossed some in their direction.

Then I was on a bridge with the ball.  I saw a group of people below (perhaps a family).  I was trying to teach a baby how to stand up and balance on top of the ball.

I finally got around to pruning the mulberry tree.  But what seemed like a matter of cutting back some low hanging branches turned out to be much more once I climbed the ladder and took a closer look.  Most of the branches had actually started growing straight up from the limbs.  But once their progress had been obstructed by higher branches that’s when they started growing downward.  So instead of a few snips, this turned out to be a pruning saw type of job, and that got stuck halfway through one particularly obstinate branch.  I had to use another saw to cut and wedge it out.

During this time, around the block, a couple of thieves took off with a couple’s pickup that had a fourwheeler in the back.  I did notice the truck go down the alley, but I was over twenty feet in the air at the time and couldn’t have given anyone a description of the suspects.

This meant police cars were cruising up and down the alley for a while.  It sucked because while I had the ladder out I wanted to climb up to the rear balcony of an abandoned house behind my property and close the door left ajar.  There’s a closed screen door in front of it, but I’ve worried winter snow and rain will still manage to get in and cause some water damage. 

It was night when I finally finished.  And just when I picked up the ladder and thought about walking a few feet over to close that door (seriously, it would have taken less than two minutes) a cop pulls into the alley. I walked towards my back gate, but the officer pulled alongside me and asked if the 32-foot, heavy ladder was mine.  When I said yes and had been using it for pruning, the cop said, “It’s a little dark to be pruning.”

“It was daylight when I started,” I replied.

I know this isn’t a great neighborhood, but did he think I was lugging this heavy, cumbersome thing around trying to make a getaway on foot or selling it for some quick cash?   “Hey man, are you looking for a 32-foot ladder?  I got one here that I can get ya real cheap.”

The last few nights I’ve been dreaming of homes that weren’t mine and have never seen before; and yet when I’m dreaming I strongly feel an attachment to them and want to move in, even if they turn out to be someone else’s home.  But in this dream (as well as  another one) there are three square-shaped homes built close together on top of a hill.  And I’m somehow aware that not all three homes are inhabited.  I feel happy because the one that I like hasn’t been bought yet, and I can possibly live there.

Then I’m at this Barnes and Noble type bookstore that I’ve been put in charge of.  It’s large and spacious,  and I’m walking alongside the company president, who is dressed in a very expensive suit.  He’s throwing out all these sales and marketing projections and using terms I’m not familiar with.  I do research them though.

I’m feel flying by the seat of my pants; but instead of thinking I’m unprepared for this position and am way over my head, this doesn’t feel like one of those dreams where I’m in school and unprepared for a test.  Instead, because this position just sort of fell in my lap, I have this feeling like, “Hey, let’s just see where this goes.”   This guy has all this faith in me because he believes my outside-the-box perspective will mean more sales.  He’s even bought me new clothes.  I go out in the parking lot and stomp on rain puddles.   I walk back towards the store.  The boss and another person are standing outside on the sidewalk.  I notice my shirt is splattered with dirty puddle water, but I just shrug it off.

Then I’m in a car driving with Charlie Crews from the tv show Life as well as a woman I believe is his partner.  We’re driving  around Monument Circle in Indianapolis at night.  Crews is in one of his zen reflective moments and going on and on about what makes paper so special and what it would be like to be surrounded by fresh paper all day.  We pass a Barnes and Noble.  I mention how I once ran a bookstore and start talking excitedly about the smell of newly printed pages.  Joining Crews in his excitement about the subject of paper irritates his partner.  I still don’t recognize the partner, but I’m so excited about being in an episode of Life.

We’re on top of this skyscraper with an amazing panoramic view of the city.  We’re there to question a nefarious eastern European couple concerning their whereabouts during a murder.  We have to make it through their bodyguards though.  And we do after some back and forth.  We turn the corner and the couple is throwing what seems like a party.

But the couple informs us that they are observing an acting class lead by a black woman that’s supposed to be this very famous acting teacher.  She conducts an acting exercise aimed at breaking down inhibitions.  Everyone in class is supposed to embody a wild animal.

She starts shrieking and lunging around, flailing her arms about.  Other students, who are also black, do likewise and soon are worked into a frenzy–except for one female student, who sits by a potted tree and tries reading a book.   She’s clearly irritated.  When asked, she says she thinks the exercise is demeaning and enforces negative stereotypes set by Hollywood.

The exercise goes on and the teacher gets closer and closer to the student.  And just when it seems something might happen, it does.  The teacher attacks the student like a predatory animal, clawing at her with a berserk strength.  The detectives tackle her.  Once she is subdued, a little boy appears and identifies her as the “noisy monster” who killed his mother.

At first, it seems the teacher’s motivation for attacking the uncooperative student was because she wouldn’t participate in the exercise.  Then it seems the acting teacher just made up the acting exercise as a cover to attack the student.  But then it’s revealed the acting teacher committed murder because in her mind it made her performance as a wild animal more authentic and allowed her to fully embody the character.

Looking back, my mind was probably thinking about alternative motives for the murder mystery, but in my dream it seemed like I was really solving this crime and discovering the killer’s true motive.

There was also a question about the nefarious couple who had been suspects, and if they had intentionally thrown this party so as to expose the true killer.  Then as the drama was winding down and the murderer led away, a voice that sounded like a DVD commentary announced that this would have been Life, Episode 4.21.  When I woke up I was sad because I so would have liked Life to have lasted four seasons.