jonathanhickman.com

The cuteness

If you commenters were wondering

By the way, last week I enabled gravatars on ye old blog. Gravatars (= globally recognized avatar) are a neat way of personalizing comments by associating your name (or email address, or some such) with a picture (a picture of anything). Personally, I think they’re really neat, but I am noticing that I’ve yet to have a commenter who uses them. So if you’re interested, go sign up for an account. It’s free and easy.

And if I can ever get Katie’s blogs upgraded to WordPress 2.5 (luddite), I’ll activate gravatars there, too.

I must frame this picture

Planning beach reading

I don’t really enjoy the beach for the water, the sand, or the sun. I love going to the beach because it’s relaxing, pressure free, and I can read a lot.

In years past, I’ve brought a lot of light reading - Jane Austen, Henry Fielding, George Eliot, etc. But this year I’ve got a few more responsibilities than I’ve had in the past (we didn’t make it to the beach last year). And I don’t really have much of a reading queue anyway.

So one of my goals for the next week or so is get a few good beach reading books ordered. But I have no clue how to start. Is there a pandora for literature?

Lotsa pictures coming

Our whole clan +1 went to Bell Buckle this weekend to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. I had a extraordinarily good weekend, and I’d like to think Katie had a pretty dern good mother’s day. I’ve got a lot of pictures to sort through, and I’m hoping to post the best of them throughout the day today.

It had been ages since I’d been to the Buckle, as we affectionately call it. During tax season I can’t really go off for the weekend; I’m guessing my last trip down was December. It was really good to see everybody and relax for a few days.

Of course that ultimately means that Katie and I are going to be on super house cleanup mode this week, since we missed our usual weekly house cleaning day.

But it’s all good.

To C:

You know, C, if you hate waking up so much, you could always sleep a bit longer.

Seriously, enough with the spiders already

Even though I’ve got a nice fire going inside, I’m sitting here on my front porch in the chilly, rainy evening, enjoying the weather and goofing around on the internet.

And twice now I’ve had a spider (one was at least an inch and a half long) join me in surfing the intertubes.

And I do not appreciate it.

You’d think NPR would bore her to sleep

For some reason - cuteness, perhaps - the Bug sleeps really well in the car … when music is playing. I have to maintain a good selection of cds in the car so I won’t go insane. But I can’t listen to NPR - she simply won’t sleep. The last thing I need is a thirty minute commute with a fussy baby.

Doesn’t it seem like she’d sleep well to NPR? Shouldn’t she find it boring? Shouldn’t my turning it on directly lead to her nodding off? All I know is it doesn’t. She will only very rarely sleep to anything but music, and woe unto me if I give something else a try.

Oh, and she sleeps the worst when her mother is talking. Katie simply cannot talk in the car. Of course that’s not a problem for my daily commute.

I guess it could be worse. At least she doesn’t sleep best to absolute silence.

Need new clothing

Every now and then, my boss (& dad) gives me a clothing allowance to help me build up my professional wardrobe.

It couldn’t've come at a better time this week. I’ve finally got some nice new shoes, and I need a whole lot more shirts. For years, I’ve been wearing short-sleeved button up shirts during the summer at the office.

You see, we often don’t use a lot of air conditioning when the weather is nice. I keep a thermometer on my desk, and this morning it was reading 78 degrees when we got up to turn on the a/c. Downstairs is a whole ‘nother matter; they don’t turn on the a/c just because it’s eighty degrees. Oh no.

So I’ve tended to wear a lot of short-sleeved shirts, but it’s time to transition to nicer, cotton, professional looking long-sleeve shirts, even if they’re not as cool in the warm weather. I’ve just got to figure out where to get what and get on it. Like I said, this couldn’t've come at a better time.

Congress is full of men?

Tax laws often seem like they’re made by the wrong people. Instead of tax professionals writing tax laws, politicians are in charge. And sometimes it gets worse than that, such as with the child and dependent care credit:

So, if those taxpayers who make a lot of money don’t benefit - and those who find it difficult to pay for child care don’t benefit - who exactly benefits from the child tax credit? Ironically, based on pure economics, it’s someone who doesn’t need the credit at all: a taxpayer who works for wages (ideally, issued a W-2) and whose spouse makes enough money to pay for child care out of his or her salary. Maximum economic benefit - and it makes no sense.

What kind of policy are we pushing here? The clear policy message that we’re sending - mostly for mothers - is “stay at home” unless you marry well.

I’m not entirely clear on who she’s saying benefits, but I am clear on who doesn’t benefit: just about everybody.

It’s an interesting read.

The baby is asleep 30 minutes before closing time

Great. The child who refused to sleep all day is now fast asleep in my lap, and it’s thirty minutes before closing time.

My great fear when this happens is that she will get a good nap and then be awake and fussy for the +30 minute commute. I’d almost rather wake her now and leave work early, hoping she’ll fall back asleep once in the car.

Of course the best case scenario would be 30 minutes of sleep now followed by 30 minutes of sleep in the car, with just a brief interlude in the middle.

But experience tells me that’s unlikely.

Joy.