Jennifer and I both had Martin Luther King Day off from work, which made for a three day weekend. Dr. King was actually born on January 15th, so this is one of the years in which the national holiday coincides with his birthday. If I do something amazing such that my birthday is celebrated as a national holiday, I want it celebrated on the day every year. Just saying.

For the last several months I’ve struggled with writing about my kids; particularly Anna. She is getting to an age now where I think she has some right to privacy and it won’t be very long before she is able to read all this stuff I’m writing about her. Yet, she’s not quite old enough to grasp the concept of “everybody” when I say that everybody can read this. In any case, if she were able to grasp what sort of people there are on teh internets, she probably would not be favorable to me blathering away about her. I’m really not the blathering type anyway, at least not in person.

I can, however talk about myself and say that I have been doing a lot of blog reading these days. Apart from techy stuff and my friends’ blogs and the always funny Scott Adams, I read Dreamdust, Jonniker. There are so many good writers out there, but just like people you tend to gravitate toward some for reasons unknown.

For our long weekend we were mostly hunkered down in the house because it has been unacceptably cold. I was out on Saturday night and the temperature was below freezing when I got home, which I’m sure must be a violation of some city ordinance. I went out this morning in the backyard, but quickly moved to the south-facing front of the house with Anna, so my foray into long pants was happily short lived, as the weather turned warm finally. I managed to straighten up in the garage while Anna painted some contraption she had made by gluing pieces of wood together. I convinced her to let it dry on top of the garbage can for now, and she didn’t seem to catch on that was mostly for my own convenience.

I’m glad to be facing only a four-day week of work, but I have to admit that things are less crazy busy than they used to be. I’m now at a part of the project were I don’t have any significant deadlines facing me. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have a ton of work to do–I really do–but I have some flexibility about what I do and when I do it because nothing in particular is on fire at this time. It’s a nice feeling. For me it’s a relief not having to rein in my technological wanderlust in order to meet deadlines. I really like to flow from problem to problem; it’s the situation where I do my best work. Some day, I hope to land some sort of dream job in which I only have to complete the first 20% of any given

Recovered as we are from our previous condition of having stuff flying out of us, we can consider things a little more back to normal. Jennifer took the longest to recover, and thankfully Tara never had anything. I am starting to be convinced that it was a virus rather than food poisoning, though. Jen thought from the start that this was the case, and I thought it was just wishful thinking, that she was not willing to boycott the local sushi place. We have run in to some other people who have also been sick with something similar, and worse yet, some people we have run into have become sick, so the prevailing evidence is that it was some sort of bug. If you’re reading this from the toilet, um. sorry.

In other news, I have really started to notice a difference with the Strattera. This whole week at work I have absolutely felt like Superman. More exactly said, I have been nearly indistractable, even in the face of the demoralizing uncertainty which poisons our office atmosphere. Even better, my insurance approved coverage of the drug, which runs something like $125/month.

Last night we made another outing to Souplantation at Anna’s request. For my money, this is the best value in going out to dinner. It’s not fancy, but both of the kids behave because we can be eating within 20 minutes of leaving the house, and it costs less than $25 for the three of us to eat, including tip. There is enough variety to satisfy even Anna’s picky palate, and some of the food is even healthful. Yes, I am an old, married, father of two.

I can’t remember if I’ve posted that Tara has sprouted two teeth. They’re really starting to come in now, and she is even starting to use them to bite things now. She stretches her mouth comically wide, like a little jack-o-lantern, and moves her jaw up and down, saying “yaayaayaayaayaa.” She has started doing this when a bottle is stuck in her mouth, which is a habit Jennifer would not like to see catch on. Tara is expanding her solid food repertoire, and lately has 3-4 oz. of food three times a day. What a chow hound.

There is even gadget news, as I have a “new” PDA. It’s a notebook. Yes, it’s true, I’m actually tracking my to-do list on paper. The last reasonable all-around PDA I ever had was a Palm; my cell phone is now a great tool for tracking my schedule and contacts, but my to-do list has always been a problem. No portable method of entry (even a small keyboard) can compare with a pen and paper as far as I’m concerned, and to-do’s seem to be the most demanding PDA items on a speed-of-entry basis. I just bought a 3×5″ spiral-bound pad in a little leatherette case with a pen loop, but I have a Moleskin reporter-style notebook on order; it’s much smaller, yet better ergonomically because of the flip-top binding.

This morning, Anna and I put my mom and grandma on a plane to go back to their respective homes. When we arrived home, Anna lamented, “We have no grandmas.” Sadly true.

The week featured a trip to the zoo, some shopping, lots of cleaning, some lounging, and a lot of really good food. Every time I see my grandma, I can’t help but indulge in freshly made tortillas, eggs, bacon, and potatoes–my comfort food. Other than eggs and the occasional bacon, I rarely eat any of it anymore, but this week I was just out of control. I can’t help it.

My leave is now over, and I’ll be heading back to work on Monday. We are starting preparations for the acceleration in morning routine this change will necessitate¹. Monday is Jennifer’s day off, so it will be a dry run for us. We need to have bags packed and ready to go in advance. Morning routine will need to be executed quickly and with as little guidance as possible. I’ll be trying to get out the door as quickly as possible, leaving Jennifer with the brunt of the work, so that I can get out of work as soon as possible to pick the kids up, spend some time with them, and make dinner.

Last night, Jen and I got out to see Wedding Crashers. We both thought it was great. I have to say that I think Rachel McAdams looks a lot like Jennifer Garner, but I give the edge to Rachel. Nevertheless, it was just was what we were looking for at the time. I’d even see it again.

Also, what with date night going on, I forgot to take my Strattera, so I took it this morning. Ick. The side effects mentioned are drowsiness and nausea, and I probably would have fallen asleep if I didn’t feel so sick to my stomach. On the upside, I think I actually felt the positive effects today; I hardly felt like I was fighting to keep focus at all. I’d say I got a fair amount of stuff done. The real test comes Monday.

¹ That sentence sucked. Cut me a break, I was once a professional technical writer.