The Small Family     

Hi everyone…it’s Chris this week. Most of you know that Cathy and I met in grad school about 5 years ago, when we were learning to be college-level English teachers. One of the writing strategies that we learned was called a quick write or a free write, which was essentially having the students write about whatever was on their mind, sometimes in response to a prompt, and sometimes about nothing in particular. Since I’m writing this at the tail end of a long weekend trip to San Jose, I thought I might use the same strategy. Usually, I’m a bit of a perfectionist as a writer, so we’ll see how I do in terms of writing whatever comes to mind, in whatever order it comes out. Wish me luck!

Recent weeks have not had the best of financial news in our household. Sure, the big things, like our health and Theo’s continuing evolution into the future ruler of the world are in good shape, but other things like finances are really causing us some gray hair. The bad economy has come to roost in ways other than the ever-dropping home prices around us. We certainly can't claim to be in bad shape (we can still afford Disneyland trips, etc.), but we were hit with an extra large, unplanned tax bill and IRA contribution this year, so we were intending to use a line of credit we have with Bank of America that we kept for just such emergencies. Easily our best option, since the interest rate and payment amount are fixed. We had about two-thirds of the line available…or so we thought. In spite of our great credit score and payment history on the account, BofA denied us any further funds from that account, and they really won't explain why. (This on top of Citi denying our refinance request a couple weeks back.) The good news is that we're not out of options, but the others certainly have their drawbacks...lots less cash in savings and much more on emergency credit cards than planned, which will take much longer to pay off. Such is life in 2010, I guess!

On the good news front with work, too, Cathy has taken on a new (trial) client called Demand Studios, which involves editing small articles for web publishing as opposed to the large technical books she typically tackles. It's proving to be a nice, fun change for her, but the challenge is going to be seeing whether she can negotiate a workable quota with them. (Currently, the quota is such that she’ll have to find 10 more hours per week to work in her already full schedule.) I may join her on a few -- they look interesting! Tech books will continue to be her bread and butter -- she really enjoys her work with Cengage and doesn’t intend to give it up. But diversifying is never a bad idea when you’re freelance…just in case one company’s work suddenly dries up.

Also on the good side, this has been a pretty big week in my half of Theo’s family. We welcomed my cousin Bill and his wife Sarah’s son, Liam, into the world. He was about a week later than planned, but I’ve learned with Theo that kids do things on their own time, including making their debuts! Mom, son, and dad are doing well, and we’re thrilled for them. On top of that, my nephew Nikolas celebrated his second birthday last week, and my Aunt Barbara and Uncle David (from Texas) are out visiting my parents for a few days, so Cathy, Theo, and I packed up and drove down to spend some time in San Jose this weekend. We went down on Saturday in the late morning and visited with my parents, Barbara and David, plus my sister Tanya, Steve, and Nik for most of the afternoon and into the evening. My mom and dad cooked a really good corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, etc. dinner as an early St. Patrick's Day occasion. (Theo proved to be a big corned beef fan.) We retired to the Sheraton up in Sunnyvale afterward, which we highly recommend for anyone with a toddler because of the low price and the regular-sized cribs they offer. (Theo slept pretty well, but woke us up fussing a few times, a la Disneyland last week.)

Sunday was a big family get-together at my parents' house for both Nik's birthday and my aunt and uncle's visit. We actually started off the day intending to visit Bill, Sarah, and Liam in Soquel, but things tend to get crazy with a baby in the NICU, so we all decided best to wait a few weeks until everyone's settled. Instead, we drove down to my mom and dad's house early and took Theo down to Terrell Park, where I went to elementary school. He had fun climbing the equipment briefly, before taking off running across the grass fields around it. We then took him for a drive up I-280 (beautiful day out in the hills) for a nap (for him -- I haven’t mastered napping while driving yet!) before heading back for the party at 2:00. It was a lot of fun with a lot of people (small in my family means upwards of 20), and it was really cool to watch the boys playing with and alongside each other. Theo was particularly fond of rearranging my dad's DVD collection, and he and Nik traded off with their favorite little push cart in the back room. Theo and Cathy ventured back over to Terrell to knock on classroom doors during present-opening (Theo was ready for a change of scenery by then…and we figured he might have a bit of trouble understanding why those fun toys were not all for him!!), so Theo was quite ready to crash by the time he had a little more dinner and some time in the car seat!

Before signing off on this week's entry, on the slightly humorous end, I’m sure Cathy and I have both talked about our Starbucks addiction. Well, this week, it became more or less formal addiction. Starbucks has sent us both "gold cards" -- essentially a Starbucks credit card, replete with our names printed on the front. I have to admit that I was a little embarrassed to use it the first few days, but the promise of a free drink after every 15 purchased, plus one on my birthday, is a bit too much to pass up. The irony is that we're really trying to be better about it this year -- see the aforementioned tax bill -- but they don't make it easy, do they? :)

Talk to you again soon, everyone -- enjoy the pictures this week!