Oh The Joys

of working at home. With all my travels over the past month, this is the first day I've had to work at home in quite a while. I hope to get some writing done on a manuscript that has been pushed to the back burner for way too long.

One of the things I love about academia is the autonomy. I can work at home, the beach, or anywhere else that I so choose as long as I have the resources I need -- usually a computer and Internet connection -- to do my research, grade papers, etc. Of course, I have to be in the office and/or department at various times to teach and for meetings; however, I treasure the time that I can spend at home, the beach, etc. working. I don't think I would be happy in an 8-5 job where I had to be in an office each day.

Here's to many more days of working at home!

Be Wary . . .

of reading the newspaper on Thursdays and thinking that the movie times will be the same on Friday! I took off a little early this afternoon to go see Sex and the City (which was one of my favorite TV shows!). I arrive at the movie theater only to see that today they're only showing it once in the morning and then late tonite. Bummer! I was so looking forward to seeing it.

Prevalance of Blogs

I was at a conference Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. At a session yesterday with 25 or so participants who all work in one way or another in fields related to STEM (science, technology, engineering, or mathematics) and who were almost all women, I asked how many people had blogs. Only 2 people raised their hands (and I was one of them). I was really surprised at this. Given the STEM fields these people were in, I would have thought there would have been more people who reported having blogs. I wonder what percentage of US adults report having blogs. I imagine the Pew Internet & American Life project website (www.pewinternet.org) has a report somewhere with this stat. Does anyone know the stat?

Do many of your friends and colleagues have blogs?

How Do ICTs Impact Your Relationships?

I am sitting here awake at almost 3 AM (don't ask why I'm awake at this hour!) and looking at some blogs that I haven't taken the time to peruse lately. There was an interesting blog posting in the Juggle from a week or so ago. The topic was 'doing marriage by email' (or something similar) - http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2008/06/12/conducting-marriage-by-email/.

Do you use email, texting, IMing, etc. in your relationships? If so, how often do you use it/them? And, what impact do you think using these information and communication technologies (ICTs for short) applications has on your relationships? And, how do the impacts vary as a function of the type of relationship (ex. spouse vs. friend vs. cousin who lives in Boise)?

Back in DC Again

This makes twice in a 7 day period. I must say though -- the hotel this time is an incredibly neat old hotel - the Omni Shoreham. My room is huge, which is a nice change from the hotel last week!

I flew US Air today. As usual, both flight segments were sold out. I noticed that US Air lets you check one bag for free, but the second one will cost you $25! We were offered a beverage while flying, but no peanuts or snacks of any kind. I recall hearing that some airlines were planning to eliminate snacks. I have to wonder - how much $$ are they saving by not giving us a tiny bag of peanuts or pretzels?

I wonder what will be next -- some airlines are already charging you to check your bags outside the terminal. At the B'ham airport, Delta charges $3 to do this.

Any ideas what airlines will try to charge us for next?

Baby Bear, Baby Bear ...

What Do You See?

Callen and I went to story time at Barnes & Noble this morning. Before it started, Callen was pulling some books from the shelves and reading them. I noticed that she pulled one out and knew the name of it before I read it. We started reading it and she knew almost all the words; in fact, she was leading me in reading it. I was so surprised! I'm sure they must read this book at her school. It was very neat. Of course, I had to buy the book so we could show Bo her 'reading' ability : ).

Video from YouTube - I'm Voting Republican...

Forwarded by my husband from a friend in VA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiQJ9Xp0xxU

How often ...

does work get in the way of things you want to do? This weekend we were supposed to be in NC at a mini-grad school reunion. Unfortunately, however, with me being sick week before last and then being out of town for a conference last weekend I was way behind on some proposal reviews that had to get done by today. So, we didn't go. I was really looking forward to seeing everyone, hanging out, and seeing an area of NC to which I had not previously been. I hope our friends don't think badly of us. I know they went to a lot of trouble to organize this. I hope the others had fun! Maybe Beth or Jammie will send us some pix so we can see all the fun stuff that they did.

Do you find that work gets in the way of doing things you want to do? I know I struggle with this a lot, especially as a parent. Work-family balance is very hard I think. Luckily I have a great husband and I don't worry about leaving Callen when I go out of town for work; but I do miss having those times with my family.

For those who work, how do you do the work-family balance? Does it get easier with time?

More Precocious By The Day...

Callen got in trouble at school today. Evidently she was taking toys away from some of the other kids and her teacher Ms. Emily asked her to stop taking the other kids' toys. Callen's reply was "No." According to her teachers this is the first time Callen has talked back to them. She was put in time out to think about her actions. She's been talking back more lately at home too. Any suggestions for how to 'nip this in the bud'?