If I could record all the phrases I said in a typical day, and turn it into a tag cloud, it would probably look something like this:
What would yours look like?
I’m a working stiff with three kids and an hour-each-way commute. I think that’s all the explanation needed for the long break, right? 
It’s not like I didn’t have anything to write about. Since my last post, Jamie had a birthday, Mary did some really cool stuff with squids for a science project (and I can’t believe I forgot to take pictures!), Claire started walking, I had to give our dog an emergency midnight bath, and Susan started finals in her grad classes. [...]
Over on waxy.org’s links, I found this list of Sesame Street videos on YouTube. Talk about bringing back some memories. I’ve always loved Capital I, and Atlanta band Rooke used to do a version of it that was just beautiful.
Other favorites include Mahna Mahna, The Ladybug Picnic, C is for Cookie, I Love Trash, and The Martians (yepyepyep). [...]
Our new dog, Spirit
I had hoped to post about this sooner, but several weeks ago, we got a dog. His name is Spirit, and he’s a border collie mix. We’re not sure what the mix part is, but I was wondering if he might have some setter in him. He’s about 16 months old, and weighs around 55 pounds. He’s had some training already, and is pretty good about obeying a ’sit’ command most of the time. [...]
We’ve been talking for a while about getting a dog. We had been leaning towards a golden retriever, but now we’re looking into maybe getting a border collie, due to their smaller size, and because they’re just darned cool. We know that, generally speaking, border collies tend to be very active. But we’re hoping to locate one that has a more laid back personality.
We figure that the pet that best matches us would be an indoor dog. But he (or she?) will be able to get daily exercise, because we’re sure that our oldest daughter would love to take him outside after school for walks or for chasing frisbees and such. [...]
There’s no place like…
For anyone who wasn’t already aware, my wife and I spent the last two weeks in the hospital with our son, Jamie, who had pneumonia. Scary stuff, that pneumonia. I hope nobody else we know ever gets it. Anyhow, Susan and I pretty much lived at the hospital the whole time Jamie was there, though we did manage to get some work done remotely, and Suze put in some face-time at her office here and there.
Jamie was released on Friday afternoon, and we were certainly glad to get home. It’s hard to imagine that we’ll ever get caught up on sleep (those fold-out chair/bed things are not the least bit comfortable, and nurses came in and out of the room every few hours during the night). [...]