When I woke up this morning, Nathaniel was poking me in the side of the head. He was beginning to whine a bit, so I tried to hold him for a bit to see if he'd go back to sleep. I was still tired and of course Stephanie was as well since she was up with him five or six times in the night. He did relax for a little while, but not too long; so I got him up, changed his diaper and took him into the living room to play for a while so that Stephanie could get some sleep. She managed to sleep until nearly 10:00, probably for the first time since 2008. She felt guilty about sleeping so long, but I was glad that she could get at least a little bit of rest.

After she got up, we took a walk down to the bank to deposit some checks and to get me some money for my trip to KC this weekend. After the bank, we went to Baker's Square for lunch. I worked at this restaurant for a while in high school. In looking for a place to work a bit during the next 280 odd days, this place is simply not on the list. Not only is it a kind of work that doesn't pay particularly well or provide much in the way of fringe benefits that might make it worth my while, there are people working there who were working there when I did in the late 90s. While this in and of itself isn't too horrible -- apart from the indignity of returning to work there after finishing two degrees at great expense -- these are not people with whom I would like to work again. In fact, if I were to get one of these people as a waitress, I would probably not leave a tip due to lingering (and over 10 years old) irritation with them.

Moving on.... when we got home, I decided to do the spring raking, since the weather was nice. I pulled out my iPod classic, and synced in a couple of new audiobooks. I began Moneyball which I hadn't ever intended to read, but on discovering what it wasn't (really a book about statistics,) I am quite enjoying it. After finishing Michael Lewis' Home Game with great enjoyment, this is similarly a fun read. It took me almost three hours to get it all done, and I felt like I was covered in dust by the time I was done, since I raked up all the pine needles and small little twigs from the pine tree as well. I came in and Stephanie had watched about half of Citizen Kane before Nathaniel woke up from his nap, and so we finished that and put him to bed.

A busy day, but really not much happened.

Tomorrow, we're taking him to see Stephanie's mom for most of the day so that we can get some interior spring cleaning done. With a bit of luck, we'll be able to get at least half of the big jobs we have planned finished with this day of work. We want to organize the upstairs, clean out and organize the furnace room, finish the office (which is at a stage which requires the furnace room be done before it can be finished) and organize the rolltop desk in the living room. Ambitious, but definitely doable, especially with Nathaniel being babysat by grandma, oma and opa.