Sandy McFadden

Thank You

This year I feel incredibly blessed for many reasons, and I’ll likely get into a more detailed post closer to the end. For now I just wanted to say thank you specifically to Pam one of my amazing new team mates.

Of course no Christmas Eve would be complete without one last trip to grab some forgotten things. So on my way out I stopped to check the mail. Even though I am still very new Pam had taken the time to send me a Christmas card with pictures of her adorable family on it.

Everyone on my team, and the company in general, has made me feel extremely welcome. We all work distributed and I haven’t met anyone face to face yet, so in this digital world of communication I find it’s all the more special to get a card sent in the mail.

Thanks Pam and I look forward to meeting you and everyone else very soon!

Disturbing Wakeup Call

As any parent knows broken sleep is pretty par for the course. There are still many nights when some kid will come into our room having a nightmare, or they aren’t feeling well.

This past while has been fairly bad because of a round of colds going through the house. It seems there has been at least one of them who is up coughing or waking up because they can’t breath through the night.

Last night however the kids slept great. Our cat Zeus however had other plans. It is a disturbing way to be jolted awake at 3:00am by the sound of a cat vomiting on your bed.

Our cross eyed Siamese friend was kind enough to try to get to the edge of the bed at least so only some of it landed on it. The rest splattered across the floor thanks to the height of the bed.

To top it off my wife got mad at me for not kicking him down off the bed. I of course apologized for not being totally aware of what was happening microseconds after being being ripped from my sleep.

If there is a positive to this story though it would be that it’s likely a good sign that at 3:00am, while cleaning up cat puke, you and your spouse are able to laugh with each other at the situation.

One on One Kid Dates

One of my favourite traditions that we started a few years back, is to go out on one on one Christmas shopping dates with our kids.

It’s not very often that we get to spend time alone with one of the kids so it’s nice when we get to do it.

We put let the kids draw either a Mom or Dad name out of a hat. This way we each get two dates. This year it actually worked out the exact opposite as last year. Ella and Noah came with me while Alexandria and Caile went with Jen.

The kids choose where they want to shop and we go pick out little gifts for them to give their siblings. We keep it small so under $10 for each gift.

The shopping is only part of it though. We also let the kids pick out a little snack of some sort and we go and do that with them as well.

I did both my dates today. Noah wanted A cheeseburger for his snack so we went to McDonalds for lunch and then hit the shops. When we were done and home at a good time Ella and I decided to head out in the afternoon for our date.

While Noah and I were able to do the shopping all in one store, with Ella we ended up at three different ones, but she was happy in the end with what she picked for everyone.

Then to top off the Big Mac I had for lunch, Ella and I had a hot fudge sundae from Dairy Queen. So many calories for a day but also a lot of fun too!

Christmas Café with Hot Chocolate

Tonight at our Church we held our annual Christmas Café. We get together with friends, very talented people get up and perform, and there are snacks and hot chocolate for everyone.

This year my two youngest Daughters Caile and Ella along with my twin nieces decided they would sing The First Noel. They did a wonderful job.

Last minute Alexandria found the courage to get over her stage fright and went up and sang Silent Night a capella.

Noah didn’t perform but he enjoyed the snacks. He even patient waiting for the hot chocolate to cool off. Just as it reached the right temperature he went to take a sip to test and promptly spilled a bunch on his leg. Without missing a beat he looked, grinned at me and said:

“It feels just about right.”

The Café is always one of my favourite nights and I’m very proud of my daughters for sharing their songs with everyone.

Hillbilly Cappuccino

Recently I picked up an AeroPress coffee maker which is absolutely fantastic. I’ve been making a pile of Americano style coffee.

Tonight I tried something different I made a very hurting attempt at a cappuccino.

I put some milk in a mason jar and shook the crap out of it. When it was all foamed up I put it in the microwave to hear it up.

From there I dumped the milk into the coffee and the foam on top of that. It was far from a real cappuccino but not absolutely horrible either. Next time I’ll heat the milk a bit more.

Good For Something

While tucking my son into bed tonight I gave him a hug, told him I loved him, and started leaving the room. He called me back.

“Just one more hug! Ah, I like you because you’re warm.”

At least I’m good for something I guess.

Why you should use WordPress.com

This is something I’ve given some thought to recently as well. Dan does a great job explaining the benefits of WordPress.com.

If you need a new website you should really check it out.

Daniel Danilov

After starting working at Automattic, I was surprised just at how little we advertise WordPress.com. Sure, we power ~24% of the sites, across WordPress.com and WordPress.org software. Yep, a quarter of all the sites available are currently run by some version of WordPress. However, after trying to simply Google “Why should I use WordPress.com”, or “Why should you use WordPress.com”, or “Benefits of using WordPress.com”, I was surprised to find out that neither of those answer the right question. What you do get instead:

* Why you should use WordPress.org.
* Why you should use WordPress.org plugins.
* Differences between WordPress.org and WordPress.com
* Random pages from WordPress.com support forums.

This sucked to find out. I’ve been working with WordPress.com for the past couple of months, and in all honesty, it could probably be ideal for 70% of all the people who are looking to build a site. The rest might benefit more…

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