The week that was - November 19, 2011

It's been a busy week around the Seastrunk household. I had to make an early exit from the deer lease last weekend to come home and help out with Caleb. Caleb is a great kid, but he's definitely a strong-willed child. I think if we just had him, we would be able to give him the time and attention he craves as he's extremely bright and curious about everything. But with that curiosity and will comes another side that is constantly pushing his limits to find out where our rules end. After a call with Amber after she spent 3+ hours attempting to keep Caleb in his room for bedtime, we packed up and headed home Saturday morning.

With me home, Caleb got some more attention and we were able to trade off on his discipline, but he was at it again on Monday. I had to leave a bit early as he again refused to stay in his room for a nap even after Amber had told him that he must. We now have a lock on Caleb's door, but have made a deal with Caleb that it will only be locked if he refuses to stay in his room. Otherwise the door remains unlocked.

I have to say that we have been very pleased with the book Setting Limits with Your Strong-Willed Child. I downloaded the book from my deer stand Saturday morning and made it through the 3rd chapter prior to heading out for breakfast. It was comforting and a bit unsettling to see that others have children just like Caleb. But at least we're not the only parents with bright yet difficult young children. The methods the author lays out have worked wonderfully with Caleb - so much so that he actually asked Amber to help draft a paper with the new rules of the house. As bright as the kid is and as much as he craves structure and loves arguments, perhaps we have a future lawyer.

I'm just thankful (especially for Amber) that the principles we're picking up have begun to make the house much more peaceful. I'm not sure I could have handled the additional stress of the house after this week at work (so much for a nice quiet week leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday). I am quite glad the weekend has arrived and look forward to spending some time with the family tomorrow as we hope to watch TCU clinch yet another (and TCU's final) Mount West football title.

Gabe reading "A Very Hungry Caterpillar"

One of Gabe's favorite books to read before bed each night is A Very Hungry Caterpillar which he has just about memorized. We love hearing his voice as he reads along with Amber that we had to record him doing it before he gets any older. Here's the audio: Gabe reading A Very Hungry Caterpillar

Here's to Six Wonderful (and eventful) Years!

Seastrunk Wedding | January 15th, 2005Six years ago today Amber and I were joined together in holy matrimony. We agreed that day to stick with each other for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health until death do us part - after six years it seems we've lived out each of those vows.

We never could have known the ups and downs and bends in the road of our marriage - who could have foreseen that at our third anniversary we'd be expecting our third son?! We've been through home fire scares, being rear-ended, aches, pains, thousands of diaper changes, late night feedings, wet beds, toddler tantrums, and are now battling through Crohn's Disease, but through it all we've been foremost a team.

We've enjoyed trips to Rocky Mountain National Park, Paris, two Caribbean cruises (one modified by a hurricane!), and numerous Texas adventures. Amber's accompanied me to football and baseball games and been my favorite sports buddy, though I look forward to when we're able to camp more often.

Given these past six years, I know one thing for certain... the future holds far more than I could ever imagine today. Here's to six great years with many more to come! Thank you, Amber, for marrying me six short (and sometimes long - depending on the boys' day) years ago. It's been quite a ride!

The Sabbath in Modern Society

Considering our family's hectic pace, an article and blog entry caught my eye this week. It seems like life for us is a day to day race filled with watching kids, work, cleaning, etc. day after day, week after week. A sort of Groundhog Day existence if you will. While we love our kids and enjoy being active, it is exhausting not having many breaks to stop and actually relax.

Judith Shulevitz's column in the Star-Telegram this past Sunday spoke of rediscovering the meaning of the Sabbath in modern times. Having grown up in the Bible Belt, I still recall blue laws where you could only buy certain things on Sundays (and toys were excluded, much to the dismay of children) - the Sabbath was not just a religious observance, but part of secular society. Today it seems we have lost the tradition of resting once a week. Now Sundays are filled with shopping, sports, work, etc., (even on Sunday morning!) When do we take the time to stop and reflect on our lives? Or even to just breathe?

I can't say we will be able to do it every weekend, but I hope to be able to build some rest time into our schedule - I know I need it and I think our boys do, too. Some of the best times, discoveries, and memories are generated from unstructured and unplanned time together.

And it's not limited to just families - Tony Schwartz of the Harvard Business Review published a good blog this week about productivity noting that less is more:

The way we're working isn't working — for employees or for their employers. There is a better way to fuel productivity and high performance. The first key to changing the way we work is recognizing that the value of those you manage isn't generated by the number of hours they work, but rather by how much value they produce during the hours we are working. Working longer hours, juggling more tasks and answering more emails isn't the solution.

As every great athlete understands, the highest performance occurs when we balance work and effort with rest and renewal. The human body is hard-wired to pulse, and requires renewal at regular intervals not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally.

Unfortunately, rest and renewal get no respect in the organizational world. Instead, most managers instinctively view those who seem to need time for rest and renewal as slackers.

But what are the costs of working continuously? Do we think as clearly, creatively and strategically, or work as effectively with colleagues and clients, in the 10th or 12th or 14th hour of a workday devoid of real breaks, as you do in the 2nd or the 4th?

Of course not. And that's because human beings aren't wired to operate like computers.

Amber and I are looking forward to a good break tonight with an evening out together sans kiddos along with a full night's sleep since they'll be staying with Amber's parents'. While it won't be on Sunday, we'll definitely enjoy our Sabbath this week and hope everyone else finds time for one as well.

Happy Tax Day

It's that time of year again - time to render unto Caesar. It seems that each year leading up to April 15th we hear and read complaints about spending hours poring over 1099s, 1040s, W-2s, etc. in an effort to calculate (and reduce) what we owe to keep the government running for another year.

The drumbeat of the Tea Party activists and others the past 2 years has driven the idea that Americans are overburdened by taxes, but is that true? Do we pay too much in taxes compared to our past and compared to other nations?

One of my favorite bloggers on personal finance (Get Rich Slowly) did some non-partisan analysis last year to get to the bottom of the numbers. It turns out that our tax burden in the U.S. is actually quite reasonable and low in comparison to historical levels here and compared to taxation around the globe. It's a good read - here's a link and here are some key excerpts:

In 1980, Americans paid 15.31% of their AGI in income taxes. In 1990, that number was 12.95%. In 2000, it was 15.26%. In 2007 — the last year for which there is data — that number was 12.68%. Based on this, I’d say that the average American has an effective federal income tax rate of 13-15%. (And top earners pay about 22%.)

In 2006, tax revenue in the United States was 28.0% of the gross domestic product. Put another way, the average American paid 28% of her income to taxes (state, federal, and local). Of the 30 OECD member countries, only four had lower taxes (Japan, Korea, Turkey, and Mexico). The highest tax burdens were in Denmark and Sweden, where tax revenue was 49.1% of the GDP. The lowest tax burden (by far!) was in Mexico, where tax revenue was only 20.6% of GDP.

These numbers indicate that relative to other countries, the United States has a low tax burden.

How much is this all costing me?
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Food Stamps, Unemployment Compensation. The Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines. And the interstate highway to grandmother’s house. How much does this all cost you?

Well, Jess Bachman (the Death and Taxes poster guy) has done the calculations for you:

The average U.S. taxpayer has an income of $43,650. For every billion dollars of government spending, this taxpayer is on the hook for five bucks. These numbers scale up or down depending on your income. If you earn $100,000 a year, for example, you pay $15 of taxes for every billion dollars the government spends. Ouch.

Conclusion
Based on my research, U.S. taxes actually seem relatively low, both historically and in relation to other countries. I am not arguing that we should have higher taxes. Nor am I arguing we should have lower taxes. I’m just relaying the facts.

In fact, I don’t really have a purpose behind my research other than education. With all of the recent national discussion about taxes, I felt woefully under-informed on the subject. When listening to people argue about taxes, it’s difficult to know whom to believe. I wanted to do my own research and then share the results with you.

None of us like to pay taxes but they are a necessary evil to provide the services we all use and which help make America such a great place to live and work. Not that any of this makes this annual process any easier, but it's at least worth a few minutes to look over how the numbers compare.

If there's a silver lining to taxation, at least it hasn't grown at even close to the same rate as the cost of health care or higher education. If it ever does, then we really will have a revolution on our hands (though our family already spends more on our health care annually than we do in federal income taxes).