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I work for a company that pays on the bi-weekly schedule.  This means I get a paycheck every two weeks.  This differs from the semi-monthly schedule in that I get 26 paychecks a year instead of 24 (52 weeks / 2 instead of 12 months * 2).  The interesting part is that the withholdings are done on some sort of a monthly basis.  So two months a year, we get 3 paychecks in that month and the 3rd paycheck is larger than the other 2 in that month because there are no medical or retirement deductions.  Taxes are still withheld – there’s no escaping taxes.

The even more interesting part occurs in a year and a half – there will be 27 pay periods in that year.  The paychecks are issued every other Friday.  In 2010, January 1st is a Friday, and it happens to be the “on” Friday for the company.  The year ends with another Friday on December 31st.  See this calendar or count how many paydays there are on the calendar below.

In 2016 it will happen again.  And 2021 too.  And it happened in 2004.  I never paid attention to that before.  Since each year is 52.17 weeks, and I’m getting paid for only 52 weeks each year, it makes sense to have an extra paycheck every few years.  By my calculations, there should be an extra paycheck every 5.6 years.

I would much rather have a semi-monthly paycheck, or even a monthly paycheck.  The problem with the bi-weekly paycheck is that no other financial operations work that way (okay, you can setup a bi-weekly mortgage payment, but that’s not standard).  My mortgage is due on the first day of every month.  My car payments are due on certain days of the month.  Sometimes I get a paycheck on the first, sometimes it is on the third.  If it’s on the third, then I have to make sure my bills from the end of the previous month get delayed.  The bi-weekly paycheck system requires more planning on the part of the employee to manage bill paying (or less planning with a larger balance or buffer in the checking account).

If you are involved in payroll somehow and have to decide which system to use, don’t go with bi-weekly.

“You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets, for he is poor and sets his heart on it; so that he will not cry against you to the LORD and it become sin in you.”
– Deuteronomy 24:15

You may well know the saga of Floaty.  Here is an update to the story: we have a new fish.

We decided that since we had the fishbowl cleaned and filled and we had a supply of fish food, we might as well get some fish to go along with everything.  So we had to look for fish that were suitable for a bowl (instead of a tank).  We were in a store that happens to sell fish, and the children always like looking at them even though we don’t buy any.  But now we have bought some.

The feeder fish were the best price, but we went with two guppies – better quality fish for a slightly higher price.  The first fish went along with the capturing process, but the second one did not, and he ended on the floor.  The worker guy trapped him with the net (even though the fish was not going anywhere), picked him up through the net, and then put him in the container with the other fish.

On our way home, I noticed that one fish had a rip in his tail.  I assumed that the tail was damaged by the fall out of the net.  So I announced that I had named the fish “Finny” (not to be confused with Finley the Fish).  Then the older child wanted to name the other fish, so he came up with “Flip Flop Spin Flop”.

The fish made it through the first night, and the second day.  Then the morning after that, I glanced in the fish tank and told my wife that I renamed one of the fish: “Flip Flop Spin Flop” was now “Sinky”.  Not only had he sunk to the bottom, but he was upside-down, so it was rather obvious that something was wrong.

I changed my mind about which fish was the one that tried jumping to freedom.  I think it was Sinky, as he must have had internal injuries and Finny’s tail was probably that way before we even went to the store. Finny is still alive and is apparently happy, although it is hard to read his facial expressions.

“and when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away. ”
– Matthew 13:48

I was getting dinner ready the other day.  Sitting at the table in the dining room, I could hear the noises of the children playing happily in the adjoining living room.

Just as I was getting ready to wonder what was keeping them occupied so well, I was interrupted by the older child, who told me that it was snowing.  “Such a good imagination,” I thought.  He ran back into the living room and I thought I had better check to see why he said it was snowing.

I peeked in the living room and what I saw was the younger child hitting the seat of an upholstered chair with a ping-pong paddle.  “It’s snowing!” he was yelling as he hit the chair.  All the dust that was being forced from the chair was billowing up from the chair with each hit.  It was not a cloud of dust, but the chair is near a west-facing window, so at dinnertime there is a good stream of sunlight going right by the chair.  The sunlight accentuated the dust and the dust reminded the young children of snow.

We’ll have to vacuum soon.

“And as they were crying out and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust into the air,”
– Acts 22:23

Since school has started recently, this post will relate an incident from the first day of school.

We took the older child to his first day of school, and his teacher’s name is Mrs. Thomas.  The younger child stayed home.  No, not by himself – someone else was watching him.  After the school day was complete, his brother told him some things about it.  Since the younger one has not yet attended school, and since he didn’t go that day, all he has is a mental picture drawn by himself using his own experiences.

The next day, as they were preparing to go to the next day of school, the younger one was inquisitive.

younger son: “Is brother going to school?”
mom: “Yes, he’s going to school.”
“Is his teacher Mrs. Thomas?”
“Yes, that’s his teacher.”
“Does she have wheels?”
(perplexed pause before answering) “No, she doesn’t have wheels.”

That’s when brother stepped in and sorted things out (laughing):
“No, she’s not Thomas the train.  Her name is Mrs. Thomas.”

The Thomas name and character are trademarks of Gullane (Thomas) Limited.  This blog is not associated with or approved by Gullane (Thomas) Limited.

“Whenever the living beings moved, the wheels moved with them. And whenever the living beings rose from the earth, the wheels rose {also.} ”
– Ezekiel 1:19

Summer is the time for fresh fruits and vegetables, and one of the items in late August and early September is corn.  We were given several ears of corn by a farming family.  The children and I were in charge of getting the corn ready for cooking, and then my wife would handle the actual cooking part.

So I showed the kids the art of proper shucking.  I showed them the tassel and how to remove all the silks from the ear of corn.  Okay, you can never remove all the silks, but close enough.  They left that part to me anyway.  I also showed them how to shuck the corn – pull each one off and you’ll eventually get down to the kernels.

I saw that my demonstration piece had a hole that went through several shucks.  So I put a couple of them back (I hadn’t removed them so they were still attached at the base of the ear) and then showed the kids how the hole went through each layer.  I told them a bug must have eaten through it.  Then we got to the kernels and I showed them that the hole went right through the kernel.  At that point, the older child informed me that a worm was on the end of the ear of corn.  My response was that was the one that had been eating our corn.  So we threw him away (him being the bug, or the corn, as we did dispose of both).

The next day, I got home from work a little late, and the family was already eating dinner.  My son then informed me that there was a caterpillar on the window.  It was actually on the window frame, and it was not a caterpillar but another corn worm.  I assumed it was another worm that had escaped from the bag of corn, but my wife was not happy with the thought that there could be more corn worms roaming the house.  I threw that one away and we have not seen any since.

The Labor Day weekend was a relaxing one. The weather cooperated quite nicely, and one late afternoon I sat outside reading a magazine while the kids played in the large plastic tub better known as a kiddie pool. It was filled with water, of course, which made all the nearby vegetation jealous as they have not received much rain lately and were probably thirsty.

Part of my job as a parent is to ensure that the children share, play together, avoid injury, have fun, etc. So I would take breaks from my magazine to help them with the hose, pick some apples from the tree and throw them in the pool, or whatever. The older son wanted to bob for apples, so that’s what the apples were for. He made me go first, so I tried a couple of times and did get anything. He went next and spun the apple around so the stem was up, then he just bit the stem and pulled out the apple. The younger son didn’t want to play.

A little later, after I had read some more, I heard the older one telling me that his brother had dunked him in the pool. It is not uncommon for one of the two to do something not nice to the other, and then the other comes to me and complains. So when I heard that he had dunked him in the pool, I assumed it was a complaint and started to proceed down the let’s-play-nicely path. But I was mistaken, as they were both in a good mood.

It turned out that they were pretending to be at a dunk tank, as they had seen real-life dunk tanks in operation at both a local festival and a local fair. The kids had set a T-ball tee in the pool and a plastic chair next to the pool. One child would sit in the chair and the other would throw apples at the tee. If he hit the tee, the other child would slide himself off the chair and into the pool. So he wasn’t complaining, he just wanted me to watch the operation.

For those who were wondering, I did empty the pool by dumping its water into the closest flower bed. At least some of the plants also enjoyed their Labor Day holiday.

“Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree;”
– Genesis 18:4