*deep breath*

I deactivated Intense Debate. It hurt my heart a little to do it because all the folks there have been REALLY AWESOME with my constant desire to FIX THIS! AND NOW THAT! But aflux’s load times with ID deactivated is MUCH better. Much.

Also, it was causing about 111 validation errors and apparently that’s like, really, really important to some anonymous people on the internet. *nods*

Unfortunately, the process to import all those comments back into the WordPress database via the control panel is causing a memory error and until I can call my host to have that fixed, they have all disappeared. If I get time I’ll do it today but I just wanted to let you all know I haven’t deleted you! Just kinda hidden you in the back of a closet till I can find the time to organize you all neatly again.

I also got rid if IZEA’s ad over there *points right*. It was a “test ad” that they used to create some data points. I will miss it though because it was bringing in some decent money but, meh. It was causing validation errors also, and again, VERY IMPORTANT to be XHTML compliant if the original theme developer puts a link there!

And yeah, I need to add some kind of styling to the tweets and delicious feeds but they’ve taken a pretty big back seat to all the damn house drama. I’ve neglected pretty much every online project and community over the last few weeks (excluding Twitter of course, I’m busy, not DEAD).

By the way, did I mention?!

WE ARE HOMEOWNERS! We got keys yesterday and found a reason to get over to the house last night and took some clothes and food over with us. There is SO MUCH I want to write about the process of buying our first home. SO. FUCKING. MUCH. But today I need to just concentrate on getting work done, then getting home to pack the last of the stuff up before the movers come tomorrow.

Happy Wednesday, all!

I had mentioned a awhile back that I was working on a project and that as soon as I had some content up, I’d be revealing it…

And then a BUNCH OF STUFF HAPPENED and it got pushed back and back and back, then forgotten, then pushed back, then pretty much flat out ignored and then I was like, OH THAT’S RIGHT, PROJECT!!! So I’ve had some time the last week or so while I was at home with Ben and I tweaked and added then subtracted then put it back again, and more importantly, I’ve started to add that content.

It’s a review site for the many, many things I’ve blown money on and either loved or hated. It’s written from my perspective which is geeky girlyness and will cover everything from makeup, cars, computers, pet products, food, drinks, restaurants, ANYTHING and EVERYTHING.

So go take a look, read, comment, leave me some feedback. Do you like what you see? What kind of product do you think that you’d like to have reviewed? Let me know what you think!

Introducing: Sylaa.net

I know that some of you have been twittering for quite some time and some of you have just been recently introduced to the obsession. It doesn’t matter WHEN you started though because the fact is, if you are twittering, you are hooked. You might send a tweet once a day or multiple times an hour, it doesn’t really matter because YOU HAVE BEEN SUCKED IN. MUAHAHAHA. I admit, my obsession has died down some since that first phone bill arrived with all 2,356 text messages listed and Ben was like, “THINK OF THE TREES!”.

I’ve tried to see if I can have just a select few tweets sent to my phone. Like, I don’t need every single one of Scoble’s tweets (even though I secretly wish I could follow him around from one techy junket to the next) but I would like to get Steen’s. And Jenn’s. And Sewwy’s. (PROPER SEO, Julie! Who, by the way, doesn’t Tweet which makes me sad.) So I think I’ll try when I get home to finally get that all lined up and working properly.

Ben has never really gotten into the whole twittering thing. When he’s seen me send a tweet from the phone or I’ve told him that YOU SO NEED TO TWEET he’s given me his standard “I love you dearly you hot ball of sexyness, but hell to the fuck no” look.

So I have to admit I was a little surprised yesterday the other day when he emailed me a link to a setup that sends you a tweet when your house plant needs to be watered. Surprised because maybe he was suddenly interested in twitter?! NO! Surprised because WE DON’T HAVE ANY HOUSE PLANTS! Well, we do have the one bamboo plant but you pretty much can’t kill those. I mean, you have to TRY and fail them. Maybe Ben would be more interested if there was a way to twitter you when your wife is premenstrual! Dude, somebody should get on that. As long as it doesn’t mean sticking electrodes to my ovaries and stuff. Because, no.

Man, I should really stop blogging when hopped up on Flu medicine.

So um, BLOG GIRLS! Are any of you thinking of attending BlogHer this year in San Francisco? Because it’s SO CLOSE to me. It’s like, right there *points North* and I promised myself last year that I’d attend this year and not be sorry I missed out on all the fun. But the thing is, I’d like to KNOW somebody going. I mean I know OF plenty of people going but I can’t exactly walk up to Heather Amrstong and be all, “HI! I totally stalk, I MEAN READ, your blog and think you are just the bee’s knees and can I sit next to you at the Cool Kid’s table?! Because that would be swell! And you said once that your shampoo smells really good can I just smell your head?! Wait! Where are you going? WHY ARE YOU SPRAYING ME WITH PEPPER SPRAY?!”

Or something.

And all of you who read my blog already know in advance that I’m crazy so it wouldn’t be QUITE as shocking to you. And I’ll probably go regardless but it would be nice to have somebody to hold my hair back after the cocktail parties.

After I got the site back from being hacked, I decided to do a complete overhaul. Like, everything has been touched. I’ve updated Wordpress and every single Wordpress plugin. I probably dumped 100 datebase tables that hadn’t been used in AGES. Gallery, forum, guestbook, tables created from plugins that I haven’t used in over a year, it was a mess. A MESS! I’d been telling myself that I was going to do that for months and months and had I actually DONE it, the lame ass hacker wouldn’t have had a way in.

SO! The new theme I’m using is Redoable. I really, really, really tried to come up with something on my own and I’d get 75% of the way through a Photoshop mockup, then coding, then tweaking CSS and suddenly I’d hate it and delete the whole thing. Like 5 times. With 5 different themes.

I’d been watching Dean develop and update this theme for quite some time and I liked it from the very beginning. After he developed the twitter plugin I was pretty much sold but gave ONE MORE theme a try and still just wan’t feelin’ it. So I went ahead and started to manipulate Redoable to mold it to my liking. There are still some things I want to work on. I’m going to add back the recent comment plugin but I’m going to tweak the CSS first. I’m also thingking about doing some CSS work to the blogroll… just small stuff here and there.

Overall impressions of the stock theme though are that it’s fantastic. The admin interface makes customization so simple that even if you don’t know much about HTML, PHP or CSS, you can very easily add widgets, change color scheme’s, menu placement, and more.

So there ya go! I wanted to make sure to give the theme a proper plug.

Kris Linquist wrote a little rant/article on his site entitled: How to f’ing drive.

I was nodding in agreement the entire time I read it and wondering how much work it would take to replace those ugly little ‘Airbag Safety’ stickers they put on sun visors these days with this article instead. Because GOOD LORD YOU PEOPLE NEED SOME INSTRUCTION.

He pretty much hit on all my major peeves except one and that is people who don’t use turn signals. They are there to USE people, not to make your corners clear or add to the beautiful esthetics of your car. So…

If you want in my lane, all you gotta do is TELL me. If you use the blinker, 99.5% of the time I’ll let you in. Hell, on days were the traffic is busy, I’ll let TWO people merge in front of me just because I’m a nice person like that.

You don’t need to honk, you don’t need to glare at me, you don’t need to try and squeeze your H2 into the 1.15 car lengths in front of me in heavy traffic that’s moving 2 MPH. I’ll LET YOU IN, ASSHAT. Just let me know you want over.

For almost two years now, I’ve tried to convince Ben to let me install a blow horn on the front of my car. He’s veto’d the idea, FORCEFULLY, because he said that I’ll “abuse it”. I have no idea what he’s talking about.

Anyway, go check out the rant. Even for those of you that don’t live in CA, these are common sense rules of the road that anybody should follow.

This post is going to be all over and around the corner and up the hill and back again. Stick with me.

*puts the post in gear*

I’ve started to add the finishing touches to the layout. The site section is up and running. I’m adding content slowly and as it’s completed. I feel good about how organized and pretty all the site info looks. Well, now that I look…. there should be bullets in front of the “Software” list. Dammit. Ah well, work in progress!!

I also have started the color change (links, title, etc.) Menu looks different. Still working. Might be finished tomorrow (yeah right), or next week, or next month (which also happens to be…. NEXT WEEK. HA!). The good thing is that I’m coming up on the one month mark and I’m still head over heals in love with kiwi. If it could snuggle with me at night to keep me warm Ben might find himself out of a job.

Kidding!!!

*shifts into second*

The New Girl became and American citizen yesterday. I decorated her desk with red, white and blue streamers and starts and balloons. It was cute and she was really surprised. I’m so happy for her. She really is my favorite co-worker. What’s amazing to me is that I can talk to her about current events. All the American born people there are clueless about politics. I’d bet over half of them didn’t even vote in the last presidential election. *shakes head* AND! She makes lumpia. So she wins COOLEST CO-WORKER EVER by default.

*shifts into third*

I’ve lost an additional two pounds. That’s 8 total so far. I feel better and better every day. I think I’m going on a week+ with no ‘Attack of the Killer Stomach’.

People are commenting now. Like, seeing the difference. It might be that since I’ve started shedding the pounds I’ve become somewhat obsessive about skincare again. Working out will really play hell on your complexion! I have some Mary Kay Day and Night solution on the way. That stuff is fucking fantastic.

*slams it into fourth*

Tonight Cassidy made this face and I had to capture it. This is the face she makes instead of saying ‘You adults are out of your minds.’ She’s starting to master the art of saying such things with body language.

I need to start taking more pictures again. I was obsessed for awhile but I kinda got sidetracked. I’m ready to start the obsession again. One part of it, I’m sure, was that I tend to… take pictures of myself (shut up, Ben) and I was just not happy with what I was seeing. I’m feeing better and better about that now.

*finds fifth*

Ben’s recovery is going quite well. He’s getting around sans crutches and the flexibility is getting better and better every day. He has aches and pains here and there but that’s to be expected when you don’t really use your leg at all for a week straight.

He was able to get into the M3 tonight. So for him at least, all is right with the world.

*engages cruise control*

I don’t usually do this because I find “plugging” people and site’s kinda… trendy-ish but what the hell, right? I can jump on the bandwagon for one post.

If you haven’t already, go check out becca. I’ve become a daily stalker of hers. Sooner or later I’m gonna have to start commenting. Well, commenting more. I’ve gone off track…

She makes me literally laugh out loud and it’s refreshing to see another young mother who’s so real, and a geek, and who takes lots of pictures, and plays video games, and is such a fantastic writer, and has a secret shrine set up to worship her skinny jeans. Okay, maybe that last part isn’t true but since we have so many other things in common I figured I’d throw that in there to make myself feel more non-lunatic-ish. Plus, she has some of the cutest little rugrats ever!!

Brittney infected me. This is the first one of these type of things I’ve done. Mainly because I’m generally a lurker but lately I’ve figured I should start commenting on all these blogs I read which has lead to more people ending up here. Go figure! Anyway, on with the fun!

How does it work?: Write 5 random facts about yourself, and then list the names of 5 people whom you in turn infect. Also, leave a post to these people letting them know they have been infected.

My Random Facts:
1. I’m a wanna be girly girl. I like to get dirty working on cars and fragging boys online (that means killing, Dad.. as in gaming ;)) and… yeah. I’ve been getting more and more creative with my makeup and getting clothes that aren’t jeans and t-shirtish so maybe I’m on the right path.
2. I have a completely irrational but very real fear of death and the knowledge that I will no longer be here and everybody will go on without me and I won’t be here to join in the fun. Instead of trying to “fix” this fear I choose to ignore it as much as possible. And it’s not like I DWELL on it but it comes up occasionally.
3. I am obsessed with chocolate. Like, there is never a time I’ve said, “That’s too rich.” Or, “That’s too much chocolate.” I want it all the time. And when I’m PMSing it turns into the same kind of feigning that I assume a crack addict goes through. I lay in bed and shiver at night thinking about it and wondering when I can have my next “hit”. My mom got me those little Ghirardelli Squares for times like this but I make Ben hide the package from me…
4. I’m about 40-50 pounds over what my “target weight” should be for my height and age. Depressing. But with the latest trend of feeling like I’d be better off dying than eating anything that contains ANY kind if fat or dairy product, I’ve been dropping weight. And I practically died on the treadmill today so hopefully that is helping too. I’m considering more and more dropping just meat from my diet altogether because all it does is make me physically ill.
5. My most favorite time of the entire day is that 15 minutes before I fall asleep when I press myself up as close as I can to The Benjamin and wrap my legs all around his and I have to reposition myself 15 times the first five minutes and I’m sure this annoys him to no end but he just holds on and lets me drift off. And he does all this knowing that when I fall asleep I’m going to snore loud enough to rattle all the walls in the room. That’s true love people, True Love.

Who am I infecting? Julie, Kristen, Lisa, Jessica and BEN!

Everybody go visit aflux’s wonderful hostee, Kristen. She’s a younger, funnier version of me… only she can actually write well and dosen’t have quite as foul a mouth. heh

At work, during lunch and breaks, I surf the web. So what, don’t act like you don’t do it too. *stares at Ben*

There are a few sites that I’ve grown to really enjoy reading during these little breaks and the whitty humor of folks like Busymom.net keep me laughing (SEE: sane) throughout the day.

Go visit her, she’s a hoot.