mamaLove

Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone. We had lots of kids drop by for candy this year. More than last year. It was fun seeing all the cute costumes. One little tyke was dressed up as an Auburn football player. His helmet was so big, he could barely see out of it. It was so cute. Anyway, as you can see, I’m back. I’m still working on several sections of my site, so if they don’t work, just keep checking back, but the main blog is all done as is my reading list. Sections I am still working on are the memelog, lyrics, desktop, graphics and I will be adding a section for 26 Things as soon as I get that working. Yep. I’m doing the 26 things this month. I think it will be fun. Nanowrimo will have to wait till next year. Once all those are complete, I will once again work on the photos section. Ugh. I can never decide how I want to do it. I’ve got some ideas, but their not set in stone, so I will have to play with it.

That said, I hope this layout will stick around for a while. After all my hard work, I don’t plan on changing it anytime soon. Oh yeah, I’ve got the beginnings of another template started. I was going to use it for a new php script I was going to make, but I decided to do what I was wanting another way, so I don’t have to make a script. Yea! It feels good to be back in the swing of things. While working on my site, I’ve neglected reading my daily blogs. So I’ve got some catching up to do. I feel like I’ve been out of the loop for a while. I think things are back to normal again. Except that I’m still working on a few things.

Work is getting busy with deadlines getting made and changes in the office as far as work duties. We’ve also got several parties going on this month. One of the girls got a promotion to Parole Officer so she is leaving. Plus we will be having a retirement party for another lady and our annual Thanksgiving luncheon. And that’s just this month. Next month is the annual Christmas lunch and Children’s Party. I guess that is what happens when the end of the year nears. Busy time…getting things in order to start a new year.

Speaking of New year, we’ll be traveling to Florida to spend the holidays with the inlaws. My husband’s grandfather isn’t doing too well, so he wants to have Christmas down there. They don’t know how many Christmases he has left, so it’s real important to him to get down there this year. Our governor has granted the day after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas as holidays, yet we have to be at work on New Year’s Day, a Friday. Sometimes their logic makes no sense. Oh well.

My husband bought a new truck. Well, it’s a 2001, but it’s new for him. He just couldn’t stand not having a truck anymore. I don’t blame him. He did give up his old truck last year to get me my Pathfinder for my birthday. So he now is the very proud owner of a 2001 Ford Ranger. My dad loves it. If he didn’t have his own truck, I think he’d be jealous. LOL!

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iTunes

I’ve joined the millions and downloaded iTunes. I haven’t had a chance to play with it too much. I was in a hurry this morning to get out the door so all I’ve been able to do is install it, set up my store account and search for a song. But I can’t wait to get home and play with it this weekend. I think it will become my best friend. It is what I’ve been waiting for. The answer to my prayers. I can buy just a song and it’s mine to do with as I please. It picked up all my exisiting music already.

And I just can’t wait to start browsing the audiobooks. I may be downloading one or two this weekend and burning to CD for my car. Now if I only had money to get the iPod. Then I’d be all set.

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Starting Fresh

I’m thinking of starting fresh. My MT installation has gone through so many changes, that I’m thinking of backing up all entries and starting it fresh. All my stuff would come back but my blogs would be in sequential order rather than having 3 or 4 blogs with IDs of 1, 5, 9, 14 (just for example). My categories would all be sequential again as would my entries.

I’m not liking how I’ve got it all set up. I may actually weed through my entries and pick and choose what I want to keep. It would be a big chore but I think I just need to clean up a bit.

Re-evaluating my entries would require me to be down for a bit, while I weed through them to decide what I want to re-post. I’m also considering moving my book list back into it’s own blog. And re-creating a photo blog. If I decide to make the leap and do this, expect me to be incommunicado for probably the month of November. Of course, this probably means I’ll be back with a new layout, but hopefully one that will remain for a good long while. Or I might actually go back to skins [big gasp!].

I’m also thinking about not having a sidebar. Keeping all the bits separated into their own individual sections and having them all linked on one main site page. This would mean a change to the blog url. I think I would move it to a new sub-directory. Actually every section would move to a sub-directory leaving the main directory for the entrance way into the site.

Of course all this is my thought process for now. And I give myself a whole month for completion because I’m busy and I’m not sure how much time I would have to work on it.

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Worst Nightmare

We must all be thankful to Pam and her husband. He was awake and watching the stars when he heard a noise. Going to investigate he found the house at the end of the street billowing flames. Yes, the house was on fire. They ran over to see if anyone was inside and called 911.

We woke to what seemed like the entire law enforcement racing down the street. My husband went to investigate and realized the house was on fire. Fortunately the fire department arrived in time to keep the house from being completely engulfed. But we were on pins and needles watching the pine trees in the yard crackling. It was a scary thing to see. Three fire trucks arrived and we are currently blocked in. The end of the street, the only entrance to our portion of the neighborhood.

The smoke, flames and smell that comes with a house fire brought back memories I’d rather forget. Years ago, my husband’s (then fiance) duplex caught fire. The apartment next door burned and we all feared it would move to his side. We stood outside hopelessly watching the flames destroy the neighbor’s side of the house. The smell is something you remember forever. I smelled the burned belongings of that house and it made me grateful and thankful.

Posted in Personally | 3 Comments »

High School Days

The Red Sox didn’t make the World Series, but while updating my about page, I came to a startling realization. I went to high school with one of the players. I knew he’d been picked up right out of high school, but I’m not a big baseball fan so I had forgotten. Updating info and adding the blurb about *N Sync made me remember so I started digging the net. I knew he’d gone with Kansas. A little google search landed me in the right spot. I went to school with Johnny Damon, for those of you Sox fans. I think it is so cool. Why? It is fabulous to know that folks from my high school went on to bigger and better things. Of course he was a year ahead of me, but I remember that when he got picked up, it was a major thing at my school.

I’ve always been proud of where I went to high school. Most people look at it as oh yeah, I spent 4 years in that place…thank god it’s over. Sure, we’re all glad to graduate high school, but when I was there it was one of the best schools in the area. Maybe it being new had something to do with it, I don’t know. But I think I will always feel pride at calling Dr Phillips High School one of my alma maters. I wasn’t even in the popular crowd. But with an enrollment of 3,000+, the popular crowd is a very small percentage of the population. I knew them all, we were in all the same classes, but when your upper-middle class going to school in an upper class neighborhood with upper class kids, things get interesting. An ex-boyfriend lived in the same suburb as Shaquille O’Neil.

I remember when they were building the school. Rumors were flying about the style and amenities of the school. Bottled water from the water fountains (yeah right) and 5 swimming pools. The money ran out before they even got one pool built. The swim team practiced at the aquatic center. LOL! But you know us kids, we’d make up all kinds of stories, especially since the school was being built in the upper class area of Orlando. We did have some fun times though. When Hurricane Andrew blew out south Florida at the beginning of my senior year, we lent the gymnasium and student parking lot to the evacuees. Us poor, poor students had to park at Universal Studios and walk over. Granted it was only across the street but us lowly seniors felt we were being denied our long awaited priviledge of our own parking space. Each senior spot had a paw print and whatever 5 letters we wanted painted on. I laugh now at how snotty that was, but back then it was a major deal.

We also hosted practice for the Chicago Bulls when they came to town to play the Orlando Magic team. That made big news at our school. Of course I didn’t get to see any players, the gym was off-limits, but the school’s news team did a segment on it.

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Heaven at Night

Yes, Heaven. That is where you feel you have been after having a good night’s sleep on a brand new mattress. The mattresses came yesterday, although we had thought they wouldn’t arrive till today. I even went and bought new pillows because those were shot too. What a wonderful feeling to wake up and not be in pain. That is hard to do since I have fibromyalgia, but it did. It was wonderful. The money we spent was so worth it. We plan to put the old mattresses in the spare room since it currently only has a cheap futon. But I almost feel guilty for any guest that has to sleep on those worn out mattresses. We suffered so much, I hate for someone else to have to go through that. Luckily we rarely have overnight guests. But I’m so glad we finally got new mattresses. And it is so thick! I can’t just sit down on it. I just about have to jump to get on the bed. LOL! I will love going to sleep now. Before I knew I’d wake up in pain and that I wouldn’t sleep comfortably, but now I can just drift off into sleep heaven without a care.

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