LaserBlog.com

The one good thing about a dog that wakes your ass up at 7am on a weekend is that you are up early enough to get to Mickiedees and get yourself a sinful a-days-worth-of-calories-in-one-sandwich McGriddle before they stop serving them at 10am. =:D

Well I finally figured out the leading thing (the space between lines of text). It was a line-height thing, and although I thought I’d have to change all line-heights one by one (trail and error), changing the 1st one did the trick. *shrug*

…

Weird, I just called a friend to invite her and her hubby over for grilled out steaks for Saturday night, and don’t you hate it when you are talking to someone on the phone, and right when you are talking to them, they start talking to someone else in the room? What is that about? Geez. That is so rude. And she always does this too. Even IRL, we’ll be at a restaurant, and when I’m mid-sentance she’ll quietly say something to her hubby and they’ll start talking back and forth. It’s so rude! So I said “So we’ll touch base tomorrow about the time” and there’s all this silence like she didn’t hear me. And then she goes “So I’ll talk to you tomorrow then?” It’s SO rude to not listen when someone is talking. If you can’t talk, then don’t answer the phone!

CSS is driving me nuts. I never really learned it. Now I am starting over w/ a new template (I mean this one, since changing urls), based on the default template for the new version of MT, and I can’t figure out why the text on the sidebar has SO much space between each line. So far I’ve worked around it by just putting short lines of text on the sidebar so that there IS no wrapping, but I really have to figure it out. For example, I really want to put the blogroll back on, but when I do, there is SO much space between each link that it just takes up way too much room. Ack! I just never grasped CSS.

Not much time right now. I have to leave for physio soon (physical therapy for my feet) and it’s raining badly so I’ll have to leave early. I’m eating a ham and cheese sandwhich. I have anxiety, I hate that, I dread the rain-related traffic and all I really want to do is stay home curled up on the couch.

Mother in law, after stepping out of the car, before father in law even got the luggage out of the trunk, goes “You’ve got weeds!”. I hate how she has to point out the ONE thing we didn’t get perfect before her arrival. Jesus lady, get a life! The house is spotless, maid-cleaned, pressure washed outside, even the sidewalks, I’m SORRY there are weeds in our landscaping. Geez.

Lots of shopping yesterday w/ them, M had to work. It went ok. I find I have nothing to say to her though. When I do try to engage her in conversation, most of the time I get no response. It’s so weird… and rude.

I have no time, I gotta go.

I need a new graphic of myself. I recently got my hair cut into this funky cut- short curly, mega short in the back, longer in the front. You can kinda see the angle here and here. My graphic still shows me w/ long hair. I wish I was more talented with creating that type of graphic from scratch. There are some bloggers out there who have REALLY cute graphics of themselves that they made, but I guess I’m more techie than artsy. The pug is whining, I better go take him out. The in-laws land in 6 minutes. Wheeee!

I have NEVER seen my house this clean. Clean as in maids-were-here clean… clean as in NO clutter clean. Any clutter we didn’t know what to do w/ got boxed up and thrown into the garage. After the in-laws leave, we’ll go through boxes each weekend until the garage is empty. My kitchen ECHOS. There are no piles to step over. No dust bunnies. It’s 9pm and their plane lands at 9:30 (and we live a stone’s throw from the airport).

I don’t have much more to talk about, as all I’ve been doing for days and days and days is clean and clean and clean. I hate being domestic, but god is this place NICE now!

I never know when company comes… either I’m just too busy and too exhausted to blog… or I’m so upset by their actions that I blog my head off. 3.5 hours and counting. Ack!

And why won’t mt allow me to add any more new categories? Ack!

It’s hot and humid today, yuk.

I love flickr. I can take a picture w/ my camera phone, upload it to a particular email address, and then in an instant, the photo is not only in my account at flickr, but a blog entry is posted here w/ a thumbnail. And that’s free (although I do have a pro account).

M got me a pressure washer a month ago or so. We finally got to play w/ it this weekend, boy are they fun! That green mildew that was growing on the sidewalk out front (gotta love the hot, humid south!) was gone as though the device was a magic wand. All kinds of dirt and marks and dead bugs on the front of the house, frog poop, you name it, GONE! M and I were kinda fighting over it like kids, we both wanted to play with it so badly. We got it at Home Depot and it’s a no-name brand I guess (couldn’t find a brand name on the box), but it looks similar to this one (above) and works great.

This blog is basically a new incarnation of my last blog. (More on that here.) The old blog is closed, but is still online as it serves as a diary for myself as much as anything else. You can view that blog, and it’s archives, HERE. The search feature on this blog searches both this blog and the archives of the old blog.

Before the old blog, I had a classic Personal Website since about 1996. [See screenshot here.] I updated it often and put the New Stuff at the top. I included photos, what I’m doing, and “thoughts of the day”. Not quite a blog-layout, but it was a frequently updated website with the newest stuff at the top.

Normally I like to blog every day at least once. Yesteday was hard.

My mother in law is coming on Wednesday, and M and I live like slobs, piles everywhere and I’d rather die than clean a baseboard. So we hired maids to come and do a “deep clean” today, but in order for the maids to clean, we had to get the clutter piles off the floor, off the surfaces, etc. So we’ve had weeks, we put it off. We had all weekend, we put it off. So then Sunday night was panic-mode. We were up ’till 3am doing hard labor (think “Clean Sweep” on TLC). Then M got up and went off to work and I got up and started cleaning what was left.

Then the maids came and I told them to ignore (not clean) the surfaces that I didn’t have time to clear. Well, they still tried to clean those surfaces, so I felt obligated (which is good in a way) to hurry up and race ahead of them to clear the rest of the clutter before they got to it.

Few times in my life have I worked this hard, physically. Last night I was nausious from the exertion and the sleep-deprivation.

But it’s done. The place smells like cleaner and everything is super clean. Now if I could just hire the maids to entertain my in-laws so I don’t have to, then all would be well with the world.

I had my first “personal web page” around 1996. I had a website at home.sprintmail.com for a long time.

Around 1998 I read about blogs and wanted to convert my personal page to a one, but for some reason couldn’t figure out how to do it. I read about some blogging software but didn’t want to pay for software and couldn’t figure out how to make the trail version work. I read about weblogs.com and looked at people’s blogs, but couldn’t figure out how to start one. If blogger.com was around then, I didn’t know about it.

In January ’03 I [turned off the old regular website and] started a blog by hand, and then a month later I started doing it in movable type. That lasted until roughly today.

Today, I am starting over with this blog. I intended for that blog to be private but public. Public so that people on the internet could read it, but private in that no family, friends, clients, etc. would read it.

But people from “real life” were finding it. I was getting careless. I used one too many words that google picked up as keywords, and now am at risk of the wrong person reading that blog.

I like my blog to be pure me, like my private locked diary, but online for all the world to see. I don’t care if you read it, you don’t know me. You are not my mom, you are not my client. Strangers can read my rants, my nasty, ugly rants where I curse and vent… but I don’t want my clients to read that. Strangers can read my raw feelings about, say, an Aunt who has committed suicide, but I don’t want her kids to read that. Strangers can laugh at my ravings about M’s parents, but I don’t want them to read it.

So here I am again. Starting over. And hopefully this time I will be more careful.

I hate to leave the old blog behind. I am not sure if those readers will follow me here or not. I liked the old blog ALOT. I liked the design, the voice, etc. Here is a new design, but hopefully the voice will remain the same. I am the same. If anything I can be more honest and open here.

At some point soon, I will link to the old blog from here, so that you can read my older archives. But first I have to figure out what my new domain name is going to be, etc.

Stay tuned.

I am a web designer and photographer. I’m a wanna-be writer. I own my own business and work at home. I live in the warm south, but secretly yearn to live in a place like Toronto or San Francisco.

I love winter. I hate being hot.

I’m married (although I hate the term “married”, I prefer “taken”), live in a nice new 2-story 4-bedroom home in suburbia, but we have no kids and don’t want them. I love my house but often feel like I don’t fit in here. Most people in this town are retirees, and most people in my particular neighborhood are soccer moms. As much as I love my house with it’s lake view and nice big yard, part of me would like to live in a flat above a coffee shop on Queen Street in Toronto. Hubby is from Toronto, and I really love it there.

I have 2 cats and 2 dogs: a 17.5 year old tabby, a 3? year old deaf Turkish Angora cat, an American Eskimo dog, and a Pug. The tabby and the pug are “mine”, while the Turk and the Eskie belong to M.

I am starting over with a new blog here at mentalbites.com/asecondblog. You can read more about that HERE. Mia is just one of my many nicknames.

Keywords that best describe me would be:
sushi
pugs, pug
sports cars
hiking
technology
gadgets
linux
blogs, blogging, weblog
photography
internet addiction

Here is a link to fark.com.

My Instant Message Info:

Two two two, two 2 2 2

Hello World.

Tonight was weird.

On short notice we went to see the Harlem Globe Trotters w/ some friends of ours. It was cute, it was something to do. I’d probably only go back if it were something to do w/ friends.

Afterwards, they wanted to know if we wanted to go to this place to have a drink, and I know they like to dance there.

It was SO weird.

This is… Florida. Everyone is old. This was a nightclub for OLD FARTS. I saw a lady who looked 70 in a red leather skirt and knee-high leather boots. I saw pot bellies dancing, and more polyester than anyone should have to witness in one night. I started a game of “count the pantylines” but lost count. I saw sleezy 65 year olds leering at the younger 40 year old women. I saw 70 year olds slow dancing to a 70′s song about sexual penetration. I about threw up.

Don’t get me wrong. More power to them. It’s just… I DON’T WANNA WATCH!

I told my friends we were gonna head out, it wasn’t my bag, baby, M and I walked to the door…
walked through the door…
and then
I
RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN
outta there!

I ran!

Fast!

M was behind me laughing his ass off as I ran through the darkened parking lot, hands outstretched in front of me like a running Frillneck Lizard.

One should never, EVER, witness a room full of wrinkled, pantylined, leather-wearing, makeup-caked, septagenarians undulating to “Freak Out”.

And what’s really funny, is as we were about to leave, they broke into, and I’m not making this up: “Who let the dogs out!”

We poured into the Z, and I went into a hyperventilating fit of hysterical laugher and Lewis Black style rant that lasted the entire 7 miles until we got to Dairy Queen where I could have a diet coke and calm the hell down. We never laughed so hard. Well, not since two weeks ago when I saw something that about made me piss my pants in the parking lot, but that’s another story.

I have anxiety today for the first time since I started my happy pills. M’s parents are coming mid-March and I’m panicking already. Clean the clutter, clean the dirt, clean the dogs, look for things that’ll be pointed out as dirty or imperfect, weed the garden, pressure wash the outside foyer, buy and lay mulch, panic panic panic. I have over a week but I’m panicking.

I did something I have NEVER done in my life and never thought that I would do: I hired a maid. Just for a one-time clean of the first floor. This way all I (we) have to worry about is the clutter and the outside (landscaping, etc.). The maids’ll do the floors, baseboards, etc. I’d love to have them come weekly or bi-weekly but that’d be expensive. But just to have them come before M’s parents arrive, at least I know it’ll be as clean as it CAN be, and if anything is said, I can say “well, next time my maid comes I’ll have her do better“.

But I’m all like, anxiety. Panicking. Then I had coffee which doesn’t help matters. Ack!

We might be going to see the Harlem Globe Trotters tonight. Check the moblog in case we do go.

Tuesday I laid down “just to rest my bones” and when M came home from work, NOTHING could wake me up and I totally missed the linux meetup. Ugh. Turns out there was a good turnout and someone I had wanted to see showed up (a local computer guru). Too bad I slept thru it. But I was SO tired. M’s snoring (love ya!) is really interrupting my sleep alot.

Still going to physio for my feet (physical therapy). It hurt like hell today but it should really help.

It’s cold and rainy right now. It’s been down in the 40′s at night. Today when we got home from a late dinner it was 49 out (and windy and rainy). I LOVE THIS WEATHER! I just LOVE it! Everyone else is complaining and I’m loving it and taking the dogs out for walks in it. I really really love cold weather. I’m a sicko.

Maybe M will get my comments working this weekend. ?

M’s parents ARE COMING March 16th. Now we HAVE TO clean the house. Now I will really appreciate being on anti-depressants. Maybe this time I can stay calm and just let “that stuff” roll off my back.

Nicky and Riley are best pals. They play all day long. It’s like I don’t even exist anymore. But it’s nice, because since they can entertain eachother, I don’t have to do it.

Well, off to bed.

What’s up? Nada.

My feet hurt.

Sweet Bay grocery store has really good sushi and I am totally hooked on their “Blazin California Roll” and they even have tubes of ready-to-use wasabi paste! Wheeeeee!

Jumping in the shower in a minute before my physical therapy (for my feet).

Tonight is the Linux Meetup: http://linux.meetup.com

My dog smells and needs a bath. My house is a mess and I need a maid. My new washer and dryer are DA BOMB!!!!!!!! Last night M said “we have to run a load… can I DO IT???” LOL

I saw Phantom Of The Opera (the broadway play) on Sunday, it was neat. I want to see the movie before it leaves. Trying to decide if I want the soundtrack.

I gotta go get in the shower or I’ll be late. Bye.