I forgot!

I totally forgot about taking my camera along with me to Thanksgiving dinner. This really isn’t all that surprising, considering I usually forget to take it with me just about anywhere. But still…my boys are growing right up, and it’s dawned on me in the more recent past that I really need to be trying to get as many photos as I can of their teen years. And…I need to get as many photos as I can of my family, whom I don’t get to visit nearly often enough. So….my cam isn’t a Nikon D90 or anything, but it takes pretty decent photos. I should remember to bring it along most of the places I go :/

Currently: pissed off

(Edited to remove my excessive use of the f-bomb.)

Wordpress…when I love it, I really love it. When I hate it, which is most days now…I really, really, really hate it with the fire of a thousand suns. If it wasn’t for the fact that I really do feel this is the best blog publishing software there is, and if not for the fact that I LOVE being able to have things like email addresses with comments, smilies (which I was able to replace with some of my own!) and numerous plugins that enhance both the look/feel, and operation of my website, well….I’d probably tuck my tail between my legs and run.

The latest of my wordpress issues are:

• Permalink structure. I have tried to change my permalink structure to a more SEO-friendly setup, and have failed miserably. I can’t just pick my choice and change them, I have to go in and edit my .htaccess file. I did that, and got a 500 Internal Server error. So I removed that, and changed permissions on the file. When I changed the structure after that, WP told me that my structure had been updated. But I STILL got a 500 Internal Server Error. Figures.
• Comments. While I can’t complain about WP’s comments setup - I love being able to interact with commenters via email, because I know that not everyone who stops by here will come back by to see if I’ve responded to their comment. Really, who has time to do that? - but blogger’s comments were the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. During the brief period where they changed their comment setup back to where only registered blogger accounts could comment, I hightailed it outta there. It was bad enough that I had no way to respond via email to comments in order to make it easier on everyone, and in turn, hopefully make return visits more likely, but then they did that, and I snapped and made a run for wordpress.

  But wordpress is having some peculiar comment issues of its own, at least on my end, these days. I’ve had several comments from a fellow wordpress user just eaten, and for a while now, I have had two comments in my approval queue which I keep approving, but they never stay approved.

• Another edit: The 2.6.5 release? I can’t even extract it without it shutting windows or whatever down, making it have to be restarted, and sending my virus scanner into a non-stop scan that only stops when the computer is restarted!!!!

So? I am beginning to feel really, really beaten down, and by a blog publishing tool. While I love what I can do with it, I am frustrated beyond measure by the simple things I can not make work. I want to understand how it all works. I want to be able to figure things out on my own. But it makes me feel incredibly stupid to follow the directions and never solve anything. I can honestly concede that this may ALL be due to some error on my part. It wouldn’t be the first time. But still, I kind of miss having everything already set up optimally, and just ready to go. When I have to fool with these issues as much as I do, it takes time away from learning to do the things I really want to learn, such as creating themes over here. It takes time away from playing around with graphics. And to top it all off, every time I get things updated and get used to them, there is another release. GAH!

Thanks so much to everyone who has tried to help! I’ve had Chelle try to help by explaining to me how she got her permalinks all fixed up. I’ve had Kat, who doesn’t even use WP, try to help me by putting out a call for help for me. Thanks so much; I owe you big time! Jade and Christine, who don’t even know me, have also stepped up to help. I really, really appreciate them trying to help a total stranger this way!

Sigh. Perhaps I will get it one of these days. What I am trying to do may not even be all that important in the grand scheme of things, but it still pushes every button I have not to be able to do things on my own!

Currently: sick :yuck:

It’s not as bad as it sounds. I am way, WAY better than I was last week at this time, no doubt about that. But I am at that stage where I’m still coughing up and blowing out (what I hope are) the last nasty, stubborn bits of junk. I have been taking lots of extra strength otc expectorant and nasal decongestant. In fact, since I bought this stuff last week, I’ve not missed a single dose. And it helped. But? Now I’m at that point in the illness where I feel like I’m NEVER going to be completely better….so now I am fighting off depression as well. Fun, I tell you!

I am going to TRY to skate tomorrow evening. I’d love to be able to get out and do something just fun, and it won’t be derby practice. I’ll just be up there to try to work on my endurance. But still being sick-ish is going to throw a huge wrench into things. Oh well. I’ll just show up, and do whatever I can.

I am determined to get a bit of a workout. I know that my health, and my breathing, will improve vastly once I am more physically fit. It’s a hard set of obstacles to work around, being that I can’t breathe that well right now, and I need to be able to breathe to be able to get a decent workout, and I need a decent workout in order to make myself more fit, so that I might have an easier time breathing.

Never mind me; I know I’m basically like a dog chasing its tail with my thinking out loud, so to speak.

I plan on getting to a doctor about this soon, anyway. Just working out will only improve my health so much, and I see now that I definitely have to have professional, medical help keeping this condition under control.

And after the holidays, I will be enlisting the help of diet pills, Anoretix, or maybe even something prescription, to help give me the edge I’ll need to start living better.

Currently: confused

….or two.

I blogged about this sometime over the weekend, but really wanted to put this out there in case someone can help me:

I really, really want my permalinks like 90% of the rest of yours out there. (Yes, I’ve checked.) Mine are set to default, a lot of the blogs I read have theirs set up in a more SEO-friendly way. I have no idea how to do this. I can’t just select the permalink structure I want, because then it says I need to update my .htaccess file. I am scared to death to do that, and could really use some advice from someone who’s had to do it before. Specifically, I am not quite sure how to make the changes. I have a bit of code, but I am not sure whether to add it to what’s already in the .htaccess file, or replace something in the file with it, or what. See what I’m getting at?

Anyway, please hit me up if you’d be willing to tell me how to change my .htaccess file.

AND…..

Why on earth doesn’t CommentLuv work for me? It’s a wonderful way to add a little something extra to your comments (it finds your latest post and links to that specifically, in addition to the website url already left in your comment). I have the latest version installed and settings set, to my ability, how I want them. I plug the plugin on my site, and I have an account at CommentLuv.com. So I can’t figure out why sometimes it absolutely will not link to my post in some of the comments I leave. I also don’t think my readers have the option to choose the post they want to link to, like some of your sites do. Maybe I don’t have the latest version after all, but it’s the latest one I’ve seen. Can anyone shed light on this for me?

All this stuff is brand new to me, and I’m trying to get my ‘name’ back out there, so to speak. It’s really irritating to not be able to bend this stuff to my will like I always could with Blogger!

Currently: icky :yuck:

I figured that as soon as I paid full price for the awesome bag I had to have, they’d be marked down. I was right! It took two weeks, but the bags were put on sale for 10% off. No big deal. Since I got the one I wanted the most, I’ll just wait and see what’s left when they mark them down to 50% or more. Who knows, I may even splurge and get myself another one

Currently: frustrated

I finally got the hang of using my StumbleUpon toolbar…I think…and spent lots of Saturday stumbling. I completely lost track of time on some pretty neat sites.

At one of the sites, I became completely absorbed in reading about SEO stuff and page rank and getting your blog out there, etc. So, that led to me checking my google page rank, which I have not done in a while. And? Imagine my horror when I saw my (lack of) rank. I mean, my blogspot blog always carried a respectable page rank. I figured when I got my own domain, it would at least hold steady, but it didn’t.

So, I set about trying to make some changes that would correct that. I mean, page rank isn’t really all that important to me personally, but I am worried what it could do to my position with sponsored post companies. I really need to hold onto those, and thusly am trying to reverse this.

I started with permalink structure, and broke my blog. I had to almost completely reinstall wordpress to fix that. While I’m on the subject, how can I change my permalink structure? It wasn’t as simple as just clicking the option to the structure I wanted. Go figure. I needed to do something to my .htaccess file, which took me forever to find. And once I did find it, I was so scared to change or add anything to it that I just left it alone. Will any of you who have had to do this before be around sometime this week via email or messenger to walk me through that process and hold my hand? Pretty please?

I also finally deleted the old blogspot blog, and am in the process of deleting all entries from my old wordpress.com site, so as not to have any triplicate entries floating about. And I think I need to revisit an article about archive settings. Other than that, I have no clue what I am doing wrong.

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After getting the boys home tonight, I watched the season finale of True Blood. To be honest, I wanted to like it a lot better than I did. My son totally called it on who the killer was. Seriously! And I am a bit disappointed, because I liked the killer. Oh well. I am looking forward to next season. Which won’t air until NEXT SUMMER. You have GOT to be kidding me! How am I going to appease my vampire obsession in the meantime?

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Oh, and all you fangirls out there finally pushed me over the edge. Twilight took the retail and literary businesses and the media by storm, and took over the lives of at least 90% of the bloggers I read. I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the pull of its lure much longer. I finally caved and bought Twilight Saturday night. I see what all the fuss was about. I’ve had it just over 24 hours, and I’m already halfway through with it. I don’t know if that is fast for some of you, but it is for me. I read so slowly when I read for pleasure. Not only that, but six of those just over 24 hours were spent driving, and lots were spent sleeping. I am still snotty and wheezy. And it’s late. And I have work tomorrow. Joy!

But I will be okay. I am loving my job this time of year, because the store is busier than usual, and the shifts go by quicker than usual, and I can usually pick up some extra hours if I’m able to. That’s all good!

AND…..it’s Thanksgiving this week! The boys will be out of school after Tuesday. We will have Thanksgiving dinner, and I will work Friday. Then Friday night we will start to decorate - maybe - but Saturday, for sure!

Currently: cold :cold:

their wardrobes in the spring, when they do their spring cleaning and such. I just purge mine whenever I see something come out of the dryer that I *know* no one will ever wear again. This has cut down tremendously on the same old stuff coming through the laundry but never being worn. And has given us a bit more room in our closets and drawers. But it also means that I have absolutely NO sexy lingerie anymore!

How did that happen? Oh yeah. I remember now. I gained weight. I gradually started throwing stuff out that no longer fit, or looked ridiculous. You know what lingerie items I miss the most? The cute little corsets that I often wore as outerwear to shows and such. My very favorite was a red and black snakeskin-print vinyl one. So hot! Sigh. I really should have kept it, just as motivation. But I got so frustrated when I’d try it on and see bulges where there hadn’t been any before.

I finally threw my hands up in exasperation, said “forget this!” and tossed out, telling myself I’d just buy an all new cute wardrobe (lingerie included) when I reached my goal weight. I’m not even going to say how long ago that was, but it has been long enough.

This coming year has GOT to be the year that I get fit again and somewhat healthy. I don’t know how I will do it, because nothing at all has kept me inspired and motivated enough, but hopefully I will find a way to make it happen somehow. I should have done this years ago.

Currently: cold :cold:

I am officially jealous of Ms. Hot Tamale’s weather. She commented on one of my holiday posts about not feeling very Christmasy with the high temps in her part of the country still in the 70s.

I don’t think that would be a problem for me at all, especially right about now. I can NOT get warm in here!

Currently: cold :cold:

That bathroom renovations could be so expensive? Well, I guess that is pretty much a no-brainer. I dread it, though, since I have to have some work done in our main bath here soon. I was checking out some new bathroom vanities, and fell in love with this particular Kohler. I’d definitely splurge on it if I could! But until I can, I could probably build a very similar looking one myself. I’m nowhere near ambitious enough to do that, but it’s still a good idea, right?

Currently: cold :cold:

My house has the weirdest floor layout ever. I actually have a good bit of space, but not all of it is even remotely usable because of the layout. The front door opens directly into the living room/dining area, which also opens into the kitchen. AND the kitchen has a pass-through to the living room. So basically? I open the front door, and the person standing on my doorstep sees at least three rooms at once. Depending on where they’re standing, they could possibly even see into our main bath, as well.

I have wracked my brain for ways to make the most of this space and this silly layout. I am always astonished at how many people on those home improvement shows want an open floor plan. All an open floor plan means to me is more mess for people to see standing in the doorway. Yes, I should be keeping my house cleaner, but I rarely ever have it ‘together’ enough that all three rooms are looking good at the same time. It also means less usable wall space. That really limits where I can put things like my desk and entertainment center, not to mention how I arrange the rest of my furniture around the bigger pieces. Drives me crazy!

I think I have finally decided to try to non-permanently divide the living room from the dining & kitchen. I’d really like to even seal up the pass-through between the kitchen & living room, but it’s so convenient. And if I do that, I won’t be able to eventually build an eating bar, complete with some cute, retro bar stools for those nights we don’t want to eat at the dining room table.