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I kinda miss me

Well, where do I start?

I’m finally working again! The job I thought I had a couple months ago fell through. Somewhere between getting the verbal offer and waiting a week for the written offer, they decided to hire someone “a little more experienced” (either younger or asked for less money?), so I took the next offer I received, working as a tech operator for a small web hosting company here in Birmingham. Basically I’m doing Linux and web hosting tech support for account owners and resellers. It’s really interesting, and has instilled a greater appreciation for the support staff at my own web host, Lunarpages.

I’ve been learning my way around WHM (the back-end of cPanel) as well as other control panel applications, as well as re-learn Linux because I hadn’t touched it in YEARS before this point. o.O But it’s cool, and I like the guys I work with, they’re a good bunch. I wish the pay and benefits were better, but it is what it is — a low-level tech support job. And let’s face it, IT jobs are very hard to come by in Birmingham, so I know I’m lucky to get this.

It feels good to be working again. It feels good to be needed and useful.

I spend my lunches reading books. That’s another hobby that I dropped over the years and wished I hadn’t, so now I’m reading as much as possible. I renewed my library card and have been dropping by there every other week or so to drop off what I’ve read and pick up new books. One of the librarians giggled at my selections because they range from animal behavior to ancient folklore to religious studies to paranormal romance. LOL

Things at home are OK. Bruce is adjusting to me working, which I was really worried about. I worry about him being lonely when I’m not there. I felt guilty for not adopting his brother when I had the chance, but I couldn’t afford a second cat. Perhaps I’ll get him a play buddy later after my finances are caught up. I have a ton of reviews still needing to be written for his blog, so hopefully I’ll get time to work on that this weekend.

I’m still working on the redesign for my site. I think I’ve started over 4 times now in the last 9 months. There are a set amount of characteristics that I absolutely want in a design, but every solution I’ve come up with so far is missing something or I just hate it in general. I’ve been looking at a lot of HTML5 and responsive designs from other sites, but have not seen anything remotely close to want I want in functionality and aesthetics … and after a while they all look alike to me, which I also absolutely hate.

Maybe I’m just too picky?

Jessie is doing well in school. She’s almost completed her first year of high school, is studying for her driver’s license, and has had her share of boy troubles … she’s a typical teenage girl. She’s going to spend a month or so with her mother this summer (oh yeah, her mother moved to Nebraska some time back, that’s a long story for another time!), so she’s really looking forward to that. I think the time away will do her some good, though I’ll miss her like crazy.

The change of scenery would be good for her, and though she hasn’t said it directly, her mother would be providing something she desperately wants — a stable home with 2 parents. She posed the question once if she wanted to stay longer would I object. I told her if that’s what she really wanted and would make her happy, then I would support her decision. I added that I would miss her terribly, but it’s not like we can’t keep in touch via phone/texts, Facebook, gaming, etc.

It’s stability she needs, and I want what’s best for her. As long as she’s happy and safe, I’m fine … even if it’s not with me.

I’ve started looking at going back to school again. I’ve applied for a Pell grant, and have been approved for some financial aid at a few places. Now I need to figure out how I’m going to attend, where I want to attend, and what I want to take. Part of me would love to stay in IT, but given how hard it has been over the past 10 or so years to find and keep an IT job here, I wonder if I may do better in another field.

But I love IT the most, hence my dilemma … oh well, I have plenty of time to decide I guess?

Things with my folks are still touchy sometimes. My father is back to not speaking to me again. My mother and I have gotten closer and our relationship has improved a lot over the past year or so. I have to be careful to avoid the subject of my husband. Both of my parents feel that he’s used me, and that I should not be as accommodating as I should be to him. But then again I think my mother would feel better if I hated him too …

I am still very angry and resentful about a lot of things, but I have no desire to hate anyone. It’s wasted energy and honestly would undo what little progress I had made in therapy before I lost my job (and my insurance/benefits) last August. I want to be better than that, and I want to move forward. That said, yeah maybe I am too accommodating to him than I should be, but hurting him would hurt Jessie. And there’s no way in Hell I would ever purposefully hurt my child. She’s almost grown, and eventually she won’t be a shield for anyone to hide behind anymore. As far as I’m concerned, the issue will dissolve itself. Anyone who has more than two brain cells to rub together would be wise not to burn any bridges left with me.

So what else?

Oh yeah, I had another birthday. It sucked. No phone calls, no cards, no visits from friends who have dropped off the face of the planet for whatever reason since whatever point in time. I went to see my parents and regretted it — my father spent the meal picking apart my life choices. I left there that afternoon feeling worse than ever and wishing for a do-over.

Actually a do-over for the last entire year would be nice!

And actually, I’m still pretty angry about my birthday …

Mother’s Day was emotional but OK overall. I was afraid I was not going to have one, but Jessie came to stay with me for most of the weekend and gave me a movie and some chocolates. Her visit meant more to me than anything, but it was nice being appreciated and remembered. I’ve missed that so much since our family has broken up.

I felt unappreciated before … and I’ve felt pretty much forgotten ever since.

I’ll tell you, that sucks more than anything in the world, so I’m a little emotional when it comes to holidays now. Maybe it will get better, or, I’m hoping it will.

So, I think that’s most everything that’s gone on … I’m concentrating on working hard, paying off my debts, and trying to keep myself from falling back down into that dark pit I was in for so very long. I feel a lot better now than I have in a while, but I know I still have a long way to go until I’m “me” again.

I haven’t been “me” for such a very long time, and I kinda miss her.

Bruce, Destroyer of Toys

You know, Hobie had toys and loved them. She destroyed a few in her lifetime, but those took months, even years. For Bruce, it can be a few hours or a few days to destroy a toy. Needless to say, Mr. Destroyer of Toys isn’t getting many new ones and I’ll either patch up what he has or make new ones from my craft supplies. XD

However, what he HAS had bought for him, I’m reviewing on a new blog: Is it Bruce-proof?

I’ve said ever since I adopted him that anyone who could make a toy that is “Bruce-proof” would make a killing. This blog will review the toys that have so far failed to make the cut, as well as various other pet products I’ve bought. I only have 3 reviews up right now, but have about 8 more that I’m currently documenting/writing.

Feel free to follow if you’re so inclined. ^_^

Site Maintenance

My host will be moving my account from PHP4 to PHP5, so just a head’s up: my site may be down for a little bit. (hopefully not long at all)

Update: Move went smoothly and everything seems to be working. Please let me know if you have or see any problems on the site. Thanks!

Taking Humpdays a step further

I’ve been working my way down my various “to do” lists for this site and finally finished something I had meant to do a while back: create separate feed and email subscription options for the Humpday Hilarities. Fueled by Feedburner, it took a little re-coding to get things arranged the way I wanted them, but now everything seems to be in order.

From now on, anyone who wishes to subscribe only to the Humpday Hilarities can do so via RSS or Email. Of course, I welcome everyone to hang around the whole feeds, but understand completely for those who don’t.

All Humpday Hilarities posts (as well as the corresponding tags and category) will display the following invitation:

Did you know you can get these weekly funnies sent directly to your email? Click here and fill out the email subscription link. Mailing frequency is once per week, with the rare exception of extra funnies posted for special occasions.

Your email address will never sold or given out to anyone!

Please let me know if any part of the site looks funny or acts up. And of course, submissions are always welcome. (Read: send me your funnies!)

NeoVizion Silver Award

This arrived last night:

Thank you for submitting for the 2009 Gold Award. We enjoyed reviewing your website.

We are presenting you with the Silver Award. All we ask is if you decide to accept this award please link the award back so others like yourself can submit for the awards.

Your site is listed on our award page with a link.

Thank you from the NEOVIZION, Inc. review department.

Thank you!

Google shares deactivated and deleted

My apologies for the duplicate posts, twits, and other notices. I never could get the kinks worked out for the Google shared items posts. I had tried several plugins, but they all had one thing in common: a simplepie core (which I think was the problem).

I’ve deleted all the posts and removed the plugins. I may look into it again later.

Was a cool idea though …

Award of Elegance

This arrived last night:

Congratulations! I’m honored to present your site with my Award of Elegance.

Thank you for your interest in my awards.
Cheers, Lady Rohan

Thank you, Lady Rohan!

Purrrfect Page Award

I received this in an email this morning:

It is an honor to present you with my Purrrfect Page Award.

Fresca

YAY!

Thank you, Fresca!

Fantasy Fights Diamond Award

New addition to the Awards page:

Congratulations on your win for the Fantasy Fights Diamond Award for 2009. The Fantasy Fights diamond award is a Free service and is presented to those sites whose web design originality and content have achieved the highest levels of excellence. Each year someone/ you must resubmit your site in order to win each year award. All 2009 awards will be removed and ready for the 2010 winners so be sure to sign up each year.

Ladie Mikala

Thank you, Ladie Mikala!

Pre-load images with CSS

Most anyone who’s been messing around with webpages and HTML over the past few years I’m sure is familiar with the concept of pre-loading images. If you have a rollover effect (for instance, mouseover effects on a menu bar), it makes good sense to pre-load your images so that the effect shows up immediately when your visitor moves their cursor over the image/object. For a long time, the most popular way to accomplish this was by adding javascript to your HEAD section and an onload snippet to your BODY tag.

There is a much easier way to do this with CSS. I had ran across this a long time ago, but never bookmarked the link.

Bad designer, BAD!

Luckily, I ran across it again recently and thought I’d post it here in case anyone else was interested in how to do this.

In your stylesheet, add the following:

.hiddenpic {display:none;}

Then add your image that you want pre-loaded just following the </HEAD> tag. For example:

<img src="/images/navhover.gif" alt="" class="hiddenPic" />

OR, you could put several images inside a DIV:

<div class="hiddenPic"><img src="/images/hover1.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/hover2.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/hover3.gif" alt="" /></div>

Just keep in mind that these images will load before you page does, so don’t overdo it with HUGE images!

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