Rain and Pretend and Firefox and HTML and Web Design and my Hubby and Spam

It is a bleak rainy day today. Dark and drizzly. I kind of enjoy it though. I decided to just get dressed in flannel PJ bottoms and a sweatshirt. Rather lazy of me, actually. I have lamps on during the day, which gives a wierd effect. It is a good day for soup, coffee and tea. Warm things in mugs. We did get a thunderstorm, but I was so disappointed. I wanted to at least see some lightning. It didn't start until after we had gone to bed and I was dozing off. Oh, well. I am sure that there will be more. We live in wierd pocket of a valley next to the Wisconsin River. People who live in the mountains would be so offended I said that. It is really just spot between 2 hills where the river flows. But anyway, we get more severe weather through here than 20 miles north or 20 miles south. There actually was a tornado that touched down across the street and took out an old barn about 4 or 5 years ago.

Mark is still being very good. He has learned how to (or at least I have finally noticed that he is) playing pretend. He walks around holding his play phone to his ear and has long discussions with someone else. It is so cute. He actually babbles for a while, then waits a few seconds, and babbles some more. I think that he is 'talking' to daddy because 1) everytime we try to get him to talk on the real phone it is to daddy and 2) when he 'talks' for pretend he goes to the patio doors and looks out. The only reasons that he plants himself there are to watch snow (no more snow!), watch birds (at which time he inevitably cries 'Woof!'), or look for daddy coming home. He has in general been more playful recently. He is so cute to watch.

Most everything that I have tried to do today, I just end up banging my head against the wall. Alot of little things. The only one that comes to mind, mostly because it is puzzling me, is Firefox. I have decided to go ahead and download it and give it a try. The download went fine. But when I double clicked it to install, I got an error message. I thought after a few tries that maybe something went wrong with the download, so I just deleted the .exe file and redownloaded it. Still it won't install. I get a message titled 7-zip and says unspecified error. How am I supposed to know what to fix if it is unspecified? I tried to look-up help in the Monzilla forums and FAQs but nothing so far. No big deal I guess. I will either figure it out and try Firefox or just give up and keep using IE.

I really like one of the books I got yesterday from the library. "HTML for the World Wide Web with XHTML and CSS, 5th edition" by Elizabeth Castro. I hope that you didn't fall asleep reading the title. But the book reads like a school text. Easy and basic. Any one with a brain can figure it out. Well, that includes me half the time. I figure that if I take it page by page, it should be simple enough. I am already learning alot that I had no idea about. And I am on page 20. The Bravenet tutorials that I was trying to use just kept turning me in circles.

Gabriel and I had a nice chat last night with the TV off. We haven't just visited in a long time. It seems wierd to 'visit' with your husband. It was kind of like when we were dating. Just rambling about whatever. Once upon a time before we had Mark, I said something about maybe doing Web design from home. It kind of fell away with being pregnant and not having any training or knowledge about programming and design. With my renewed interest in HTML and my stronger determination to learn it, Gabriel dusted off the thought of Web design. I must confess that I do think about it. It wouldn't be a big money maker or anything, like a hobby with a profit. But I try to keep it in check until I actually have the ametuer ability to do something about it. As a teen I was friends with a women who was a busy as heck SAHM that did Web design from her home. I remember being so jealous because I wanted to be able to do what she did. Maybe I can. I am very good at teaching myself. I was homeschooled and have a very good abilty to learn straight out of a book without needing someone to led me by the hand.

Ugh, I had spam in my tag box this morning. Only 3 messages and I deleted them right away. But if I have a huge problem with spam like at Bravenet then I am just going to take down my tagboard. I am not going to put up with deleting a hundred spams every morning. I do that already with my e-mail.

TTFN

Unfriggin' Believable

You can go to How Much Is My Blog Worth? to find out in a dollar amount how popular your blog is. Expressions of Love at blogspot came up as a big goose egg. $0. What, how? *pouting* *GIANT fat lip*

But get this. Expressions of Love at Bravenet came up as worth $564.54! $564.65 and it is a closed blog. I haven't decided if I am going to delete it or not.

So how much is your blog worth?

Doing my Happy Dance.

Mark was such a doll today. I am just starry eyed in love with him. We went shopping and by the time we got into town, parked, and started walking toward the entrance, I remembered that I left my shopping list on the counter at home. :l Yes, I did. So we had to go all the way back, because there is no way I could finish my errands without my list. I am on a $50 a week budget. Squeaky clean. So I comb the ads and figure out what we need for the week plus what we should stock up on, and I make a very exact list of where to go for what. Without my list I am lost. (See yesterday's post) I forget half the things that I need and end up buying stuff that isn't budgeted thus spending too much.

Anyway, we got the list and went back into town. But I was in a good mood anyway. It is warm and beautiful outside, even if it is overcast. It smells like spring. We are supposed to hit 60 today and get our first thunderstorm tonight.

When we got to the grocery store, Mark behaved so well. I didn't have to carry him at all. He walked with me whenever he wasn't in a cart. He held my hand when I told him to. He didn't wonder off when he needed to stand beside me. When he was in the cart, he sat nicely and either quietly looked around or told me stories about the things he was seeing.

We went to the library also today and Mark was just as well behaved there. Whose kid is this? I picked up 3 books that I had reserved. One is on HTML, one is on CSS, and one is titled "Teach Yourself to Create Web Pages in 24 Hours". Hehe, that sounded like THE book for me. I paged through it as I was waiting for the internet to dial-up. I was slightly deflated to find out that it is teaching how to use Netscape Communitcator. *sigh* While that is all fine and good, I want to learn how to create a page with bare bones coding with Notepad. And I don't want to use Netscape as a browser. If anything I am a hair's length away from downloading FireFox. I was wondering for all those who do make their own templates, do you use a text editor like Notepad or do you use a program like Dream Weaver or Netscape Communicator? There was a CD included so that you could install Netscape. There were supposed to be some graphics to play with also on the CD, so I threw it in to download those. The CD actually has a whole bunch of other programs including...are you ready for this?... Paint Shop Pro 5.0. No. Shit. :O I know that it is only 5.0, but the most that you can download for free of the internet is a 15 day trial version of 6.0. Yee Haw. Doing my happy dance. Be glad you aren't here watching.
~* ~ Note. After posting, I checked out the PSP. It is only a 30 trial. Psssssssssssss. There I go around the room like a balloon. Oh well. ~*~

Gabriel has some overtime now, so he has to work 6-6:30. At least he is in town with only a 5 minute commute. I wasn't real thrilled about it but the paychecks will be bigger. So we are back to getting up at 5:30. That whole sleeping in until 6:30 was fun for the 2 days that it lasted.

I have a prenatal appointment this afternoon. We were seen 2 weeks ago, so I don't know why she wanted us to come in so soon. That reminds me. I have to get a pee sample together or those nurses get POed at you. I hope that Mark is as happy this afternoon because will daddy working, so it will be just us two. We also have to stop at Target while we are out by the clinic.

TTFN

Whose brain did you get? Why, Abby's. Abby Normal's.

My baby brain has officially kicked into high gear. My apologies to all those reading this blog who walk away thinking, 'what the heck?'. *sigh* My brain is swimming in a fog that won't clear. It goes something like this:

Stage 1: You are talking normally to someone when you stop and realize that the thought driving your speech is gone. Midsentence. Usually I have nothing else to say except, "What were we talking about?"

Stage 2: You can actually remember the topic and line of thought but entire words and phrases have been deleted from memory.
ME: Mark did such and such today. He was so cute. He acted grown up. It was just so................... Um. Um. Um. What is the word? You know when someone does something you really like?
HIM: Helpful?
ME: No. It begins with a vowel.
HIM: Exciting?
ME: No. It sounds kinda like acruable but it isn't acruable.
At which point I forget the sentence that the word-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue was supposed to be in. Until 3 hours later...
ME: Adorable!
HIM: What?
ME: Mark is adorable.
HIM: Of course he is. (Slightly confused)

Stage 3: There is no more organization in my thoughts. The file cabinet that is my brain has been ransacked and the folders are strewn about. Hey! There are the lyrics for "Boot Scootin' Boogie".

Stage 4: Accompanying the lack of brain function is lack of... What was I talking about again?

Stage 5: You feel like you are on double doses of Benadryll.

Stage 6: Things totally make sense in my mind, but take a detour through the blender before hitting my mouth.
ME (thinking): I can't wait for Spring. I want to plant flowers so badly. I want everything to be fresh and green.
ME (talking): What time is Spring? Lets go plant flowers green now so it's fresh.

Stage 7: I stutter and stumble over words. I mispronounce things. I use the wrong words in the wrong places. I misspell things. Be very glad that Blogger has spell check.

Stage 8: I walk downstairs into the basement pantry and think, "Why am I in the pantry?". When I get back upstairs, I remember that I was getting a can of soup. After I get the can of soup and heat it up, I remember that I needed to throw the laundry in the drier and the soup was a secondary reason to go downstairs.

Stage 9: You watch the morning news and the afternoon news and the evening news and the late news solely for the purpose of finding out what day it is.

Stage 10: Pray for the delivery date to hurry up. At least then you can't remember anything from a lack of sleep and food. Not from a lack of higher brain function.

All of the above is true and have actually happened and/or are happening to me. Just ask my husband, the poor guy. He has to live with a toddler and me.

TTFN

She's Funny That Way Part 2

Ok, so my second nomination for the contest is MammaWannabe. She is a newbie blogger and a newbie SAHM. So everyone Yay for her! She has only been blogging for a month now and has posts like To the men in my house...

"Today, while cleaning the home that you occupy (with me), I had the immeasurably pleasurable task of cleaning up your pee.
While I enjoy my newfound job as the "Chief Cook & Bottlewasher/Chauffer/Laundry Do-er", I do NOT, repeat, DO NOT have a fondness for scrubbing your pee from every surface of every toilet in this house.
With this in mind, let me introduce a sub-section of instructions for you to follow:
a) lift seat
b) commence piss disbursement
c) put seat back into position you found it
d) WASH YOUR FLIPPING HANDS! (Another irritant I will discuss with you later)"

I read this post the other day and thought it was so funny that I was going to do a traceback to it anyway. Nominating her just gives me an excuse. So, again, go forth, visit, and say "Stephanie said to read this post because it would make me LMAO and I think that it is really funny also."

She's Funny That Way Part 1

So I mentioned that Generation Xhausted was hosting a contest and there were a couple of great gals that never fail to make me LMAO. Thus I present to you nominee #1. You can call her Wenchy.

Da Wench always makes everything that is bleak and unhappy, funny and something to talk about. If you haven't visited her yet, GO. Do so right now. Well, I guess you can finish reading this first. Like today's post was all her funeral wishes.

"...no life support for me either. Pull the plug. Let me go. Don't let me hang around looking unsexy with a pipe in my mouth only to wake up and not remember who you are. I can't laugh with things in my mouth anyway.
...my ashes are to be scattered in Africa at the Uvongo lagoon where the waters are forever deep. Knowing me the wind will blow wildly so please do breathe through your mouth unless you wanna inhale some of me.
If I die at the side of the road, feel free to put flowers. If I can make a wee request.. yellow roses and sunflowers. A statue of rememberance would also be acceptable. Basically be very morbid and depressed.
...please do be very sad. Perhaps colour co-ordinated tissues may be handed out. I like that sorta thing."

She truely does bring out the best in things and makes me smile everyday. That is why I wanted to nominate her.