this woman’s work

No surprise there — we knew she wasn’t ready to be whatever comes next (tadpole?) but Noah, who was jealous of the end-of-class Gushers given by the teacher, was trying to make her think she flunked. This from the formerly unschooled kid. See, I told you that virtual school was ruining him!

Speaking of ruining him — or rather his LIFE — we decided to give up cable FINALLY. I’ve felt guilty the whole time we had it but I’d be lying to say I’m not going to miss it. But so much of what we watch is available on the computer and we just figured out how to hook Brett’s laptop up to the television. Besides which we’re all watching too much anyway. When we broke it to Noah he began to gnash his teeth and tear his hair, poor dear. Life is hard in the big city.

Today I’m going to work on theming our new biz site after I get my regular work done. Hoping to debut it soon but we’re taking it slow and this time I’m walking Brett through some of the things so he won’t feel so left out and frustrated. We’re talking about what other aspects of the biz he’d like to take on besides the paperwork. Working with him is a challenge, frankly, because our communication styles are pretty different. Like he’s detail oriented and I’m “get-the-big-idea-and-move-on” oriented. And he’s a worrier and I don’t like to focus on worries because they sometimes catch me with their evil little purple claws and keep me stagnant. (Caution is one thing — chronic worry is another.) Plus I’m generally more optimistic, which would surprise everyone who knew me when I was a gloomy teen but there you go. Sometimes people change.

Oh and changing the subject entirely — since upgrading to Firefox 3, I’ve lost all my scroll bars. Very frustrating. I can still scroll but I can’t see the scroll bar. Firefox 3, to me, is like Wordpress 2.5 — perhaps released too soon seeing as how bug-filled it is. (I hear the beta of Wordpress 2.6 is out. I’m salivating for it because I haven’t learned my lesson about wordpress upgrades yet.)

It’s another one of the 2.5 bugs. You get locked out and the reset password link doesn’t work. But this is why I love open source stuff — there’s a fix on the wordpress forums that works just fine and you know the developers are working on a more permanent solution.

I heart open source! And wordpress, even this buggy version!!

So anyway — I was locked out all day because I thought it was a different issue that needed a different fix and have just now figured it out so boy am I late, eh? A list post then!

1. Madison worries about death. A lot. She’s so four, I know, which is a gravity-imbued age to be sure. Anyway this morning she woke me up by saying, “But I’ve never died before and I’m scared about it!” Then after we talked a bit she said, “But what about Gram and Gramps? They’re very grand and you know what that means — they’re old!”
2. She also asked a ton of questions about her bio dad last night and I gave her what answers I have. She was interested and confused, which is about how the rest of us (including Pennie) feel about it.
3. I love Noah an awful lot these days despite the tween-ness that is he. The hair, the clothes, the low-down, dirty, bad attitude. I see the moms of preschoolers at the park looking askance and I empathize with their naive condemnation. Hey, I used to think my little rosy-cheeked darling would grow up into THAT either but they do. You love ‘em anyway. Plus he’s a pretty good person underneath it all and sometimes he’s even nice to his sister.
4. I am restructuring my business and changing the name. Well, I’m keeping the name because it’s not like leaving that domain sitting there is gonna hurt anybody but I’m going to be launching something else more targeted. Stay tuned for the scintillating (not really) details.
5. Tomorrow is a park day that is both more and less because some regulars won’t be there (we’re hooking up later) but some non-regulars will be there. So it’ll be fun. Here’s hoping the rain stays away.
6. Brett got his new-to-us grill working (the third one he picked up on the streets because that’s how we play around here). He spent sixty bucks to get it working — including the propane tank — so it wasn’t exactly free but it’s a nice grill. He’s making BBQ chicken with tremendous glee. Truly. He’s practically dancing out there while he tenderly brushes sauce on his boneless, skinless breasts. He is truly suburban. (When not grilling, he’s out strewing mulch under our shrubs. What’d I tell you?)
7. Speaking of the park, which I was if you refer to #3, Brett has twice now accidentally but quite contentedly hung out with AmFam in the past two days. He wants you to know that L is getting huge and is, of course, adorable.

I spent some time yesterday making my wordpress site safer. Don’t be intimidated; it’s not too difficult:

Wordpress Security Tips and Hacks

8 Security Tips

Login Lockdown

If you’re not hosting your own wordpress install, you’re fine.

I didn’t realize that any old person could see what plugins I’d installed so that was the first (and easiest) thing to do — add an index.html to the folder.

I’ve found Wordpress 2.5.1 to be really buggy. I’ve installed it on a whole bunch of people’s sites and some of ‘em have problems I can’t seem to fix (like Julia still can’t upload pictures, I have to save my entries to click the comments/trackback permissions before I hit publish and Kristen’s flickr plugins are all wonky). But you really have to keep up with updates because they fix some of the security issues. Just remember to back up — I say this as someone who has lost blog entries in updates. Just export your entries and save your wp-content folder and wp-config file before you do your install. That way if something goes wrong you can try a fresh install and just import your entries, themes, etc.

I don’t know why but it was. Luckily Momosapien gave me a heads up and I was able to fix it. Honestly, wordpress 2.5 is giving me such fits! There are some other niggly things driving me crazy but I don’t have time to fix them. In any case, there are a handful of posts that never made it to the feedreaders. Oh well, what’s a girl to do?

I go back onsite tomorrow and am thinking I should have done laundry. This work wardrobe thing could kill a person. What with the regular shaving of the legs and the need for shirts that no one has wiped her mouth on (I’m looking at you, Madison!) and now with the hot weather — sheesh! I was talking to someone about more onsite work and I said, you know, I really like working in my pajamas.

Sometimes people will say you should get dressed even if you’re telecommuting to show how professional you are even if you’re just showing your desk chair and your dog. I beg to disagree. I mean, that might be important for some people but for me? Listen, telecommuting makes me happy because I think bras are ludicrous but also must bow to convention these days when my breasts are no longer perky. So yes, when I’m leaving the house I’ll wear them, which is just one of the many reasons I don’t look for excuses to leave the house.

The neighbors behind us are trying to sell their house. They’ve already moved but we got to talk to them today. They are awfully nice neighbors so I’m a little nervous about someone else showing up there. On the other hand, I know how badly they want to sell it so I’m rooting for a buyer even though an empty house is less worrisome to me than potentially awful neighbors.

Ok, this was mostly an update to test the rss feed.