friday photos

It's Tuesday. Should I even bother? (Yes! Genghis's adoring public cries out.)

Okay, but first I have to show you our Easter Bunny Cake. The Easter Bunny Cake is my family's long-standing tradition that I have heretofore eschewed. Usually because I forget when Easter is each year. This year we ramped up our celebrations (more to come on that in a later post) and I threw in the Bunny Cake partly because of nostalgia, partly because I was afraid my sister would disown me if I didn't at least make an effort.

Historically, the Easter Bunny Cake is a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and bunnies crafted from marshmallows lining the sides like little sugary soldiers. But I made a red velvet cake with white cream cheese frosting, so we had to dip our bunny marshmallows in chocolate, which is a lot harder than it looks, so we only had the energy for 2 bunnies laying down on top.

As a nod to authenticity, I put the bunnies on a bed of coconut died green (tradition has the bed of coconut on top with jelly beans in it, like Easter eggs in grass).

This had the unintended and unfortunate consequence of making our bunnies look like they were just laid to rest in a Bunny Graveyard. Oh well.





And now on to Genghis. Playing with plants in the morning sunlight.

orange fingers

Remember how I talked about using this software called Drupal to design my awesome interactive website so I don't have to write any actual computer code?

Well, turns out there were some pretty specific things I needed my website to do that could only be done by writing code in Drupal. Which seems to defeat the whole purpose of using Drupal to not write code. (I don't really need to go into all this detail. I just like saying the word Drupal in my head. ... (drupal) ...).

So I have abandoned my Drupal project and now have 3 text files on my hard drive: .html, .css, and .js. Html and css aren't strictly code, more like Microsoft Word for the internet - ways of displaying text in pretty ways. Okay, maybe Microsoft Word is a bad example. Can you ever get images and tables in Word to display how you want them to?

But .js is really code. Nothing hard core, a kind of simple man's code. My particular code makes an accordion menu (see example - not mine, someone else's that looks prettier). Now I'm just a bag of Cheetos, a Coke, and an oversized black T-shirt printed with my favorite WOW avatar away from being a real programmer. I'd probably have to turn off the lights in my room and just work from the glow of this laptop, too.

(My apologies for blatantly stereotyping coders. After trying to dive into your world, I have deep respect for what you do. And I like Cheetos.)

After spending a few weeks building this site, I have to admit that web design is really quite fun. And in my opinion, you only need three things to get started.

1. w3schools.com bookmarked on your browser. This is my absolute go-to guide for learning the basics of web design. Their tutorials are quick and teach you the essential scaffolding of whatever language you're using (html, css, etc) so you can build up from there very easily.

2. A starter template (downloadable html and css files) created by someone else. Go to http://www.bluerobot.com/web/layouts/ for a simple, clean beginning. Check out this somewhat dated but useful article for a list of more interested and slightly more complicated templates.

3. A real person who you can go to with questions when you're tired of trying to find answers from computers. Abe has been this person for me. I can try to be this person to you, but may actually get my answers from Abe and then relay them back to you. Really, the answers aren't nearly as important as the human contact. I cannot stress this enough.

friday photos

Yesterday was what I hope all of May is. We enjoyed the afternoon with a plum picnic in the park.

hello world

I'd like to start off this post by reprimanding all of my readers for not commenting on last Friday's photo (okay, Sunday's photo - why, oh why, did I tie myself to a day of the week with that ongoing title?) of Genghis with the umbrella. Don't you realize this is a very unique photo? Here's a Venn Diagram to explain.



In case looking at Venn Diagrams makes you break out in a cold sweat as you imagine yourself sitting in 7th grade pre-Algebra, here's the gist. I take a lot of photos of Genghis. He is usually blurry. He sometimes smiles. He rarely smiles and is not blurry.

Hooray, Umbrella Photo!

Okay, a confession before you read any farther. I really don't have much to say in this post. I am writing now to remind myself that I am human.

I have spent most of my baby-free hours this last week trying to create a dynamic website using Drupal, a content management system. Even though using Drupal means I don't have to write a line of actual computer code, it still leaves me feeling like an automaton.

To overcome that feeling, here's a list of some human-like things I've done recently:
- Devoured Red Velvet Cake
- Cleaned up spaghetti after an 8-month old "ate" it
- Felt the sunlight warm my cheeks and arms while driving in my car
- Squinted through a rainstorm while driving in my car
- Made several jokes about wondering whether we were human or dancer with my husband, who does even more computer coding than me, making the answer to this question even more vital
- Hit "snooze" on my alarm clock
- Put on my glasses to read
- Did a Yoga workout
- Tried (unsuccessfully) to remember to pay a bill

What makes you feel human? Or better yet, what makes you feel dancer?

friday photos

Random happenings. Genghis likes umbrellas.


And feather dusters.


A trip to Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. Tucked away behind a strip mall, filled with old arcade games (think 1890s to 1980s) and decorated with show bills and creepy carnival statues. I spared you the video of the coin-operated pipe organ orchestra attempting Bohemian Rhapsody. It featured accordion on melody and sounded like the middle school band, site reading.

task avoidance, and why this $10 organic free range chicken better taste delicious

For the last few months, my good friend Kristin and I have been exploring a business idea for online meal planning. Our vision was delicious meets netflix meets the dinner table - an easy recipe bookmarking site that takes your uploaded recipes and gives you recommendations for what to make for dinner that week.

Last Friday, we found a website that basically does that already. We knew the market for online meal planning was crowded, but we had thought our approach was unique. Our venture disbanded that afternoon and I signed up for a free 30-day trial with this other website. Since we're no longer in competition with them, I'll tell you the name: plantoeat.com. So far it looks pretty good. I'll be using it for the next month and I'll give you a full report at the end.

With one business venture at a close, I now find myself coming back to an earlier work plan that I titled in my Google Docs as "Library Evaluation Master Plan". Dum dum dummmm! Except that "Library" and "Evaluation" are less sinister than they are quiet, unassuming, and maybe a little dull. The Master Plan, at a high level*, is a plan for creating an online tool for librarians to be paired with evaluation mentors to evaluate their programs and services so they can understand outcomes, impacts, and areas for improvement.

I'm really excited about the project, and think it has a lot of potential. But every time I come around to working on it (read: every time Genghis takes a nap), I find myself doing anything other than. (Erin's thoughts: Gee, that calendar needs to be updated. Don't we need to turn our mattress on a regular basis? And when was the last time someone mopped this floor?)

One of my more successful procrastination techniques this week has been couponing. I have been attempting couponing for several weeks in an effort to cut our grocery bill by about 30%. I organized a coupon box, checked out online coupon strategy resources, made meal plans based on sale/coupon combinations, and only used coupons for items I actually purchase. The result? Well, at a high level, it has been a complete failure. At any level, really, it has been a complete failure. I've probably saved a total of $10 for putting in 5 hours of my time. And that $10 I saved just got sunk into an organic free range chicken I bought yesterday because I thought it was on clearance for $2.15. That was actually the savings price - the chicken cost $10, originally $12.15. I didn't have a coupon for it, but I wouldn't have bought it if I hadn't been in super-frugal money saving mode.

And now that I've procrastinated another 45 minutes, I think it's time to get to work (don't say that out loud, or Genghis will wake up).

P.S. Does anyone know how to cook a chicken?

*I have found the phrase "at a high level" invaluable for skirting questions and feigning knowledge. Example: "Erin, can you use your vast wisdom about everything to enlighten me on the current debate about the national budget?" "Well, at a high level, it really comes down to balancing fiscal responsibility and government services, with both sides reaching across the aisle."

friday photos

Genghis takes on Chicago! The day after we got home from our weekend trip to Chicago, Genghis slept in until 10am.