Apr
29
2009
Tonight there’s a little satisfaction in the SE side of Houston. You see, tonight I popped the first cherry tomato of the season into my mouth. I picked it Sunday night when it was still slightly underripe (see picture below). But tonight I came home to find it’s cherry tomatoness red, ripe, and ready to go.
There isn’t anything better than a fresh tomato from the garden that you grew yourself. And I have plenty more where that one came from.
Now what should I do with that jalepeno?
no comments | tags: Cherry Tomatoes, Gardening, Grape Tomatos, Jalepeno Pepper | posted in Zone 9 Gardening
Apr
24
2009
Less than a week after massive flooding where I live, we had another deluge tonight.
It didn’t seem that bad at first, but tonight’s rain proved to worse than last Saturday’s. The water rose up more quickly AND it was higher. Here’s some pictures that I took this evening with my tripod.
The Water’s creeping up.
The Car on the left ended up driving forward and into the covered parking.
You can just barely see the esplande on the street on the left side of the picture. I feel sorry for the guy who’s car is missing a window. He’s probably got a ton of water inside.
Sidewalk between the apartment buildings.
no comments | tags: Flood, Houston, Less than 1 Week, Nassau Bay, Texas, Torrents | posted in That's Life
Apr
24
2009
The theme on this site is currently a modified version of the Spring Blossom theme put together by agodlymaiden. I like agodlymaiden’s design, but since it didn’t reflect me and my life, I did a little tweaking.
The first step was to find one of my own images that I wanted to use in place of the one agodlymaiden had used. I picked an image of a redbud tree branch that I took a month or so ago and sized it up in Photoshop so it matched the original header in size. I went into my FTP program, renamed the old header file and uploaded the new. Step one was done.
The next step was modifying the style sheet so the text in the header worked with the picture I now had. I changed the text to white and then experimented to determine how far it needed to move down from the top of the image to be readable. There’s nothing more more annoying than not being able to read text because it doesn’t have enough contrast between the background and the lettering .
I have something I can live with for the moment. Once I get done reorganizing all the blog posts into their appropriate main categories, I’ll move into the next phase of the site redesign. The next phase will involve modifying things a little more so that the categories are driving force behind what appears in the bar in the header. That will be an interesting challenge because I’m not sure how all the different parts of the template go together and I know next-to-nothing about PHP. That being said, I know enough to be dangerous.
Thank goodness I have a copy of the original theme backed up. That way if I mess things up too badly, I can start over.
no comments | tags: agodlymaiden, cascading style sheets, Figure Ground, Gestalt Theory, modifying, Photoshop, Themes, Useability, WordPress | posted in Nerdy Girl
Apr
24
2009
Somewhere in my interwebs rambling yesterday, I ran into a reference to Gwyneth Paltrow’s “blog” GOOP. I put the word blog in quotes because GOOP’s not a typical blog – readers can subscribe to Ms. Paltrow’s newsletter, but they can’t respond at all to any of the discussion. In my mind, GOOP is more of a web site.
I wanted to like it, I really did – but it just doesn’t work for me. I can’t relate to most of the things Paltrow talks about. I’ve never lived in New York or London. I never took a weekend trip to Paris with my father. And even though I know Martha and Oprah have similar out-of-this-world-to-me experiences, they still manage to make me connect with it and are able to make the experience relavant to me in some way. Most of things she discusses are monetarily out of my reach and just totally out of my realm of experience.
But if GOOP is supposed to be a blog, why isn’t a discussion mechanism in place so readers can participate? The “Be” section had some really good thoughts with responses from the “experts” but readers have no way to respond to what’s being said and that’s what blogging is about isn’t it – interaction between the writer and the reader(s)? Even Oprah and Martha Stewart get the fact letting your readers speak back to you on the Interwebs is necessary.
So gentle readers what are your thoughts on GOOP and blogging in general??
no comments | tags: blogging, GOOP.com, Gwenyth Paltrow, Martha Stewart, Oprah, Reader and Writer Interaction | posted in That's Life
Apr
19
2009
I’m not very organized but I am striving to get better at it so I’ve subscribed Martha Stewart’s Daily Organizing Tip. Some of the stuff makes me say “HUH???” But every once in awhile I see something that looks really cool like this idea for personalized drawer organizers.
What do I like about them??? That you can customize them to fit your needs and that you have a variety of options to choose from (based on what you are storing). Check out Lifestylesystems.com’s web site and MarthaStewart.com’s article on how to use them.
1 comment | tags: Drawer, flexible, Lifestylesystems.com, MarthaStewart.com, Organizer | posted in Paula's Picks
Apr
18
2009
This was the scene outside of my apartment this afternoon.
1 comment | tags: Flooding, Houston, Street, Texas | posted in That's Life
Apr
11
2009
John Berdardi published an interesting piece about some research done on Splenda and how it affects the gut. Check it out at
http://www.precisionnutrition.com/research-review-splenda-is-it-safe
(PS you might have to register at Precision Nutrition to be able to see this article)
Honestly, I’m to the point where I think I’ll limit the sugar and avoid the sweetners/substitutes all together.
no comments | tags: Gut problems, Healthy matters, John Berdardi, Precision Nutrition, Research, Splenda, substitutes, sweetners | posted in Weighty Matters
Apr
11
2009
I will help you clear the bookshelf. Then I will use my kitteh super powers to help you dust it; for you are a mere mortal!
Aaaaah a nice clean surface to sit upon.
Get away from me foul vacuum
no comments | tags: Cat, Rearranging the Furniture, Simba, That's Life | posted in That's Life
Apr
10
2009
This redesign is moving right along, but I did suggest to the WordPress Folks that they add some functionality to the Categories area of the WordPress Software. It tooks me more time than it should have to rearrange existing categories into the new parent categories.
no comments | tags: Categories, Redesign, Tags, That's Life, WordPress | posted in That's Life
Apr
9
2009
I’ve merged several of my old blogs into one big blog. I’m tired of maintain multiple blogs and I figure it’s time to bring all the little pieces of my online life together in one place.
So bear with me as I rearrange and consolidate content. It will get better – lookwise and feelwise. It just might take a little time in the meanwhile.
no comments | tags: blog, Content, Merge, Reconstruction, Redesign, That's Life | posted in Nerdy Girl
