Testing this out since I don’t do much with this blog anymore. Block with an image? This isn’t exactly intuitive. I had to poke around before I could figure out to get the text to wrap around this image. And if I don’t have enough text, the image will barge into the next block on the screen. This is kind of derpy if you ask me… Never mind. That was just old, bad code. Fixed it!

Bigger text? In a blue box?

Writing text around this image to see how it will work this time. Seems to add formatted and aligned text around an image, the ‘block’ has to start its life as an image ‘block’. If it starts as a paragraph block and you add the image after, you are constrained to the text aligning to the bottom of the image only and not next to it like on this one… And I can’t seem to find whether you could edit a paragraph block to make its text wrap around the image like on an image block.

Now, let’s see how this presents on the front end.

But, no color settings on a Heading. Hmm…

This is just weird and will take some getting used to… And apparently the text I added in the blue box – hello bad line height on a constrained width section! I’ll have to figure out if that is something that I’d have to account for in the design’s CSS, or what.

*Looks at date of previous post*

So, yeah. Almost eight years since my last post. Oops.

Anyway, the title for this entry is regarding my decision to move away from WP. I’m rather tired of having to constantly make sure everything is updated practically every day, especially since I don’t update very often (obvious train, all aboard!). So I will be moving the content here to something else as soon as I can get the new CMS coded up for it.

On the very slim chance that anyone still reads my blog, or even smaller chance that anyone even has any backlinks here (aside from my own occasional backlink in comments), the URLs will change very slightly, specifically for the individual entries, and for any archives I can manage to create. I thought about doing 301 redirects, but… as I doubt anyone is still linking to individual entries, and since my SEO is probably shot anyway, I see no reason not to start ‘fresh’, even if the posts are old. I may even start posting again, not sure on that just yet. I’ll also pare down the bloglist after that, as I’m sure many of the links lead to sites that probably don’t exist anymore.

I’ll be doing the same thing at my ‘raisingagirl.com’ site also. New designs will be in hand for both (mobile ready – something that helped tank any bit of SEO I may have had), and a CMS that is far less likely to have a giant target painted on its back. It’s one I’ve used in the past on other sites, and while it is upgraded fairly consistently, it’s not as constant as WP’s updates have been as of late, so if I fall behind it shouldn’t be as huge of a deal as it would be for WP to fall behind.

So, like the title… Out with the old, in with the new.

Yeah, just what I need – one more place to have to keep up with. LOL

This one is intended for my side biz, for my jewelry.  Actually I already have a link to it here, except it used to be my e-commerce site.  I switched things around over the weekend, moved the e-commerce pages to a different folder (essentially making it invisible unless I give a direct link), and put the new blog on the main directory.

I created both an Artfire Studio (basic for now) and an Etsy shop, where I’ll eventually start posting items for sale – jewelry, polymer clay beads, etc..  The links to both are at the top of the page on that blog.  I am also going to try out a plug-in I found for wordpress which allows one to host an e-commerce solution straight from the WP blog.

Technically I could re-list some of the stuff I had up previously at my e-commerce site, but I’d like to re-take the photos of a bunch of them with better lighting and backdrop and whatnot, before I do that.   Plus I’m also trying to work on some polymer clay stuff to be able to sell as well.   Once that is all ready I’ll put up another post here, as well as at the new blog, letting anyone who still drifts by here, know about it.

I know I’ve lost a lot of readers (geeze, do I even still have any at all? LOL) due to my extremely sporadic posting and even less frequent visitation and commenting at other blogs… And that’s ok with me, to be honest. It’s nothing less than I deserve for slacking like that.  I’ll just have to work on posting more often, either here or at the other blog, and trying to visit other blogs.  Unfortunately with the micromanagement at work looking over my shoulder for claims of excessive slacking there, i.e. surfing too much, it’s become even more difficult to do much of what I used to do from work – which was read others’ blogs and such.  And because I’d rather work on things like, you know, building up a stock of jewelry and whatnot when I’m at home, that doesn’t leave a lot of time for blog surfing and posting on my own blog… Except when I’m in a creative funk, of course.

Talk about being spread thin. 

Hmm.  Given that it is summer, and my blog layout design is a “winter-y” design.. I think perhaps I should get around to finding or making a non-seasonal layout.

Anyway.  Summer is definitely here where we live.  This weekend it’s supposed to get to over 110 degrees.  My poor garden, I’m glad I built the shade structure over it.

My celebrity tomato plant keeps getting attacked by tomato worms (they burrow into the tomato and eat it from the inside, causing it to rot on the vine), AND those that don’t get attacked end up cracking.  I just can’t seem to win with that plant.  My cherry tomato plant is still plodding along despite that nearly all of the bottom branches are completely bare (no stems at all) from having to clip off the dying ones.  And my better boy is now trying to take over the box that IT is in (like the celebrity did) and has a few branches that span the entire width and length of the box (4×4) plus a foot or two.  It’s still budding tomatoes too, although I wish the birds would bugger off… (if it’s not worms, it’s birds).  I’ve only managed to get one good tomato off of it in the last month thanks to the darn birds, and I picked that one before it was completely ripe.

My watermelon plants started growing like crazy, all the way up the five foot trellis with one of them now snaking horizontally across the top of the trellis, too.  I think I spotted at least three good budding melons so hopefully by the end of the month we may have some big enough that we can eat?  They’re up high too, so I won’t have to worry about my daughter picking them off long before their time.

Despite that my cucumber plants are sprouting baby cukes like crazy, they never get very far (I presume due to the heat)… I think I found *ONE* little one this morning that seems to be getting further along in growth than all its predecessors, so maybe I’ll get a lone cucumber, we’ll see.

The corn was a bust.  It got hot too fast and many of them started drying up before I had a chance to pick them, so I left about six ears out for the birds to pick at and eat if they want.  They weren’t very big either, maybe six or seven inches was the longest ear of corn.  There are still a few small ears that I left on hoping they would grow, but I’m not holding out much hope.

I pulled up the peas last weekend, they were done.  I left the beans but they don’t seem to be producing anymore, so I’ll probably do the same with them soon.

There are quite a few things I will do differently next time around, in addition to planting earlier in the spring, many of the plants will get their own designated garden beds so they don’t have to compete with other plants, and to increase yield.

So now I just have to start planning for next spring and figure out how much more timber I’ll need to buy, and what size beds to build, in addition to purchasing the soil ingredients again as I have very little left from the spring planting.  I’m not sure I’ll do another shade structure though.  There seem to be quite a few people who garden around here without it, so if the one I have survives until next year, I’ll experiment and see how the uncovered beds do compared to the covered ones.

It seems to have stayed on vacation.

I rarely keep up around here on my ol’ blog (gee, as if that wasn’t obvious), and my other blog is even more neglected.

I guess it’s in part due to how busy it has been at work, and there are no plans to hire anyone new to help with the workload.  So we’re all burdened with a never-ending pile of orders to work, with no end in sight.

Then when I get home, I either just want to sit and surf, or more recently, kill Zombies in a new Popcap game that my husband suggested, “Plants vs. Zombies”.  I think I played that game for nearly four hours straight the other day.

Meh.

The garden is still going well.  Several ears of corn are on the stalks, although I have a bit of an issue with damn aphids on the flower stalks on those, though.  My beast of a tomato plant seems to make orange tomatoes (rather than red), so I’m not exactly sure what type it is.  My cherry tomato plant seems to be struggling, the stems & leaves are dying off from the bottom out, yet it continues to grow up and out like it’s trying to outrun whatever is killing off the lower stems.  And now the beast tomato plant is having the same issue, so I am wondering if it’s either A) something contagious, or B) a nutrient deficiency.

My peas are about done, they fell over before we went on vacation and didn’t take to being tied up very well, so I think they’ve got one foot in the grave and will probably be pulling most of those up before too long.  My poor beans haven’t been doing great whilst being dominated by the beast tomato plant, so I may pull those up too.

I never did get any sweet potatoes like I planned, so those will have to wait for another year I think.

Aside from the mystery issue with the tomatoes, the biggest problem I’ve been having is the damn birds getting to the tomatoes before I do, sometimes before the tomatoes are even ripe, despite the bird netting I put up around most of them.  Ugh.  Stupid birds, leave my mater’s alone!!

So anyway.  Just a quick update, now it’s time for the long drive home from work.  Yay.

Thank goodness today is my telecommute day… gosh I’m tired this morning. Of course I stayed up probably two hours later than I normally would have if I had to drive to work, with the knowledge that I didn’t have to drive today… So I guess that is probably why I’m tired. LOL

I think I may try to hit the hay a little earlier than “usual” tonight.  If I’m as tired later as I am now that won’t be a problem.  But we’ll see, if it’s a typical night I’ll probably get engrossed in something and end up staying up later than I intended…  I’m shooting for no later than 10pm.  Ha.  We’ll see.

Oh the Cardinals.  So close.  They were SO CLOSE!  Only to have the Steelers steal away their lead at just over half a minute left in the game.  And then to see the Cardinals just fail miserably in the last 30 seconds with a stupid fumble to give it back to the Steelers for the last five seconds… Oye.

It was a good game, though.  And at least the Cardinals gave the Steelers something to work for instead of being an easy win.

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Yeah I know, I’ve been less than great about keeping up around here.  Sorry. I just tend to get in moods – some weeks I’ll post every day, multiple times a day… Others you may not hear from me for an entire week.  That’s just the way I roll (ha ha).

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We’ve turned on our air conditioning for the past (and future) few days..

What the heck is up with that?? It’s 79 degrees outside according to my iPhone’s weather widget.  Where the hell did winter go??

We had to turn on our a/c because due to our vaulted ceilings throughout the house (which, by the way, I do not ever recommend to anyone – ever) and shoddy air circulation, it’s currently 82 degrees in my office/den, where I am currently sitting and contemplating finishing the last few tasks for work (telecommute day).  And the fact that my 24″ LCD monitor gives off quite a bit of heat probably doesn’t help my room temperature much.  I don’t know what is up with that.  I can put my hand up in front of it a couple inches away and feel the heat radiating off of it. 

Anyway… I know all you in the frigid climates may be jealous of the temperatures here.  But honestly, I’d rather it be 30-40 degrees cooler right now, it’s too early for this kind of weather!!

My group number along with several others was released from having to show up today.  So it’s back work as usual for me.

A colleague of mine who was also tagged for jury duty today was not nearly as lucky; while he did not have to report to the court at 8:15a, he was told to call back after 11am to see if he was still needed.  That time is quickly approaching, I wonder if they’ll make him drive downtown for the rest of the afternoon?