Wednesday Morning

The dogs let me sleep until almost 7:30! We walked, ate, let the chickens out…all the morning chores. Now, I’m at my desk and I rearranged the monitor so I can see the whole backyard. The hummingbirds returned the minute I put up the feeders on Saturday. Better stock up on sugar! I’m also keeping an eye out for chickens. They figured out how to get over the fence somehow and have been whacking away at my herb garden. One parsley plant was completely obliterated–just a hole where it used to be. They also tore up the two dill plants my husband gave me. I think he’s got more back in the green house.

My lunch date canceled for today so that makes these morning hours less crucial for work. I did two hours of research work yesterday first thing. Now, I have three memos to write, another interview to transcribe and then an interview this afternoon as well. Been fooling around with recording phone calls and ended up buying a speaker phone. The iPod picks it up ok plus with a phone interview, I can type while we talk. I also bought a little $8 suction cup from Radio Shack that sticks on the receiver and then feeds into the analog recorder. I’ll put that on the phone as well. You really can’t be too careful.

I rewarded myself for all the research work by playing some more with Flash. It is coming back to me and I’ve got one module for a “what food when” game to learn about Jewish holidays. I’m going to start a new one about holidays that include lights. These are samples for a client. No huge bells and whistles but some animation and music.

It’s been nice to be home the last few days. I can putter and get things done on my own time. I’ve got a running “to do” list and managed to check a few things off of it. Put in a big Amnesty International order for my nephew’s birthday and may make a few CDs from vinyl for him, too. I’m hoping to be off doing research next week so am making the most of being at home.

I was going to make chicken salad for lunch. I think I’ll turn those chicken breasts into tortilla soup instead. And I’ve got turkey and potato rolls for turkey burgers. I’ll do those tonight and then make the soup in the crock pot tomorrow. We have folks coming for wine and snacks and I think I’m going to try home backed tortilla chips again. I have a big stack of tortillas to work with. Mostly I’m trying to work with what I’ve got so I can avoid leaving the house until Friday morning when I head to a workshop.

I’ve been feeling pretty lousy the last two or three days so gave myself off from WW. I need to get back on the plan, though. Mostly I’ve eaten cheese: I really miss it! Big chunks dipped in mustard and eaten with crackers. Yum! I haven’t written anything down for at least two days and I’m aware of how the act of recording does keep me from overeating. So, today I’m shooting for a 26 point day. So far, I’ve only had coffee so I’m on track.

Blessings to all!

Just Having Fun

I am a workaholic.  And because I work for myself, I get to determine that workaholic schedule.  Which means as long as there’s work to do, I do it.  Hmmm…I know the deadlines I have.  I know the available time.  I could afford to take some time off.  So, that’s what I did this afternoon.  I spent the morning at church, playing the piano for the service–I played George Shearing arrangements of Ebb Tide and Three Coins in the Fountain (for the offertory, of course).  Totally butchered the music for singing out the children.  Then came home and noodled around, finally settling on updating this personal website that just moved to a new host.

I wanted to add a new header graphic but didn’t want to install the Adobe suite.  So, I found Seashore, a free graphics editor for Mac.   The description I saw was right on: it does everything I need to do (scale, crop, copy, paste and even some effects) but without all the overhead for stuff I’ll never use.  It worked great.  I played around with a collage but decided to go with just one picture and I like the way the skimmer pictures matches the color scheme of this theme.

My problem is getting my flickr badge to work.  I think the plugin css is fighting with the theme css.  The flash badge looks OK but the html badge ends up under the text, at least in Firefox on my Mac.

This has been fun.  Next, I’m adding my librarything list.