Stream of Conscience

1. 1:00 am — wake up, realize I’m swallowing something, turn on light, lightly blow nose, blood gushes forth. Pinch nose, lean head back slightly, wait for bleeding to subside.
2. 1:15 — bleeding hasn’t subsided, decide to go to emergency room, try to get dressed while holding tissue to nostrils.
3. 1:30 — sufficiently dressed, but bleeding has subsided. Decide to go back to bed. Put on new pair of pajamas (since previous pair now have blood on them), arrange pillows so that head is elevated, go back to sleep.
4. 6:10 — alarm goes off, turn it off & go back to sleep.
5. 7:15 — wake up, decide I’m ok to go to work. Put saline solution in very dry nose, blow nose to clear out, bleeding starts all over again.
6. 7:20 — call work to let them know I’m going to emergency room and to pass on important information. Can’t reach anyone so get dressed and go to work to attend morning meetings and pass on important info.
7. 8:00 — get to work, attend meetings, pass important info, write e-mails to follow up important info.
8. 9:45 —head to emergency room.
9. 10:05 — arrive at emergency room, stand in long line to get checked in.
10. 11:15— finally see physician’s assistant who gives me bacitracin to ease discomfort.
11. 11:50 — given referral to ENT and get checked out of emergency room.
12. 12:00 — stop at drug store for more bacitracin, pick up junk food because I’m very hungry.
13. 12:15 — get home. Neighbor is parked in my spot (grrrr), but am not in the mood to confront so find another spot. Go inside, eat lunch, take nap to recover from trauma of the night, try hard to resist urge to blow nose. Not completely successful.

So, while the symptoms have been eased, the problem has not been resolved. Which is why I need to see the ENT. Why did my nose start bleeding all on its own? My sinuses have been horrible this summer, ever since I went to Texas. (Yeah, that’s it, I’ll blame everything on Texas!) I used a humidifier in my bedroom this winter and it did wonders. And I didn’t have too much trouble in the spring (not that we had much of one), but this summer has been miserable. I’ve known for awhile I need to see a doctor, but didn’t want to go back to my internist, since I don’t really like him. Perhaps I can ask someone at the ENT office.

On a separate note, I think I’ll actually try to sign up for the real Thursday Thirteen next week.

Guess I better answer this challenge before Lorelle comes out with her next Blog Challenge tomorrow.

So, what is my passion? That’s a great question; one I’ve been trying to figure out for over 50 years. I thought I’d the answer finally at age 46, when I discovered the World Wide Web and how much fun it was to create web sites. I was fascinated that learning the “code” was relatively easy; the really difficult part (for me) was the graphic layout and content. I’ve had no training in graphic design, but just about everything I did that looked and “felt” good was right on the money. It just took me forever & a day to achieve the right design. I also took care with my content, making sure that what I said was “just right” (ok, except for the occasional typo).

What I designed in those early days was a fan site. It grew into a great community, a very large (but very well organized) web site. But I began to lose interest in the subject, fell behind in providing updates, and worst of all, I let my temper get the better of me (and made some bad decisions) when an internet troll attacked me. After that, I went to a blog format, but the web site is now barely alive. I’m thinking of returning to a static web site with the blog being just a part of the entire package, but probably won’t. (Updating and maintaining via WordPress is just too darned easy.)

I still have that passion for web development, but am struggling to keep up with the newer technologies, such as the integrated database explosion of the 90’s, and the Web 2.0 of today. Heck, I even have trouble with CSS! I suppose I could blog about blogging, but there are so many more knowledgeable and experienced folks out there, I feel I’d be totally out of my element.

So, what are my passions? Well, for the most part, they’re listed in the categories. I like the tv show Supernatural, but am not willing to set up another fan site, especially when there are so many other terrific, active sites out there. I love to write about my family. It’s full of wonderful (and a couple not so wonderful) people. I love to write, period. I recently took a writing class and wrote about 7 essays. I planned to post them here, but the instructor was very encouraging about submitting them for publication. Perhaps I could write about my highs and lows of trying to get published (or not). (I do have one category that’s not listed because I’ve yet to write a post in that category. It’s titled “Grammar Puss,” and my plan was is to scour the internet looking for horrible grammar examples. That ought to be fun. And oh so very easy!)

I also recently started knitting again, and am enjoying it. But do I want to blog about it? I don’t know. I thought about knitting something and reporting my progress for the Blogathon a couple weekends ago, but I knew there was no way I could stay up for 24 hours, so I chucked that idea. Hmmm, maybe I’ll try doing my own blogathon that lasts for a doable (but not too easy!) 12-18 hours. Or perhaps I could host a blog carnival about knitting—once I figure out what a blog carnival is!

Boy, I’ve got a lot going on today. Well, a lot for me. Fortunately the two events that took me out of the house are done.

Many years ago, I signed up for a safety deposit box with my best friend and her husband. Shortly thereafter, they bought a fireproof safe, leaving to pay the box fee by myself. I wanted to close out the account, but was told all three of us needed to be present. Finally, I got them to come with me to the bank. (It only took 2 months to get a them to put it on their schedule!) Then, turns out I was the only one who had to sign anything. Go figure.

Then, I had to get my hair cut (& colored). I always manage to lose my little appointment cards, so I never know exactly when my appointment is. But usually, some day during the week I notice my gray hairs are showing at the roots. And sure enough, that Friday I get the notice that my appointment is that Saturday. Man, I’m good.

And now, I’m off to participate in this year’s Blogathon by commenting and encouraging those who are blogging for 24 hours straight. It was one of my blogging goals for 2007. Then I got all excited and kind of wanted to blog in the blogathon. I even came up with a couple of themes to blog about. (I thought I’d written a post about it, but can’t seem to find it. Maybe it’s still up there in draft status. Well, kinda late to publish it now.) But I know I can’t stay up for 24 hours. I sort of wish they had an 18-hour option. Now that I could do. Maybe I’ll suggest it to the organizers next year.

Anyway, now I’m off to see what brave souls are out there, raising money for worthwhile charities.

It’s Thursday already? Cripes, where did the week go?

I went to the grocery store yesterday. I had only a couple of things I needed to buy, yet I ended up spending over $80. So what the heck was in the cart?

1. Red leaf lettuce
2. Red seedless grapes
3. 1 cucumber
4. 2 bananas
5. Pork chops (yum!)
6. Skim milk, 1 gallon (yes, I can drink 1 gallon of milk all by myself before it goes bad)
7. Low fat cottage cheese (I like it, ok?)
8. Bag o’ carrettes
9. Crystal Lite Raspberry Green Tea
10. 5 cans of Lil Friskees cat food (3 salmon, 2 captain’s choice, because “We will fuss if we don’t get what we want, even though we have pitifully few taste buds.”)
11. Cat litter
12. 1/2 gallon Breyers lite mint chocolate chip ice cream—hey, it jumped into my cart all by itself!
13. ABC Soaps In Depth. Because I’m an idiot.

I wrote this post on Monday, so there have been some slight changes, which I’ll note. These are items that are in plain view, not hidden behind closed shelves or shoved in drawers.

1. A wicker-esque basket that contains a bunch of writing implements (pens, pencils, dry-erase markers, highlighters)
2. A wooden name plate that a former co-worker made for me. He made it as a prototype to decide if he wanted to get into woodworking or not. It’s in the shape of a cat, and painted to resemble a gray tabby. And it’s one of the best things he ever made.
3. A coffee cup with the Navy officer emblem and the crest of the command I worked for at the time (Naval Telecommunications Command, or NAVTELCOM). The command went through numerous changes in the ensuing years and is no longer in existence.
4. Mardi gras bead that a friend who lives in Louisiana (but not New Orleans) gave to me.
5. A gyroscope from a defunct Navy torpedo. It’s mounted on a plaque and was given to me as a going away gift. (There’s a long story associated with it. Perhaps I’ll tell the story some time.)
6. A 3″x5″ acrylic paper holder filled with multi-colored sheets with my name imprinted at the top.
7. A water bottle, currently half full. (Now it’s less than 1/4 full. No, not the same bottle, but a water bottle none-the-less.)
8. A 20 oz coffee cup, currently about one-third full. (Today it’s only 16 oz since I’m leaving earlier than usual.)
9. An “office voodoo kit.” The kit includes a small doll with a man on one side, a woman on the other, and two pins. It came with an instruction booklet and is to be used on bosses, coworkers or anyone else who pisses me off.
10. My brand new DayTimer. I down-sized so that I could carry the planner in my purse, but I’m not sure I like the format. I’ll give it some time, though. I’ve used Day Timers for many years, not always successfully. I have a PDA somewhere at home, but never got into the habit of using it, and now I’m not allowed to bring it into the building I work in.
11. A small fan, almost always running.
12. A picture of my “niblings,” my 2 nephews and niece. My niece saw it and exclaimed, “That’s an old picture.” To which I replied, “Yeah, but you still look the same.”
13. A box of Kleenix, an absolute necessity for my crappy sinuses (which my co-workers often use without asking permission. Hmmm. See item #9.)

I’d been planning on doing a “stream” theme for a while now, but just hadn’t thought I was ready to jump in feet first. Finally, I was given a little push by Lorelle to at least do something to make my blog design unique, however small it might be. Thus, now was the time dive in, ready or not.

Initially, I’d looked for photos of both streams and showers. But the showers all seemed to have people in them, and since this is not that kind of blog, I went with the stream photos.

I’ve been trying to create a theme from scratch, but it still needs quite a bit of work. So, in an effort to get my unique look in place more quickly, I took one of my favorite themes, Falling Leaves by Shawn Grimes, and modified it quite a bit. (I’d direct you to Shawn’s website, but it has apparently gone to domain name heaven.) I changed most of the coloring, added a heading style, created a couple new graphics, and even got brave enough to go into the sidebar template and modify some of the php.

It’s interesting when you think you’ve found the perfect theme, it always surprises you in ways you never expected. I like having the tag line in the header and a navigation sidebar on every page. I thought this theme had the latter, but once I set it up, I found the sidebar elements are not the same for all views. I’ve tried a few times to fix it, but so far my attempts have been unsuccessful, seeing as how my PHP skillz are lacking.

Then there was the list predicament. The theme eliminated all list styles, for both ordered and unordered lists (except for unordered nested lists). Now, why would one do that, especially for ordered lists? The reason they’re ordered is because they need to be numbered.  And how would my “Thursday Thirteen” look without the numbers? You might not know that I only had 9 items!  The good news is that I now have the numbers for my ordered lists.  Now I just need to figure out how to itemize a post’s unordered lists.

It’s always something, isn’t it?

I mentioned this weekend that I was going to participate in this week’s blog challenge from Lorelle on WordPress. The challenge is to tell the story of my blog: how I got started, why I started, where I started, where I ended up, et cetera, et cetera, etc.

My very first blog was at Bravenet. I started the blog in response to being (unfairly!) kicked out of a message board community, so I started the blog to tell the world my opinions. I’m embarrassed to say what the topic was. (Is there an emoticon for blush?) Yeah, it was a little egotistical, I suppose, but really, I just needed a place to air my comments, and the blog was a good place to do that. And while Bravenet had a community that encouraged blog commenting and “cross-pollination,” I just felt a little restless. Perhaps it was because I wanted to blog on more topics, and just didn’t feel that was the place to do it.

I wandered through the blog wilderness for quite a while. I looked at a few places like Blogger, but I settled on (the stand-alone) WordPress fairly quickly. (This was in the days of WordPress 1.5.) And in trying to figure out WordPress’s inner workings, I stumbled upon Lorelle on WordPress. But Lorelle also piqued my interest in WordPress.com, so I opened an account there. (I’ve since closed it because I like the freedom that the stand-alone WP provides, and I had too many dang blogs anyway.)

And even with this blog, I started & scrapped it more times than I care to admit. I kept thinking it had to be perfect, I had to have my niche figured out and know exactly where I was headed. But I finally realized that if I didn’t just jump in, I might never get anywhere.

I still have too many blogs. I started one at LiveJournal because it has a very active community that shares my current obsession interest. And I thought this blog was too serious to discuss such frivolous things as television shows. But I recently decided that my blog can be like me, both sensible and irreverent.

What’s next for the blog? Well, I want to change the theme to more appropriately match the title. I have lots of stream pictures that would be fun to share. And I want to give it its own URL. And of course, there’s all the other entries in my 2007 blogging goals.

I have been remiss not only in updating my blog, but also in furthering my blogging education. Finally this weekend, I went back to read my favorite blogstress, Lorelle on Wordpress, and boy, have I missed a bunch! (But then, with Lorelle, if you miss a day, you’ve usually missed something worthwhile and useful.)

I was actually looking for something specific (how to add a page to let new comment authors know their post is being held for moderation), but couldn’t find it. I’m sure that if I keep on reading her blog, the topic will come up again; as will how to hide subpages until the main page is selected, which I also want to incorporate here.

However, I did find a couple to great articles worth my time. One is this week’s blog challenge, which is to write about why I started blogging. I can do that very easily as I’ve done it several time already.

The other was the announcement of the blogging marathon to take place on July 28th. One of my goals for this year is to participate in a marathon. Since my health doesn’t really allow me to stay up all night, I thought I’d support by actively commenting on the marathoners’ blogs.

Except that now I’ve come up with a couple of ideas that could be used in a blog marathon. Maybe I could blog on my own for, say, 18 hours, but I think that’d take away from those that are “running” the whole marathon. Besides, my goal was to actively comment, not blog. So I really ought to stick with my goals rather than try to bite off more than I can chew.

However, I think I’ll take one of my marathon ideas and write about it on a weekly basis; and that is to write a serialized synopsis of the tv show Supernatural. Perhaps I can provide a “story so far” series in hopes of getting new viewers to start watching the 3rd season without being too far out of the loop. I’d sort of tried this at my LiveJournal blog, but I think in support of 2007 goal #3, incorporate my blogs, I’ll go ahead move my Supernatural obsession addiction discussions over here.

Once again, these are in chronological order, because there’s no way I’d ever be able to rank them.  (Oh, and this is not the same as my Thirteen favorite scenes from season 2.) 

1. Dead in the Water.  I loved how Dean tried to reach out to Lucas.  I think I heard the sound of uteruses (uteri? ) exploding all over America.  And season 1’s “money shot” didn’t hurt.
2. Home.  Besides an ejoyable guest cast (yes, I liked Missouri), the episode had gore (never trust a cymbal monkey!), scares, and angst galore. 
3. Faith.  I thought the religious aspect was handled very well, and I was pleased they didn’t make the minister into a fraud.  And I loved the vibe between Layla & Dean (bad boy meets good girl).  And the final sentiment that you  have to have faith even when the miracles don’t happen is very real for me.
4. Hell House.  I loved the light-heartedness of this episode:  the brotherly pranks, the nerdy “paranormal investigators.”   It also had my favorite scene from season 1.  (And no, it wasn’t Jared Padalecki in a low-slung towel, altho that helped.)
5. Something Wicked.  This was the first episode I ever watched, and it remains one of my favorites.  I adored 9-year-old Dean and 5-year-old Sam, but what I was most impressed with was how good an actor Jensen Ackles is.
6. In My Time of Dying.  Family trauma and drama, a psuedo-ouija board/Winchester slumber party, a fabulous villain, and Bobby!  Not to mention The Ending.  *sob*
7. Everybody Loves a Clown.  Ok, so a killer clown didn’t necessarily make for first-rate drama.  But the brothers’ conversations, anguish and grieving did. 
8. The Usual Suspects.  I really enjoyed guest star Linda Blair, especially her interaction with Sam in the interogation room.  And the monster of the week was pretty darned scary.
9. Playthings.  Two reasons:  1) drunken Sam, and 2) wet Sam.  ”Your bossy.  And short.”  “C’mon, Sasquatch.”  Brotherly face-mauling was an extra bonus.  Oops, is that more than 2?
10. Nightshifter.   A great story with great guest stars all around.  Ronald, Sherrie, Henrickson.  I even liked the police lieutenant (too bad I can’t remember his name).  And a kick-ass ending! 
11. Born Under a Bad Sign.  Evil Sam was just way too good.  Jared Padalecki proved he’s more than just a pretty face.  (Ok, maybe he’d already proved this.  But he really proved it here.)
12. What Is and What Should Never Be.  It was so wonderful to see Dean happy and relaxed.  And mowing the lawn.  I really marvelled at the difference in the brothers’ dynamic.  In once scene, I felt as if Sam was the older brother.
13. All Hell Breaks Loose, Part Two (along with the last 5 minutes of Part One).  I really hate season cliffhangers.  (What happens if I die over the summer?  I’ll never know the ending!)  So I enjoyed the ending to the second season.   Jensen was phenominal (as usual).  Jared was fabulous (as usual—I think he’s really come into his own this season, especially with his body language).  And every guest star was terrific.

And now, we wait until September.  *sigh*

I came up with a brilliant plan today. I was looking over my 2007 blogging goals and noticed the second one is to blog consistently, at least 5 times a week. I haven’t been very good about it, but I thought one of the ways I could ensure I post more often is to discuss something from the WordPress Treasure Hunt every Monday. I had said I’d go back to it regularly, which I haven’t since I finished it, but now if I plan on doing it every week, I’ll get thru’ what I want to. And I might even learn something in the process.

So, today we’ll start at the top of the list with “404.” I’d found a web page that showed you not only how to create a customized web page, but also have WordPress “guess” at what the user was really asking for, and provide a list of those posts. I might try that someday, but for now I think I’ll just look at making the 404 page resemble the rest of my website.

I’ve been working on creating a new theme for my Benjamin Bratt website. Rather than start from scratch, I decided to use the Falling theme (on the right), significantly changing the colors and a few other things. To help me along the way, I used the WordPress theme guide by Urban Giraffe. (I tried to link to the Graphic Dreams website, but it’s disappeared—one of the hazards of the online community.)

I’m almost done with my theme. (If you’d like to take a sneak peek at the theme, check it out.) I still have to format some of the pages, including the 404 page. But now that the grunt work (the main page and the single post page) is done, the rest should be a piece of cake. At least, that’s the way I’m reading it in the WordPress Theme Guide by John Godbey. (Yes, I bought his book. This tutorial is so good, I thought he deserved a little reward for it. Besides, it’s nice to have something to look at away from the computer.)