No doubt everybody in the world already knows this, but just to reiterate, Spychecker is a great place to download anti-spyware and freeware and shareware. And firewalls. And other useful stuff.

And while we’re at it, for you paranoids, Webattack ain’t no slouchy site, neither. Heh.

Here’s an update of the ideas kicking around in my head lately. Apparently at 35 I’m now old enough to ‘think about business.’ (I’ve never thought about business before. Yawn.) I am an astonishingly late bloomer.

First, I want to use this adorable canned tornado image and build my web mistressing services around it. Mostly I just want to do it for the sake of building a new site that I don’t have a deadline on.

Then, I have this other idea – the Lazy Girls’ Guides. The first one is amost done and it’s the Lazy Girl’s Guide to Cooking. (Actually, I think I called it ‘The Lazy Girl’s How to Cook Book,’ but that’s easy to fix.) I can easily see an entire empire – like the Chicken Soup insanity – of Lazy Girls’ Guides to everything. Banking, marriage, gardening, housekeeping, grieving, weight loss, braided hairstyles, HTML, child discipline, etc. Add a booming online community of message boards and you’ve got yourself a phenom.
Continue reading Sites, Sites, Sites →

As you can see from the blog, the site’s gonna be green soon. Maybe not this exact green, but some form of greenness. Perhaps more like this. I’m still working on it.

I’ve decided I hate the RedGold design I’m using now. I made a green one while I was building the RedGold one, but I just think I plain old hate the whole layout, not just the color scheme. I need to update!

The idea of using MT for my root index page is certainly very intriguing… I’m also half considering backing up the entire site and emptying off the server and starting from scratch. (This would be a gigantic huge monster project, but it might be worth it. I have so much shit on my server these days!)

Spring certainly has sprung!

——–

So it’s 8:57 PM already! I came up here a wee bit after seven to transfer a couple of eBooks to my iPAQ and somehow I found myself at youngpup.net geeking out on sliding and semi-transparent drop-down menus.

I feel a goblinbox.com rebuild coming on soon. Maybe I’ll do it right this time, with proper templates and site-wide CSS and stuff. Hmm.

The Spring Sting party that Chloe and Christina threw was wonderful, and a great time was had by all. I even stayed up all night! There was an estimate that maybe 200 folks cycled through. Only one guy got thrown out, but he wasn’t even really thrown out – Chloe said she’d asked him to quit fucking with the band and grabbing their mics, but he decided he was thrown out and left before he could be stopped. I think he was our only drunk driver.

Other folks left with designated drivers or crashed in their cars. A few of us did a ‘drunken car sleeper tour’ around one in the morning, checking on all the cars with steamed up windows. All the drunks were sleeping peacefully.

There was BBQ. There were three kegs. There were two birthday cakes. There were four bands (but I only checked out two). There were no drunken minors. It was a great party, the tall one and the Asian one did a great job.

…My Prairie Ag Coop fieldtrip last Friday was a blast. Anna was supposed to go with me, but she had a headache so I went alone. I was driven all over the county to take pictures of guys driving sprayers, trucks, etc. I got a bag of Doritoes and a Pepsi out of the deal. I got to pet a horse named Red. It was so much fun!

I learned that Birks are actually called “safety shoes.” I met a seventy-year-old pervert who wants to pay $40 an hour to watch women clean his house topless. I saw a gigantic wrench.

All in all, the day was totally fun and I’m glad I went.

I’m just about finished with the first of my Fuzzyfeet slippers. Hey – I’m a chick who knits now!

Tomorrow I’m going to take a wee trip to stunning downtown Mt. Union to visit a web client, Prairie Ag Coop, and take pictures of their buildings and trucks and stuff for their website.

I was going to take Miss Penny with me, but she has to work at two or so, and there’s no way after bowling tonight I’ll be able to get up at seven-ish to be able to get her back here on time. I guess I’ll have to find someone else to go with me… maybe Anna will go.

I had lunch today at George’s with my hubby and Brady; Brett’s in love with George’s and eats there all the time. I don’t know how he manages to digest it, but it was nice to be invited out anyway. I had a grilled cheese and fries – ugh. I think I need to make five gallons of tabbouli soon. I need something that isn’t fried or dairy! Especially since I sit in a chair for a living!

I filed my taxes via Turbotax. I went back and both Fed and state had been accepted. I printed the forms. I filed my DCN. Now all I need to do is pay the IRS the $520 I still owe them. (Normally I wouldn’t have tax due, but like an idiot I took money out of my Simple IRA and didn’t pay the fees at the time. Sigh.)

I really resent having to fork over $500 in cash. I don’t mind withholding ’cause I never see it, but having this big fat bill to pay really sucks.

In other news, however, Chloe and Christina have been out a few times cleaning the barn and Princess house and setting up for their bash this Saturday. Chloe said she’d email me with more details once the bands all confirmed but I haven’t checked my email yet. Most likely the party will be a stunning success and Brett and I will have the best of it: we’ll be able to enjoy it, do very little, and go to bed when we get tired without having to drive anywhere. It’s a win/win for us and we’re stoked. Hopefully the weather will hold up!

Things are getting green. I really, really love this. Soon the woods in front of our house will be filled in and we won’t be able to even see the road anymore. Hooray!

Friday I’m going to Prairie Ag Coop to snap a few pics for their website with my digital camera. Hopefully I’ll be able to talk some fun chick into going with me – the drive’s pretty long.

Other than that, I’m mostly fixated on my knitting. It’s lunchtime, and I have leftover enchiladas from dinner that I’m gonna nuke and eat. Yum!

As you can see at iowa chicks knitting, I started a knitting project that is not tiny little Amma doll clothes. I’m so geeked out! Perhaps it’s time for me to turn into a bonafide knittress.

This morning I got up and the first thing I did was have a big cup of coffee.

By the time I sat down at the computer, the dishes were done, the grocery list was written, the laundry was folded, the garbage was out, I’d finally started the Fuzzyfeet I bought yarn for over a week ago, the living room was straightened up, and the bathroom was clean.

I think the moral here may be that there is, in fact, no life after coffee. I’ve cut way back on my caffeine intake, and, well, YAWN.

–+–+–+–
I sent off a quote to Davis & Palmer today, and I worked more on Prairie Ag Coop’s site. What I really need to be doing is finishing the EBOC newsletter but I keep procrastinating! I think I’ll just go do it right now and get it out of the dang way.
——–

I visited Meredith Hirsch Salon last Monday and got my hair cut. I also bought some yummy-smelling product. Yay! I haven’t had a pro hair cut in several years; lately I’ve just been hacking it off with kitchen shears when it gets too ratty looking. Meredith knows my style and gave me your basic wash-and-go cut, and I love it. It feels great, and all that left-over blonde is now gone. This is the first time my hair’s been entirely its natural color in a loooong time.

Chloe and Christina were out yesterday, cleaning and organizing the barn and the Princess house for their upcoming bash. It’ll be a doozy: two kegs, grills, three or four live bands, and a giant bonfire. Mark your calendar because it’s next Saturday here at the farm.

Today I need to finish the EBOC newsletter, and tomorrow I’ll be working on prairieagcoop.com. Gotta make some money because we have a $1,000 balloon payment due May 1st and Brett’s truck just shit the bed and needs fixed. Gack.

Brett’s out mowing the lawn right now; we went to town this morning and bought new blades for the mower. Last year’s blades were well and truly hashed.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home. “For lunch,” I said, “and to get some toilet paper.” I asked Brett what he wanted for lunch and he couldn’t tell me, only that he didn’t want anything I suggested. It’s so frustruating. I DON’T EAT MEAT, so it’s really fucking hard for me to suggest something he might want! I finally told him to go pick out a TV dinner if he was going to be that way. I also said I’d preferred it back in the day when he ate what I cooked and complimented me on it; now he complains about ‘vegetarian food’ and swears he needs ‘more than that’.

He seems to think in order to be happy he has to eat bar food: nasty meat, fried side dishes – high in calories and fat and devoid of significant nutrition. When I buy the kinds of things he says he wants to eat, it’s all basically pre-prepared crap and expensive steaks, and it costs just as much as eating out. He used to like my cooking, but now apparently he wants meat and potatoes, which leaves me preparing meat, a starch, and a vegetable, and eating only side dishes myself. I can’t eat like that – and to be honest, neither can he. (He’s still convinced I’m the only one who has gained a bunch of fat since we’ve been together. It’s as if the beer belly is invisible to him or something. Not that he’s fat, but he will be in a few short years if he doesn’t pay attention!)

My plan has always been to make an effort to serve clean, light meals at home, and let him eat whatever shit he wants to eat for lunch. (In a typical week, Brett has Logli’s pizza and cheeseburgers, George’s, and McDonald’s for lunch.) He used to like that plan, but lately he wants steak and potatoes on the table when he gets home, and while he doesn’t really complain or whine overtly he gets the point across that he doesn’t want stir-fry or soup and salad.

It’s not like I always make bland or fat-free vegetarian food, either. There’s more fat calories in spinach enchiladas suizas with rice and beans than there is in a porterhouse and baked potato with sour cream; he’s just got this idea in his head that he’s a “meat and potatoes” guy.

I’m somewhat at a loss what to do. I can’t afford to eat what he wants – I’m overweight as it is, and I’m also not at all interested in cooking two seperate meals each time I step into the kitchen. Most homemade vegetarian cooking is heavy on veggie prep and on individual dishes, and adding another dish or two is just out of the question.

Today, for instance, I’m going to make cream of cauliflower soup and spinach salad for lunch, and he’s indicated he’s probably going to go to the Ba-tavern for a tenderloin and fries.

I’m going to have to have a serious discussion with him about this because it’s getting a little too complicated. He deserves to be served food he likes, but I also deserve the same. And we both deserve to eat better food – no one can really survive eating out all the damn time.

So enough venting, I’m off to finish that newsletter. TTFN!