my pink toes

I just spent about 12 hours over 2 days learning about Movable Type. I haven't thought this hard about this kind of stuff in a long time. My husband is a computer programmer, so it comes easily to him, but to my brain? not so much... I'm a content person, a words person. The HTML - it seems like math to me, or like balancing chemistry equations. Neither of which I'm terribly good at. I tried to explain to my husband that processing HTML/XHTML tags atually hurts my brain. Yeah, he thought I was weird, too.

But now I have a (semi-workable) banner, I've learned how to customize the side bar, and I am starting to feel my way around the site. I have a new, increased admiration for those folks who HTMLify for a living.

My hope is to make this a place to share some thoughts and to hone my writing skills. Being a stay at home mom has its rewards (at least that's what they tell me), but my brain is starting to wither away. I know the names of all the Rescue Heroes, the major characters of Sesame Street, and the personality quirks of all the Scooby Doo characters. I know which variations of protein, fruts and vegetables my children will actually eat, and I can make dinner with a baby on one hip and a 5-year-old throwing a fit in the middle of the kitchen. Is this the best use of my talents (?) and skills(?). Some days I think so, some days I think I may not have any talents and skills any longer. Anyway, I'm hoping to use this site as motivation to help me in my eventual second career. Eventually I hope to get paid for writing - probably as a technical writer. In my before-kids life, I was an 8th grade Language Arts/American History teacher. I loved it, but don't want to go back to teaching right now.

Of course, after the MT/HTML/RSS crash course of the last couple days, I think a little brain withering might be welcome tomorrow. Hey kids, wanna watch Elmo?