my pink toes » Meta

Dinosaur

lsmith — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:35:06 +0000

As part of the blog neglect/reinvigoration/navel-gazing, I have been thinking about what a techno-dinosaur I am to the young things today. I still run Movable Type, which all the cool kids used to use, but now they’ve all gone WordPress or Drupal or whatever. I don’t even run the latest version of Movable Type – I still run 3.4 (all the way back from 2005, baby!). My blog doesn’t even support TAGS, for heaven’s sake! I’m considering upgrading, but my IT guy is so “over” MT and on to other things. He is also currently out of town, and since I don’t stand much chance of learning how to use an Apache server and Perl script in the next 48 hours, I have to wait for him to return to do any change – no matter how small.

I’ve worked hard to learn CSS, HTML, and MT tags, but am wondering if I would actually save time and grief by upgrading/switching. Is it a cop-out? Or a time-saver? I don’t know. Heck, I still use Bloglines as my feed reader, which I think only me, Gordon, and 6 other people in the world join me in. I was quick to the rss movement, but apparently slow to adapt…

Heck, I just realized my computer has a card reader. The things they’re making these days!

If anybody has a blog engine they love, let me know in the comments!

Breaking the Silence

lsmith — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:18:25 +0000

Summer Self-Portrait

Things have been quiet here on the blog, as any of you who are still reading may have noticed. Life has gone on, with parenting and pedicures, cuddly boys and cat pee, celebrations and re-calibrations.
Over the last 6 months, while I’ve been avoiding posting, I’ve been thinking about my blog a lot.
I went back to work this year as a teacher, and loved nearly every minute of it. It was a big adjustment to go back not just to the “working world

“Wii” Have a Winner!

lsmith — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:08:54 +0000

Thanks for entering my first-ever contest based on my first-ever Muxtape! I really enjoyed reading all of your entries…especially this one, which is especially funny if you’ve ever dissected a movie with Heidi’s mom.
The question: What do the following songs all have in common?
“Celebration” by Kool and the Gang
“Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple
“Funkytown” by Lipps, Inc (really, that’s the name of a group?!)
“Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones
“Papa’s Got a Brand-New Bag” by James Brown
“Teenager in Love” originally by Dion and the Belmonts
The answer: They are all on Raving Rabbids 2, a game for the Wii. They have a series Rock Band-like levels where you can “play” the instruments to the songs by doing the appropriate Wii motions in time with the music. My kids have played this a lot. A WHOLE lot.
My friend Aaron came through with the winning entry – on only one try! Way to go, Aaron! He says he doesn’t have a Wii (yet), so his 3 boys can’t torture him with these songs. All in due time, Aaron….all in due time. Maybe you can use that Amazon gift certificate toward RR for your Xbox?

Mike and Jen* got the bonus prize (booby prize?): A CD with all the songs on it! They answered so many times and cracked me up – I had to give them something. And now I hear that their son Eric likes to go to sleep to “Smoke on the Water” as a lullaby. Oh yes, my work here is done.
Thanks for playing, and stay tuned for the next contest!

*Unfortunately, Jen looks like this in EVERY SINGLE picture I have of her. It’s truly amazing. In person, her eyes are balanced, vibrant, and an attractive shade of brown.

Contest and Giveaway: Name This Mix!

lsmith — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 17:37:45 +0000

UPDATE: We have a winner! Way to go, Aaron!
I thought I’d try something new and check out this Muxtape thing the kids are all talking about these days. As a result, I was inspired to create my own Muxtape (which took we quite a while – but hey – now I know how to rip and burn and slash and warp like all the cool kids). What mix should I make? Why, a mix of the six gosh-dang songs that are in my head on SERIOUSLY heavy rotation these days, of course!

So I had this great idea to post my mix and have a contest: You tell me what all these songs have in common, and WHY THEY ARE RUNNING THROUGH MY HEAD (leave your answer in the comments), and I’ll send the winner a $10 Amazon or iTunes gift certificate to buy your own songs with. Feel free to buy the ones in this mix, if you’d like them to be in YOUR head ALL THE LIVE-LONG DAY! Track 2 is a killer – just TRY to forget it!
So, let the guessing begin! Contest closes at 7pm Pacific Time on Sunday, July 27. (I’m giving you a while, so those who don’t check that often because I’ve been a slacker poster can have a chance to stop by and enter). The first correct answer (by timestamp on comments) wins. If no one guesses the correct answer by that time (and yes – there is a specific, correct answer), then I’ll draw a number at random for the winner.
Good luck, have fun, and enjoy the INTERNAL AUDIO MONOTONY!

Speechless

lsmith — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:53:37 +0000

No, not by any overwhelming incident, or gift (although the gifts were amazingly generous and heartfelt, and we did have a Christmas Eve ER incident…more on that later), but speechless because of laryngitis.
I felt it coming on and thought I had staved it off with a couple of days of rest and then an actual, full-on, watch-the-entire-second-season-of-
Arrested-Development-because-I’m-so-sick day. But then I woke up today, the first day of the year, with hardly any voice at all. I’m feeling mostly ok – worse than yesterday, but much better than the day before – but my voice is quite gone.
And, you’ve probably noticed how my voice has been gone here on the blog as well.
I’m still learning about the care and feeding of my body, my mind, my soul, and my blog. There were many things I wanted to post, but didn’t. I’m still figuring out how to do all the things that I want to in a way that feels good to me and not a chore.
Here’s to 2008. All the best to all of us, on so many levels.

More MT Geeky Goodness

lsmith — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:09:55 +0000

I’ve been tweaking the blog some more. I’m loving learning more about CSS and Movable Type.
Using the awesome resources of a rockin’ website, I moved my “About” page to its own template within my blog – without having to make it an entry (and added more hyperlinks to it). Very, very cool! I may do the same with my new “Toes” page, which I had to backdate to “hide” on the blog.
I also learned how to make the entry titles click to the permalink (individual entry page). Go ahead – try it! Click on the “More MT Geeky Goodness” title up above. Cool, eh?
The same website also gave me the code I needed to add a “Recent Comments” section on my sidebar (scroll down and check it out).
I can’t get the clickable banner to work yet. It’s driving me crazy. But I really should spend more time writing and less time geeking. It’s amazing the lengths I’ll go to – it’s like that college “study avoidance” all over again. (When my husband was getting his master’s degree, our kitchen was always sparkling. He’s NOT a kitchen-cleaner, but he’d clean it from top to bottom to avoid doing his homework. We all do crazy things when we’re avoiding what we want to do, but don’t want to start).
Update: I got the clickable banner to work! Yay – click my banner on the top and it takes you to my home page! Whee! Duh – I had to change “www.yourblog.com/path/to/your/banner/image.jpg” with the ACTUAL URL OF THE IMAGE ON MY SITE. I can be dumb sometimes. I ~~probably~~ definitely should sleep more and geek less.
But I also need to fix the width of my banner…it’s about 20 pixels too narrow….
STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER, LEAH!

I Rock the CSS – Custom Blockquotes!

lsmith — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:14:01 +0000

I did more CSS nerding tonight! Yes, instead of mopping the kitchen floor or folding the laundry, I learned how to make my own custom “blockquote” style!
Thanks to some cool inspiration, I made my OWN quote image and then figured out how to put it in my CSS as a style.
Up next: pullquotes! (That will be harder, as I’ll have to write a Movable Type custom tag for it).

Sticky floors, no clean underwear….but a cool page!

Old Married Nerdy Lady Friday Night

lsmith — Fri, 11 May 2007 22:52:28 +0000

How did Dave and I spend our Friday night? Making rss buttons, comments feeds, and favicons. Yes, we’ve been married 14 years. Yes, we are nerds. (I have to admit, all his nerdy help tonight makes him waaaay attractive to me. That, and the fact that he put both kids to bed…)
So, check it out! Up in the top right, I’ve got fancy-pants new RSS buttons and a spankin’-new comments feed. If you look in the address window of your browser, you’ll notice I have this cute little graphic (called a favicon) instead of the default “blank page” icon.
My adorable, fabulous husband made my new favicon. He made my day.
If you had asked me 18 years ago what a perfect Friday night would look like, this would not have been it.
I had no idea what I was missing

A Little Squeeze

lsmith — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 22:52:13 +0000

I’m having Lap-Band surgery on Monday, April 30th. I have a blog about it, called A Little Squeeze.
I haven’t really figured out what I’m doing having 2 blogs.
On one hand, I have read many WLS (weight loss surgery) blogs and they have helped me greatly in my personal decision about whether to have this surgery. I love reading the candidness, the struggles, the victories… and I have had a lot of trouble finding Lap-Band blogs that are current and/or have more than just a few entries. I want to be candid as well. I thought about making A Little Squeeze private and semi-anonymous, but, frankly, I’m just not smart enough to do that. I’d end up “outing” myself anyway, so better to just start on the up and up and let everyone in on it.
I will post here about weight loss and the Lap-Band, but I don’t want my pink toes to turn into a weight-loss blog (which tend to not be very interesting unless you are losing weight. Marybeth is a fabulous exception to this generalization). Also, sometimes when I find a good WLS blog, I don’t always want to read all the posts about everything besides just weight (like cats, their on-again-off-again boyfriend, and how much they love windsurfing). I’m afraid to bog down my pink toes with weight loss, and I don’t want to clutter A Little Squeeze with all the stuff in my head that has nothing to do with weight.
So for now, I’m going to wing it. I’ll have 2 blogs, and will probably do some cross-posting.
I do ask you, though – if you know me personally, please please please don’t talk to me about A Little Squeeze. You’re free to read it (like I could stop you, heh) and free to ask about the Band and everything, but please don’t talk about the detailed stuff I put on there (like my exact weight, yeesh!). I’m going to be transparent, but at the same time ask you to pretend you don’t know all this other stuff about me. Yeah, I know – real healthy. It’s just where I’m at right now. Things will change.
I’m taking comfort in the fact that I’m able to take this one day at a time and just wing it for now. The perfectionist inside of me is screaming at me – demanding a spreadsheet of what goes in which blog and a timetable for integration. Well, that perfectionist is getting a big ‘ol raspberry. I’m gonna just figure this one out as I go.
UPDATE: Tech-savvy husband got me a domain name and pointed it at my Blogger blog. He’s so awesome – and so handsome! Anyway, thanks to Dave, you can now find me at www.alittlesqueeze.com Ooh – I’m so cool!

Writing About Faith

lsmith — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 17:54:01 +0000

I’m working on writing more and developing my voice. I’ve also been writing a lot about my faith in Jesus and about my passions. Lydia from Emerging Women has started a blog for those writing about faith to share and solicit feedback. It’s called, straightforwardly enough, Writing About Faith.
I put a link up there with my last essay in it. Please head over there and offer me some feedback, or give me some right here. You can leave it in the comments or email me at Leah AT mypinktoes DOT com.
Come join the writing community – I look forward to your feedback!