Monday, January 3, 2011

a little change is always good

So, the last time I tried to update the design of this blog I totally jacked it up and had to revert back to my hum drum layout. But tonight, I am happy to say, there are no scary unexpected results from my little tweaks. Yay! (sigh of relief).

Maybe this little refurbishing will be just what is needed to get me back on the old blog wagon. I've certainly been an absentee owner these past 3 months (eek!) Truth told, tho, it isn't just the blog that I've neglected but I have kind of turned my back on the computer completely. You see, it has a way of sucking time out of my day so I've found that when I have a lot to do (and the "to do" list doesn't include computer work), it's better to just leave it turned off.

So, should I or shouldn't I do a re-cap for the lost months of September to now? I think maybe I will since this blog has turned out to be a good archive of what happened when for me (this is especially handy when it comes to journaling scrapbook pages for events long past).

So, in a nutshell...

August
August was vacation month last year as it has been for the past few years. With my son in summer school, this really is the first and only chance we have to all get away together. So for 2010, our summer vacation was a week of camping at Carpinteria State Beach, followed by a week home, followed by a week in Vegas. (I'll add a few pics later). ETA: to say that the pics are slow in coming because of the Great Computer Crash of '10 --I have to find where I saved pics to while my desktop computer was out of service.

September
When we got back a couple of not so great things happened. First I got pretty sick (ugh) and second (actually simultaneously) my desktop computer crashed in a major way and had to be partially rebuilt. I had managed to back up most (but not all) of my data. Before the rebuild, my techie staff (DH & DS) tried re-formatting the hard drive. So before it got better it got bad again. Meaning, I had started re-installing software and re-loading data when the darn thing crashed (again). In the end, it took several weeks to get back in business and I still haven't finished reloading all my data. Sigh.

October
Being sick was miserable, but had an "up" side because I needed to work on our taxes for 2009 (we had filed an extension). So that was what I spent most of September into October working on. Such a relief to have it done at last (though not a relief to find out how much was owed to Uncle Sam -ouch!)

November
November was a much more crafty month. I started the month out with finishing my projects for Ready, Set Create December/January issue. After those were done, I was all about getting ready for my week-long crafting event, "Just Us Girls". This is a week of back-to-back classes that I host in my home the first week of winter break and there is lots to do to get ready for that. In the midst of putting that together, the fam and I  ducked out for a quick trip to NoCal to see family and while there I got hooked on Rock Band and the xbox Kinect's 'Dance Central'. We came home with a plan to get our hands on our first game console.

December
December was all about finalizing my event plans, kitting the classes and making sure I was ready (pictures soon!) And we squeezed in some Dance Central where we could (it's so fun - we're hooked!) Winter break was here before I could believe it and even though that first week was a very soggy one, I had a great turnout for my event. This is the third year doing "Just Us Girls" and I have to say it feels like it was the best year yet. The week really flew by and once it was over we moved on to doing more fun family things like having my sisters and their kids over for ... you guessed it "Dance Central" and "Rock Band". We also had some of the kids' friends over for movies and xbox.

And here we are at January and a new year. Where does the time go?

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