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Thursday, July 19, 2012

What The ... ?

So, I had a little OCD moment.  I wanted my photos to line up better.  And I found a blog that talked about another blog, that gave some code to use in the CSS area of Blogger (you know how that goes ... you click ... and click ... and click some more, and before you know it you are somewhere beyond the yellow brick road).

Girl does Geek was the place where I found this code:

.post-body img {
width: 400px;
height: auto;
}
.post table.tr-caption-container img {
width: 400px;
height: auto;
}

I followed the bloggers instructions and it seemed to make things better.  Except there were a couple of posts where the photos weren't quite right.  Since I don't have too many pages yet I thought I would fix them all, but somehow, a couple of posts got re-dated with today's date.  Which means that the posts are out of order.  I can't find how to fix this.  I'm stumped.

Sigh ...

Addendum:  I ended up having to check my photos since they are date-time stamped correctly and set the date and time for each post manually.  Lesson learned?  For each new post set the date and time as an initial step before writing!  Thankfully I'm not years and years into blogging ... that would have sent me round the bend.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Blog - The Nuts and Bolts

I know - no posts for eight months and now three in one day!  We can only hope I find a balance.

As I mentioned in the last post - I've been visiting a lot of sites lately to get ideas.  Organization, topics, layout.  There are so many great blogs out there - something for everyone, really.  I find I like a clean layout, minimal background distractions, lot's of pictures, and a mix of topics.

Topics I'm considering:
  • Organization
  • DIY / Crafting
  • Renovations
  • Real Estate
  • Inspiration
  • Food
  • Photography / Artwork
  • Family and Friends
  • Travel / Camping
  • Thrifting - including Recycling, Repurposing, Reusing
  • Blog Lovin'
  • Knowledge / Learning
  • Thoughts and Quotes
Getting my DH, Manuel, to contribute would be great.  He's a professional - a finishing carpenter - so it would be great to have him provide some useful content.

  
Knowing me, I'll jump around a bit, focus on an area for a while, and then move on.  Seeing all the blogs out there I'm learning that's OK.

I'm going to spend a bit of Blog Administration time figuring out how I want that to work out and will update things as I learn.  See if you notice the changes!

Privacy and Blogging

You may have noticed that in my last post I mentioned my Son's name - Walter.  And there's a new photo at the end of the page showing Walter swimming.

Up to now I've kept our personal information private.  After all, it's a blog.  Who knows what type of people come to your site.  But I've been visiting a lot of sites lately to get ideas on how I want my blog to look & feel, and I've noticed that the ones I really enjoy are the ones where I know where the people live, what they do.  The ones that mention family by name.  The ones that I feel like I know who they are.  I don't want to be a hypocrite - if my tendency is towards blogs that are open I should be open with mine.  Yes, it's a gamble, but walking out the door is a gamble.

So, although I might not be listing my home address or giving you my cell number I'm going to be a bit more open with personal information.

Hi, I'm Louise and I'm learning to Blog better!

Slightly Interrupted!

Slightly interrupted you say?  (Probably with a smirk and a chuckle!)  Yes, it's been awhile.  I've wanted to blog, I really have ... but carving out time + feeling inspired + having photos ready?  Nah, hasn't happened.  But I'm reading a new book "The Procrastination Equation" by Piers Steel that is inspiring me to push myself to do the things I want to do!  So ...

Are the reno's completed?  Have we bought a house with my Mom?  Have we moved?  No.  No.  No.

Let's answer the last one first.  The start of this blog had me saying that we were going to be buying a house with my Mom.  We had full intentions of doing this.  We looked long and hard ... and in the end ... we just couldn't find something that all of us would be happy with.  Perhaps if we'd had millions of dollars, bought a large property, and built a custom home we could have done it.  As it was, we just couldn't do it.  My Mom sold her home last Summer and was basically homeless.  She and I talked and agreed that she should start looking on her own.  What happened?  Well, she bought herself some land and is ... building a house!  It's nearing completion and she should be moving into it by the end of August / beginning of September!


On to the reno's ... we are about 18 hours away from being complete.  That sounds like just a few days ... but they seem to be the longest 18 hours ever.  It's things like hanging closet doors, sealing the grout in the kitchen, touching up paint.  Of course, after those things are done it will be de-cluttering followed by staging so that we can put the townhouse on the market.  We already have a storage locker that has given us more space to move around while we've been renovating, but we are going to need to clear out all DH's tools, excess toys from Walter, and just generally culling and thinning out of things so that the place looks spacious.  We'll need to decide which pictures to re-hang and where.  And did I mention ... clutter control?  Here's what I've been doing already towards that:



Now, times that by a thousand different areas in the townhouse.  It seems to be never-ending.

In the meantime, I still look at real estate (I must confess, I'm addicted to viewing real estate!).  Recently, two separate properties came up that I really wanted.  They would have been perfect.  The first sold before DH could even see it.  The second, we viewed, put an offer in, but there were multiple bids and it went for well over asking.  So depressing.  There is another one now.  We are waiting for our Real Estate Agent to set up a viewing. 

OK - today I should empty out some boxes and re-re-organize the hall closet (I've done this a couple of times now - argh!).  We have so many shoes, but I'm scared to pack those away.  I did that with our coats last summer thinking we'd unpack them in a new home by Winter.  Except, of course, we're still in the townhouse.  Which meant that over the cold months we were missing some coats, mitts, hats, that would have been so nice.  And cookbooks.  I packed all but three and now I am SO missing them!  I am learning what's really important though, and, in general, we've gotten by.