I’ve been trying to work on a new theme for my site. Problem is, I haven’t much been inspired lately. I have a big list of things I want to implement on my site, but as far as the look of my new theme is concerned - the creativity just hasn’t hit me yet. I came up with a pretty nifty logo (in my opinion), but now is the task of trying to build a new theme around it. I have some ideas I am playing with, but none of them are really “wowing” me as of yet. Here’s the logo I’ve come up with. It needs some tweaking I think, but I like the overall idea of it.

Sometimes it’s tough trying to come up with something new and exciting. Now I’m stuck.

Right now I am typing this on my brand spankin’ new laptop. A laptop I got for FREE, yes FREE people. OMG. I can’t believe I actually got it. I will write about all of the grand details tomorrow.

Today was a pretty okay day. For one thing, I got a laptop. The other neat thing is that I got two autographed books for free. Here’s what happened:

Kentucky author, Leigh Anne Florence, visited the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders today. She visited our school last year. She writes a series of books about her two dogs, Woody and Chloe, and their adventures in Kentucky. Woody and Chloe actually travel around with her. She does a pretty neat presentation. She’s also super nice. Today, I got a phone call from one of the teacher who told me the “speaker” needed a laptop to connect her laptop to. I assumed the “speaker” was Leigh Anne, and I was right!”

So, she comes down to the lab and says the teacher was mistaken. What she really wanted was a second laptop to use in the gym to show the Woody podcast on so she could run the podcast simulatenously with her slideshow on her laptop. Well, I couldn’t do much for her. We don’t have internet access in the gym or a wireless connection in the school. She said that was okay and left. She came back a few minutes later and asked if I could just download the podcast and burn it to a CD she could play on her cd player. There wasn’t a download link or anything for the podcast. It just plays straight from the site, so I wasn’t sure I could save it to my computer. Luckily, I was able to. I burned her a cd. To thank me for helping her, she gave me two of her books for free and she signed them for me. It was pretty cool. She told me after it was over that the cd worked like a dream. I was glad I was able to help.

I had a pretty boring PD after school about PLATO and its use during ESS. We didn’t learn anything except that PLATO is just as frustrating if not more frustrating than we thought. They didn’t even give us any drinks or snacks either! I didn’t get home until 5:00.

But when I did finally get home….my FREE laptop was waiting for me! How exciting! All three of our computers are now connected to the internet, and Colin ran a cable into the living room so I can watch TV and do the internet at the same time! Oh, Heaven! I am so super excited about this laptop. It has a built in webcam and everything. It is an HP, of course, and is running Windows Vista. Vista is okay so far. It is slow like I have heard from others, but overall I think it’s decent enough for me. It’s just so amazing to own a laptop. Way better than that old Apple iBook that Rachael is so envious of.

Right now, I am super tired, thirsty, and in need of a warm shower. I am going to have sweet laptop dreams tonight! :kiss: :sleepy:

Okay, so let me update the world on a few things here:

First, Christmas was pretty cool. It was the first time that me and Colin have not had to do any traveling at all. Last year, we had to drive from Lexington to Dawson. The years before were spent with him visiting me from Canada, and I visiting him on my birthday. This year we got to have our own Christmas at our own home. Annnd…Pouncy was with us! It was neat. ^___^ I got all sorts of neat things. Noteably I received: a coral pink Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS games (Nintendogs, Super Princess Peach, Yoshi’s Island DS, Doctor Mario/Puzzle League, and Zoo Tycoon), Alice in Wonderland snowglobe, DVDs, an adorable accordion style locket necklace with pictures of Pouncy, cute clothes, puzzles, and an awesome set of original, one-of-a-kind, Alice in Wonderland trading cards made by my truly gifted husband. ^___^ We did Christmas with Pouncy, then with my family, and then with the whole gang at Grandpa’s. It took like 2 hours and 16 minutes I think for the present opening. (Cassi timed it.)

On my birthday, I got more neat things: clothes, perfume (Happy Heart!), DS games (Tamagotchi Corner Shop and Animal Crossing: Wild World), books, Alice in Wonderland teapot, teacup, and saucer, Alice music box, DVDs and books, Blopens, an jewelry armoire and an amazing, original one-of-a-kind framed picture of the Cheshire Cat, made by my gifted husband! He took the artwork I had drawn at the Disney Village Marketplace on our Honeymoon and scanned it. I had gotten some little drops of water or something on it which is why I never did anything with it. Anyway, he cut out the Cheshire Cat and glued cardboard on the back, making it raised up and sorta 3-Dish. He took a million screenshots from my Alice DVD of all the Cheshire Cat scenes and made them real tiny and make a background out of them. It’s soooo cool! It’s a big Cheshire Cat with hundreds of little tiny Cheshires in the background! ^____^

After present opening, we (me, Colin, mom, dad, and Katee) went to Evansville and saw Night at the Museum and shopped a little. I got another DS game (cooking mama) and a DS plastic cover- the kind you can put your own artwork into. Colin bought a game that has Risk, Clue, and Battleship on it. It’s kind of like the one the got with Uno and Skip-Bp on it. I also bought new flash drive since I lost my pink one. This one is sooo tiny (I hope I don’t lose it!), but it holds twice as much as my other one did. After returning home, we all ate my Alice Ice Cream Cake (pictures soon!). Colin and I also did the birthday tradition of us watching Alice in Wonderland on DVD.

The day before my birthday there was a sort of fiasco. We got a $45 order from Cute Hello. Yes. *in shock* Well, I was all excited by this and decided it would be a good time to upgrade the site and install some new modifications. Well….when I installed the upgrade, the database got overwritten or something and anyway- all of our hundreds of products disappeared. They’re just…gone. I was pretty upset by this. Anyway, I’ve since gotten over it, and Colin and I agree we need to sort of re-start Cute Hello and simplify it greatly. He is also working on new versions of the characters. ^___^

So…yesterday was New Year’s Eve. We went to my parents and ate junk food and played games. It was fun. When we came home we played nintendo and watched Gummi Bears (one of the cool DVD’s I got for Christmas- The Gummi Bears Seasons 1-3 on DVD. I also got the second volume of Ducktales and the 1st and 2nd seasons of Northern Exposure.). Today we’ve just been hanging out, playing nintendo, and Colin is cooking a turkey which Pouncy will just go nuts over!!

School starts back on Wednesday. I wish I had more time off to play. Oh well!! Fun times, fun times!