Finally. My new theme is up! I kept waiting because I wanted to have all of my content pages finished. I have a few pages under “Hobbies” that aren’t ready yet, but I couldn’t keep putting the new theme off anymore. I’m too antsy and want some feedback from people. I’ve still got lots of tweaking to do, but I think I’m done with the majority of the major things. I would love your feedback: positive or negative. love: What do you like about it? What doesn’t work for you? What would you like to see?

I’ve learned a lot in the past year. It was almost a year ago (it will be a year March 21st!) that I switched from CuteNews to WordPress. Boy, was it scary at first! I went from messy code, iframes, and tables to this complex database driven content management system. Whoa. With the help of my friends at The Quilting Bee and a lot of trial and error, my website has now evolved into something I hope is more organized, uniform, and enjoyable for visitors.

Real quick, here are some things new with this theme: With this particular theme I have worked a lot more with different classes and ids. I’ve done a lot of work with the CSS file and tried to rely on CSS more than just sticking things into the actual page itself. (Did that make sense? I hope I said that right.) I’ve also installed a lot of really nifty plugins (including a cool 404 page!). I spent way more time on creating the graphics for the layout. Things are better organized I think. I added a lot more “me” I think as far as content goes and a lot more “stuff” in general (with more to come!). I also made some cool icons and smilies.

I’ve spent a great deal of time checking my site in various browsers (Firefox, IE 6 and 7, Opera, and Safari). I’ve got a few little things to tweak in IE, Opera, and Safari but for the most part, my site is looking okay in various browsers. I’ve also spent a lot of time going through and re-validating all of the pages. I think I’ve caught all the errors now. A lot of the errors I had were silly things that creeped into my code because I was exhausted while working on my site for hours at a time.

One of the things I am most proud of (and probably no one will care as much about) is my registration page. If you click to login to my site or register, you will see a lovely login box that matches my site. I absolutely hated that generic WordPress blue one that’s the default. It wasn’t anything major to change that, but I just felt so excited when I got that all sorted out. :star:

The next thing on my list (apart from finishing up the “Hobbies” pages and tweaking things) is to blog more often!! I have tons of ideas of things to blog about. Hopefully I can some up with some things to make you think or entertain you.

I’m so tired!! It’s about time for me to go to sleep now. Please, please please give me some feedback on my new theme! I’d really like to know what you honestly think. I know some people are going to hate the rainbows, and that’s fine, but I’d like as much feedback as possible. And if you see something that doesn’t look right to you - let me know! (I think my Gravatar plgin may not be working?) I may have missed something. :wacko: Staring at code can make you crazy. I am not a php ninja like some. :ninja:

Man…that was like super quick! A lot of the site is already transferred over. Keep in mind that some links might not be functioning properly right now due to me switching hosts. Several of the links do not point to permalinks currently, and therefore are not working as they should (this is mostly sidebar links). Also, my Quilting Bee Quilt is not up and running as of yet. Keep checking back.

Edit: If you’re still seeing the old layout, hit refresh.

Okay, so I’ve been working on yet another layout. To test it out, I installed the newest version of WordPress into its own directory. I pretty much have most things sorted out and looking like I want. I decided I’d try and “switch” WordPresses, so move the current one to another place and move the new one into place. I had to go into the mySQL tables and change some options and stuff. It seemed to all work fine. Until…. I tested out the permalinks. Lo and behold, my new, nice permalinks did not work even though they worked in the directory I was testing out. Why? Because of the htaccess file issue. The issue is- I cannot edit my htaccess file because Yahoo doesn’t allow you to. So, the links worked in one place but not another.
If you noticed things being weird for a few minutes today, this is why. If you notice any weird things going on with my links or anything, please do let me know.

EDIT: Okay, I signed up with Site5 about half an hour ago. They seemed to be the place that would offer me everything I want/need at a good price. This will actually cost me less than half of what Yahoo is charging me now.

EDIT 2: Okay, so… Site5 has FrontPage extensions you can install to ftp that way, but…. there are no extensions that are supported for FrontPage 2003. Soooo…. *cries!* I can’t use FrontPage anymore! Well, I take that back. I can still use it. I just can’t upload files as easily as before. Now I have to use FileZilia to actually upload files. That is an extra step for me now. The one good thing about all of this is that I will now have a copy of my website saved on my hard drive because right now… I don’t. :stunned:

I made a new theme.

Why? Because I wanted to try something a little “calmer.” I recently won a contest on Rachael’s website. One of my prizes was a free, coded layout designed by Rachael herself. She made me a very nice layout for my collective. Check it out. It’s awesome.
Anyway, so the new collective layout made me want a change. I decided to tone the brightness down a bit and go for something simple, yet cute. Here’s what I have come up with. I call my theme “Calm Rainbow” because the colors of the layout Rachael made me think of the color scheme, and her site is called Calm Banana.

So, what do you think? I know the screenshot is a little scrunched, so it looks kind of distorted and it’s hard to read what it all says. I used white for the navigation at the top on a very light blue background. I can read it fine, but I’m predicting that others may not be able to read it as well as I can. Any other suggestions for a color other than white? I tried some shades or gray. Didn’t look right. Using black just made it all pop. :stunned: (Yeah, I really need some color suggestions on this.)

The coolest part of the layout is the navigation at the top. When you hover over the words, little clouds pop up that tell you what is contained under the page you click on. Also, hovering over the Rainbow Stuff clouds/rainbow does something cute too. The footer is also cloudy cuteness.

Anyway, opinions and comments would be appreciated. Got any suggestions? After reading Jessica’s recent post about her website, I decided to get crackin’ on my new theme. Seems Jem is also working on a new design.

Every since I changed the theme of Rainbow Stuff, every few hours my site has been “disappearing.” I think I *may* have solved the problem with help from the WP support forums. I think what’s happening is that editing and saving my style.css while my theme is active has messed things up. It’s making WP think my style sheet is broken, and therefore tries to revert back to the default theme. Only… I had deleted that default theme directory, so it was causing my site to be blank. I’ve tried copying all of my theme files into a “default” directory, and I hope I won’t have the problem anymore. It’s just been quite annoying. I expect to see cute, colorful rainbows and smiley clouds, and all I end up seeing is whiteness. Anyway, we’ll see if the “fix” really is a fix or not.

I present to you my new summer layout. Also, I present my new smilies -
This layout was totally inspired by Rose’s website Impish.ca Visit her site. It’s so colorful and cute!

I now have to go through and validate my pages. In case things look a little wacky, this is why. If you find something terribly wrong, please do let me know.

I’m obsessed with my website. O___O

I am constantly online, tweaking and fiddling around with Rainbow Stuff. Whether it’s WordPress plugins, playing with the CSS, or generally just trying to make improvements, I am always doing something around here.

I also stalk people and their wesbsites. Well, not stalk in a creepy sort of way. Admire is a better word maybe? Look to for inspiration? The most recent of the websites I am in love with is Rose’s site, Impish.ca. Her site is so rainbowy beautiful! I’m in awe of it. I also frequent Perfection to see what others deem as “website perfection.”

I also flock to the credits page on most sites I visit. Anyone else do that? If I like someone’s smilies or see an interesting plugin installed, I immediately flee to their credits page. Lately, I have visited several sites and just stared at their site: their use of colors and CSS, their organization and layout design, everything.

I dream about websites.

With all of this said, I’m working on a summer layout. I’d like to consider the current layout my “spring” layout since it is so pastely, flowery, etc. My summer layout is going to be like electric-bold-summer-shock. I hope anyway. I actually got Colin to make my simple header for me since my graphics program is stupid when it comes to text sometimes. Here’s the general colors I’m using for my new theme:

I’m also going to be re-organizing everything and getting rid of a lot of unnecessary junk. I think I have a lot of stuff that can go and a lot of stuff I can add. Improvements. If there’s something you think I should eliminate or something I should add, let me know. I love suggestions/advice.
On a side note, yesterday was my last day of work! Summer vacation is officially here! I’m paranoid that I’m going to get a phone call at any moment saying the new computers have arrived and I need to come help with setting them up because my inventory is not right. I went over my inventory so many times. I’m sure it’ll all be fine. *crosses fingers* The computers were supposed to arrive today or tomorrow. I hope all goes well with the installation.

Another note- American Idol is on tonight. Vote Blake!

Friday was the last day of school for students. I have to work Monday, but after that… summer vacation! Whoo-hooo!

Friday was insanely busy. I didn’t go into work Friday morning. Friday was Katee’s 8th grade promotion. I can’t believe she is going to be in high school next year. It’s crazy. She got her perfect attendance award. I could have NEVER in my life gotten one of those. One kid has had perfect attendance for 8 straight years! :O

After the promotion, Colin and Katee dropped me off at work. Mrs. Carol (one of the custodians) and I set right to work to finish moving all the old Compaq computers to the blue pod hallway. I got so many questions throughout last week about those computers. People still can’t get over the fact that we are crushing them all. Anyway, unhooking computers, moving them all around the school, and stacking them up in piles is hard work. I actually have some bruises on my arm from carrying monitors (I assume). We got most of the computers moved.

When school let out, Colin came and helped me move the computers and tables in the lab. The way the lab was set up was annoying because there was no room on the floor in front of the SmartBoard. This was annoying because I couldn’t get kids seated back there very well (especially the big kids). I had like no floor space in there either. There were rows all over the place. We moved the computers so that, for the most part, they are against the wall. This totally opens up the middle of the floor. The room looks so much bigger and open. We set up some of the tables back to back so it made a little “station.” Colin also fixed all the wiring so that I don’t have to use the annoying plugs in the floor. He used the network hubs that I had in various places. Now kids won’t be as likely to trip over cords because there aren’t any cords plugged into the floor. Mrs. Carol and I moved a few more computers too. I’ll have to finish a few things on Monday.

Colin and I went out to eat that night at O’Charley’s in Hopkinsville. Yum yum. Our waitress was silly, of course. We came home and watched one of our Netflix movies. A Japanese movie about these two little boys who wanted a tv, and their parents wouldn’t buy one. So…the boys decided not to talk anymore. The youngest boy was retty cute.
I never have heard anything else about my “illegal job.” I guess no news is good news. I’m sure the district made up some B.S. about what CIA’s in the computer lab do. Lies. Oh well, not my problem anymore (I hope).

I have to go through all my forms so I will be ready to place them on computers and tables tomorrow. I hope I get all of that sorted out. I also have to figure out where these three Compaqs are going that we have to keep. I’m sure I have that in my inventory somewhere…

My smilies aren’t validating. I installed the Custom Smilies plugin, and liked it until I found out it doesn’t give a alt attribute to the smilies. I tried to go and edit that bit of code myself, but it didn’t work. I’ll have to find another smiliey plugin soon. Any recommendations? I’m also working on some modifcations to my layout or possibly a new layout.
Okay, enough. I am hungry. My stomach is saying so. Literally.

I’m free! Spring Break! Yay!
So, yesterday at school was a more simple day than it has been for awhile. I only had three classes come to the lab because of the awards ceremony. All three of those classes tested. I didn’t have my last class because they were having an Easter party. I spent a lot of time searching for Easter eggs for the Quilting Bee Spring Egg Activity.
Colin’s parents got in last night. They came by to see us for a little bit. I know they’re glad to be here and see us (especially Colin) since they haven’t seen us since our wedding last June. They’ll be here all through Spring Break and are leaving on the 15th. We’re probably going to go to Bowling Green and go to the Lost River Cave (I think it’s called). The cave tour with the boat ride. We’ve been to Mammoth Cave several times, and I’ve never been to the Lost River cave. I love caves!
I went shopping for awhile today with my mom. Colin went with his parents down to Pennyrile where they are staying at. Tomorrow is Easter! Excitement! Lots of relatives! Organized chaos!
I added something new to my site- Movie Ratings/Reviews! I’m not a very detailed reviewer or anything. Mostly I just want to make lists of movies with little stars. I’m going to add all the movies I watch on there (especially the ones from Netflix!)

I’m hungry. I wish that husband of mine would get home soon so we could make some plans!

So, I just installed and activated the flickrRSS plugin. I entered my ID.

Now I’ve got some strange dude’s pictures showing up in my sidebar. What gives?? I even used that idGettr to make sure I had the correct ID. My user name is squigglybee but when I enter that into the idGettr, it says “Uh oh. There was a problem.”

What did I do?!

Oh…..maybe it’s because I just joined Flickr and my account hasn’t been reviewed yet? So….I guess…I need to remove the code from my sidebar so I don’t have a strange dude showing up….

Oh, I am so tired. I had a mega-busy day at work today. First, I finally discovered how to get the Scott Foresman online reading assessments working. So, I had to create classes for each grade level, enter in ALL the students’ names in the school in 1st - 5th grade, and create their user names and passwords. I started workijng on this two days ago I think. I finally finished up this afternoon. Also, I had many updates to the school website to work on: creating new daily activity pages, adding more On Demand instruction information, and a couple of ORQ’s (open response questions). Not only that, my room was a revolving door all day of 4th graders working on their portfolio pieces. The thing that exhausted me the most was trying to teach 2nd graders how to type using Microsoft Word. Yeah….

So as the world knows, Sanjaya didn’t get voted out last night. He didn’t even fall into the bottom three. I am disturbed. I don’t know what is wrong with America. Chris Sligh should have made it way beyond Sanjaya and Haley both. At least Blake is still there, safe and sound for now.
I’m going to watch Survivor in about 15 minutes. Survivor is getting pretty boring these days. Same old, same old. I still think they need to have a special Survivor where game show hosts compete. Like, Ryan Seacrest, Jeff Probst, Phil from The Amazing Race, and Julie Chen from Big Brother could all be on there. I think it would be funny.
The weather has been so nice lately! It’s 72 right now. I’ve been wearing skirts all this week. It’s felt great. It did pour down rain yesterday and the other night, but at least we didn’t get the bad severe weather that some places did.

I’m working on a header image, and I added a little “Random Comments” section over in the sidebar. I’ll probably make some pretty random comments there. Should be fun.
Tomorrow is Friday! Hooooo-ray!!

I am seriously disturbed. How is it that Sanjaya still remains on American Idol? He’ll be on the live tour. He’ll be on the American Idol CD. He is just wrong on so many levels. The guy NEVER sings! He just does weird, funky things. I liked him during the auditions. Now…I wish his hair would get an infection and cause him to have to drop out of the competition.
I still like Blake. He’s my favorite! Go Blake! Didn’t like your song choice tonight dude, but you’re still cool by me!

On a side note- I got the Gravatar plugin to work. Yay for little tiny images!

So, I’ve just been tweaking a few things here and there. I changed my WP URL in my admin, so now all the links point to the correct place.

Colin and I got our first Netflix of the movie earlier- Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny. Oh yeah. Seriously messed up. It was a good laugh though. Our next movie is about some feral children.
My arm and hand are soooo sore right now, so expect a lengthy post tomorrow full of juicyness.

I have now “officially” converted my site into the wonder known as WordPress.

I’m a little shocked I must admit. When I tried installing WP several times previously I had no idea what I was doing. I just have to say that I have learned everything from the members of The Quilting Bee. Seriously. Without them, my site would be full of nasty iframes and god knows what else.
Using WordPress is a lot easier than I thought it would be. It’s a snap to create new pages. Transferring my stuff over to WP was quite easy and didn’t take too long. I did kill some pages however. Things like what’s in my purse, my wishlist, my nintendo stuff, and a few other things are missing right now. I may bring them back, but for now they’re on vacation.
I had installed WP into it’s own directory, and I just moved everything to my root directory. This means I have to go back and edit all of my links. The links all work because they are linking to my /wordpress/ directory. I’ll get them changed to my root directory as soon as I can.

I made some tiny cloud smilies to use on here. I will probably add more sometime soon. I’ve also got some customizing of the main page/sidebar to do as well. All in good time.
This is so awesome! Oh, I’m all impressed with myself! *squeals!!*

If you find something that isn’t working, please do let me know!

Okay, so since the death of my Cutenews and because of persuasion from fellow members of the Quilting Bee, I have decided to give this whole WordPress thing another try. Time will tell if I can handle this change.