Category Archives: Just Stuff

Sounds better than miscellaneous.

Revolving Door

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Last weekend, I made a snap decision and decided to haul myself and the kids down to the valley for an impromptu visit. Although the grandparents were a little taken off guard, it was a nice opportunity for the three of us to get out of town and let Steve have some time alone with the house to finish all those inane project details – the ones that have allowed me to finally earn my official Nagging Wife card.

As for the trip, there were no real exciting details to report – at least none that weren’t otherwise reported via Twitter. (As you may have noticed, I have become reliant on my Twitter feed for most of my posting and updates lately. This would be the part where I would refer to Twitter and sliced bread in the same sentence.) Throughout the course of our journey I took a handful of photos, did a bit of shopping, and while the kids were glued to the DVD players during the drive to and from, I managed to catch up on some of my long overdue podcasts.

Tomorrow I leave for 4 days on business (thanks for pinch hitting with the kids, Celene), and the week after that we’ll have family here for our National Day of Thanks. The Stella/Steve extravaganza comes quickly thereafter, then back down to the valley for Christmas. I guess what I am saying is that you really should be keeping your eyes trained on that left column over there because my ability to string more than 140 characters together is going to be marginal, at best.

In the meantime, feel free to entertain yourselves with this Walstonling photo-recital.

Promises, promises.

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Many of you have expressed frustration at how my site is loading (or not loading) these days. Don’t blame me, blame Twitter. It actually drives me a little bit batty too. Although I love the service and the overall concept, I have found Twitter to be a bit spotty in reliability, which has – in turn – had a direct impact on my site. There are ways I could work around this issue, but due to my negative free time schedule, I have not been able to dedicate the time to making those changes happen. Which brings me back to the real issue: redesign.

In an attempt to actually make this site bend to my will a little bit easier, I have scheduled a sit-down with my husband, who has agreed to be my back end guy. [pause for snickering] This is a dicey proposition – turning over my code, my site, my fastidious control-freak ways to my husband so that I can focus on content, content, oh lovely content. Yes, he is a doorknob toucher, but in a completely different way than I am, and this just might have disaster written all over it. After all, when I took over the financial wrasslin’ in our household it took me the better part of three months to untangle his “system”. I needed nothing short of a decoder ring and a pair of mind-reading goggles. Although I have, technically, been doing web work since the mid-90’s, I have been far removed from the day to day grind of cranking out code. Steve on the other hand, has recently become the de-facto campus webmaster for his school, and is more up-to-speed on the various technical aspects that I need in order to evolve this site to match the pace of my life today. Believe it or not, in October this site will be 4 years old. But, my life was much different then, and considering that as of July 1 I will be reassigned to a new unit with a new time base (read: working more hours), I will be adding yet that much more to my plate. Although there are not a shortage of Walscapades to write about, I have struggled for some time now to properly document them all.

As you have seen, our lives have been fairly consumed with becoming dog owners. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit a certain amount of fatigue from the whole process of adopting Ranger. I don’t regret it, but I will be glad when we can assimilate him into our lives and routines and when I stop having to write multi-hundred dollar checks to the vet. In just the one day he was kept for observation after “the shot”, we all found ourselves missing his presence, and in this way I know we made the right decision adopting him. [I can say with some certainty that our cats would disagree with this assessment.]

One of the things that I have really struggled with lately is my lack of posting about all the great developmental things going on with the kids. I have about a gazillion post-its stuck inside my journal that remind me I haven’t written about how Stella has begun reading, or how Porter’s speech and language has hit full stride, where we are headed with this whole Kindergarten issue, Porter’s obsession with keys, Stella’s obsession with talking too much, what it’s like to watch my kids form an actual relationship with each other, and, of course, how Porter now refuses any and all attempts at a haircut. There are funny stories, and maddening experiences and charming tales that need to find their way on to these pages. And so, I shall not give up my attempts to bring them to you – my loyal readership.

The first time I have actually looked at my code in over a year.

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I know you all think that I spend my days ignoring you and purposely trying to make you wear out your mouse button by checking the same stale post for days on end. That shows how much you know. How can I be busy ruining your life when I am so obviously preoccupied ruining my children’s lives? See? It’s not about you, it’s about me.

The honest fact is that this site actually looms in the back of my brain at all times of the day. Partly because I want to keep you, my loyal followers, updated with the cute, the angry, the comedy and the tragedy. And partly because I need to keep me updated. About 15 minutes after Stella was born, I stopped filling out baby books. So yeah, basically if it weren’t for this website, there would be no proof that my children existed.

I have been exploring various methods for making blogging easier and more accessible. Without going into too much geeky technical detail, I will say that my old blog model is in complete misalignment with my current life. And so, you’ll notice a new block over there on your left. This would be my attempt at realignment. I will be grabbing content from a service I am now using called Twitter, which is built around the concept of keeping it short and sweet.

I’ll continue to blog as I can work it in, and yes, Judy there will still be pictures. But back here, behind the curtain there are changes afoot. And by “afoot” I mean it might be completed in the next 2 years.