Friends

• 00:09 I've had Bad Romance on repeat for like an hour. I also have snowmen on my socks.
• 15:14 I slept in too late today. I'm not feeling 100%. :/
• 19:58 I am way excited to see Simba on Thursday. I picked out my outfit last night. I have alternate too just in case. XD
• 22:04 Haha: This Year in Auto-Tune 2009 www.break.com/index/this-year-in-auto-tune-2009.html

Originally published at Raising the Herd. Please leave any comments there.

Well, I had decorated my tree the day after Thanksgiving as is per my tradition. The girls and I made snowmen and a paper chain and some snow flakes.

I had hoped that this would be the easier of the solutions but it was not. The girls decide it was more fun to play with the paper they’d made then leave it on the tree. So last Saturday I bought ornaments and a tree skirt (which I needed anyways). And last night I decorated the tree.

The girls were naked while decorating the tree so we have no pictures while we decorated. Only this falsified one after I got them dressed lol.

I had to move decorations around, the girls didn’t understand the “do not put them on top of each other” or “too close together” so I just rearranged afterwards. Here is a before and after:
Before:

After:

And I tried to grab a picture of the kids and the dog but it didn’t work out so well, this is the best of them.

• 23:57 Just watched the sneaky peak of Deathly Hallows... I had a nerdgasm. XD
• 13:33 Unexpected performance is unexpected. At least the piece is easy.
• 18:29 Kit-Kat is passed out on my lap. She's dreaming and kicking me.
• 21:39 I want to make giant gift boxes for our yard... Mum's keen on the idea.

Originally published at Raising the Herd. Please leave any comments there.

Well everyone slept last night. Bubba slept in our room on the floor on my side of the bed so I could pet him/comfort him with ease and with out having to get out of bed to do so. We had three accidents and 1 kinda accident that I stopped to take him out in freezing cold weather lol.

It was a much better night, he didn’t even follow me out when I had to go put Kathleen down.

Monday I hope to have our pen back. I’m still hoping to be able to put it at least temporarily in our room and let him stay there, but we’ll see. But I think we may just put it in the living room as planned. We’ll see.

We’ve had a few accidents today. I need to get the timer out of the van and set it for half an hour for both the girls and the dog lol. Maybe Sammi will start now? we’ll see. It would be good to get all diapers out of this house and pull ups too!

Originally published at Raising the Herd. Please leave any comments there.

Originally published at Raising the Herd. Please leave any comments there.

Yesterday we went to the Animal Shelter. There was two sets of lab puppies – 2 black and 3 golden. All mixes. The 2 black were strays and the other 3 we didn’t actually read much about them on their card.

One of the black ones took instantly to us, came up to the fence, Kathleen petted him. We tried to coax the other one over as we thought it was the male, but it didn’t work. We went to visit with the friendly one in a closed room. The girls loved him. We thought he was a she so we had named him Isabella, but when we got to the counter to say we wanted this one, it was a boy so we had to find a new name on the way home. We agreed on Bubba. Even Sammi could say that one.

But we were not prepared. Their website (and the paper in the shelter) said that they are fixed before they leave. But at approximately 8 weeks that’s a no go. We’ll go back in January to get that taken care of.

The adoption fee was $50. We get a free vet examination with in three business days. They are fixed and their first set of shots are covered. This will include his rabies at 3 months.

So home we came with Bubba. We ate dinner and then me and the girls had to go to the store to get Bubba food, water bowl and toys. We have to go back today I definitely need more paper towels before next grocery trip and some carpet cleaner for those lovely accidents. I will probably just buy a gallon of vinegar and a spray bottle. I’ve been meaning to do that anyway.

The biggest adjustment I think is going to be with the girls. He gets over playful and starts nipping (cause he doesn’t know any better) and then they start to run and he chases and nips some more and then it’s scream at the top of our lungs. Sammi doesn’t listen when you tell her not to run, so it’s a big ordeal. They both need to settle down when he’s nipping and scratching. He doesn’t understand, they don’t understand and it’s all a big mess lol. But everyone will adjust.

Now if we can just find suitable sleeping arrangements. Bubba in the kitchen and us in the back of the house just did not work no one slept at all. Well until 4am when Shea decided he wasn’t going to work OT today, the girls and Bubba came to our bed. Only Bubba stayed, the others went back to their own bed willingly. Kathleen wanted to go she couldn’t get comfortable and Sammi went with her so it was just 3 in bed instead of 5. We all needed that two hours of sleep tho.

• 23:12 Pictures all uploaded! :D ow.ly/IpnA
• 00:44 There's a 50% chance of snow for tomorrow. They're saying this is the best chance for SA in over 15 years. Let's see what happens... XD
• 12:12 HEB has Tim Tams!!! :D
• 16:18 I am so cold. Not happy about this right now. >:(
• 22:06 It is officially freezing outside. Blah.

2. You often fall asleep with your spectacles on, and with the laptop and the lights on.

3. You start to dream about Paragraph numbers in ICJ judgments.

4. When you listen to that Blind Guardian song "Born in a Mourning Hall", your mind automatically replaces "mourning" with "moot court".

5. You breathe a sigh of relief when you see an ICJ judgment that's *only* 100 pages long!

Originally published at Raising the Herd. Please leave any comments there.

I love Google Reader. I mean LOVE it. It’s been so awesome to keep track of my feeds and to do things, however it has one very bad drawback. It does not pick up Livejournal’s friend locked posts, which is very bad when I have friends who only post within the locks. So I’ve been searching for a solution and I found one finally.

It’s open source code that is the base of feed proxy, but LJ blocked it so it’s no longer usable. But the same open source code can work from your own server.

Here’s is the most awesome post lol. Follow the directions in the notes and you shouldn’t have a problem.

Though please do note that it will take a while for the feed to propagate. I did one yesterday and I didn’t get the feed until this morning. So let it sit and be watchful for it to show up if it doesn’t then take a look at it. And the subdomain is required if you read the comments in the post so don’t skip that step.

SO all you LJ friends out there, if you use your friend lock alot please let me know. Email me or post a comment and I’ll grab your feed that way!

Originally published at Raising the Herd. Please leave any comments there.

I don’t know how people come here, or who subscribes to my feeds, all I know is my blog stats show a bit of activity so I just want to clarify a few things. I am not a niche blog. I talk about everything I’m interested in.

My sub heading is “My Family, My Life, My Journal” for that reason. I will talk design and programming, I will talk about my family, I will bore you to death with my girls and their growing up. I will write about my writing adventures about role playing and cooking. These are all things I like, all things I do. I am not a niche blog, unless I’m a niche lol.

I have a lot to say today lol, and it’s only almost 5am. *sighs*

I’m excited about getting a puppy. I really hope we can find one we all agree on. I’d really like to have a puppy sooner rather than later. Provided the weather holds out today we will try to go to the closest one, but we are under a winter weather advisory. What does that mean? WELL that means if it even starts to snow, doesn’t even have to stick to the ground, things will start to close. First and foremost being the high rise bridges over the various rivers around here. So guess what that means for us – we either stay home, or we go the very long way to get to things lol. The last time it snowed here it was my very first Christmas here. We were at Shea’s parents house and the bridge we needed to take was closed. We were like 5 to 10 miles from home and had to go 30 miles out of our way to get there. It probably would have been closer to go back to Shea’s parents house, but we didn’t, we went the long way home on Christmas night lol.

I would like it to snow, but I’m not counting on it. If it does it’ll be late, and dark and the girls won’t really be able to go out and play in it. But hopefully they’ll be awake to see it snow. It’s a late TV night for us so it’s possible they might see snow.

Today we go sign paper work for the girls ER trip for their overdose of children’s tylenol. I’ve been meaning to get that paperwork set up so the payments come out of Shea’s pay check, but it’s just one of those things that went by the way side. But tomorrow after Shea gets home from his over time we’ll go sign the paperwork and then hopefully go look at puppies. I really don’t care what we get, I just don’t want a yipper. I can’t stand little dogs or over hyper ones.

• 00:40 Everybody wants to be understood - Well I can hear you - Everybody wants to be loved - Don't give up - Because you are loved
• 13:03 I have three pairs of fuzzy socks on. My feet are still cold.
• 13:20 A firetruck just pulled up across the street... wtf O.o
• 13:54 Firetruck is still outside. Now there are two ambulances...
• 15:04 How cute is this? From Blogtor Who: bit.ly/6Dn7tb
• 16:45 I'm finally uploading the pictures from our trip. :)
• 17:22 It smells like a freezer outside. Hmmmmm
• 20:46 Still uploading trip pictures. And I have an egg nog latte. Delish.

Originally published at Raising the Herd. Please leave any comments there.

It seems I’m going for a goal of a post a day on my blog, I doubt it will actually work, but we’ll see. It really does depend on the weekends. During the week it’s an easy feat just have to think up something to write about, we’ll see if I can manage that this month. Maybe writing my fustrations down will help lol.

But anyway, I’m looking for PSDs to convert to HTML/CSS templates, more importantly to convert into functional wordpress designs. I have downloaded about 20 different PSDs to use as my learning base. This is actually what I love doing, so for a limited time ONLY I’m looking for other people’s creations to create into wordpress designs they can use.

While I can theme wordpress with the best of them, I’m looking at this more from a development point of view. I have two goals in mind here. 1) to take the psd of someoneelse’s creation and make it look like it’s suppose in XHTML and CSS and 2) to create a customizable theme with al ot of features that do not require a plugin.

So for a limited time, like two weeks from today I’ll take a stab at anyone who can send me a PSD to convert into a wordpress theme. This work is free, but because it is free I can’t make any guarantees, this is a learning process and I may or may not finish it, or it may not come out quickly or exactly as you had intended.

Originally published at Raising the Herd. Please leave any comments there.

Well the union’s passed the not so great contract extension. Shea did his part and voted against it, lol, mostly so he could complain about it’s crappiness.

On the 17th we will get the bonus, while it’s much appreciated it’s not the best end result. One plus, no strike in March for Shea to have to cross the picket lines to get to work. No rise in health insurance premiums for the next two years. So those are the pluses, I just hope that we can survive the next two years on this extension.

With the news that it passed, we will probably be going to the Gautier Human Society (30 mins away) to see about getting a puppy. If we find one we like it’ll be fixed the following Wednesday and we’ll be able to take it home on Thursday. Shea wants to know if we can pick it up on Friday, it doesn’t matter too much to me. I can put the puppy in the back of the van on a sheet with a baby gate keeping it out from under my feet.

That will give us time to get the crate from Mam and Pawpaw’s house, clean it up and buy all the necessary items. Thankfully we have a dog dish that is nice and tip proof, water on the other hand is not so neat and easy. I think we’ll deal with either a rabbit water bottle or get one of those water dishes with a bottle on top to house the water. The latter is much more dangerous with my twin tornadoes. I’m sure I’d find water all over the house.

I’m excited to get a new puppy and a bit scared. I really want a furry kid, even if it means more work and frustration for me lol, but I’m hoping that the puppy will help add some responsibility to the girls if they want their toys to survive lol. But we’ll see.

If we don’t find one in Gautier we may have to go to Gulfport or Mobile. Hopefully not because that is a bit far away for us to go run and pick the pup up after fixing it.

• 13:56 It's cold and rainy out at the moment. Last I checked, it was 46º... Not a happy Manda. :(
• 14:20 RT @datm: @pantslesswrock Want a free new wrock song EVERY DAY until Xtmas? Check out the Wizard Rock Advent Calendar! short.to/ywe8
• 22:07 Is it weird that I'm jealous of Dawn because Josh sings her name in a bunch of the songs on Noel?
• 22:35 The Fires of Pompeii is one of my favourite Doctor Who episodes... mostly for the Epcot reference. XD