Make Memories

Today is Nicole’s birthday so we have been really busy doing things. First thing this morning Nicole wanted eggs in a basket. She loves buttering the bread and cutting the holes.Then we went out to the garden and picked our pumpkins. They really could have used more time to ripen but they are just being carved so it does not matter much. They had a blast carving the pumpkins. This year they wanted to just draw their own designs and be silly. They have a four day weekend that started today so we could take our time and have fun with everything.

Nicole also helped make her birthday cake. It is more like a pile of sugar that Halloween exploded on. She picked out a chocolate fudge cake mix and chocolate fudge frosting. Then she added designs with a can of red frosting and decorator tips. We had a container of 6 different Halloween sprinkles so then she added that. To top it all off she added red hots. It is definitely tons of pile of sugar but it is her birthday.

For dinner she got to pick what we ate. She of course picked Arby’s roast beef melts. We do not have fast food in our little town so the girls only get it on special occasions like this. She LOVES roast beef melts. It has been so long that she forgot what a Jamocha shake was. She got all excited when she tasted coffee. I used to love those things back when I could eat bad foods.

Okay I should get back to our game. I just took a break from playing Lego Star Wars  because I needed Noelle to get me past the pod racing part. Nicole got sick of me making her lose and asked me to let Noelle do it.

  I do not show pictures of my kids online so I can not show you them in costume. I can however show you the costumes they picked out. The top one is the costume Noelle (13) got, Countess of Darkness. It was $50 and I did not want to spend that much but it is an adult size and made really well. That helped me feel better about spending more. I can trust that it will be saved for future years. She absolutely loves this costume. She did have to wear a shirt under it though since it was lower cut than I liked. When we added the black lipstick and eye makeup this morning we were amazed by the transformation.

This is the one Nicole (10) picked out, Spider Web Ghost. It has a half wig kind of thing that fits under the hood but she did not want to ruin it before Halloween so she did not wear it to school. She also left the spider web at home. She wanted black lipstick but no other makeup. She got a scary skull wand too.

This one is Neona’s (9) costume, Ghostly Goddess. I was surprised that she did not go with her normal very pretty and girlie look. She did have a very hard time deciding on a costume though. I could not believe most of the costumes I saw at the store. They looked like they were made for grown women. Most of the little girl costumes were very low cut, very short length, and skin tight. I would think they were too revealing even if they were adult costumes. Last year Nicole and Neona were cheerleaders but this year all the cheerleading costumes had exposed bellies. It was like Halloween at a whore house. Okay, my rant is over now.

Well, slowly James is feeling better and the pain is getting less. He has another doctors appointment today and then he will try to go to work for awhile.

Last night was Noelle’s first band concert of the year. I was very thankful that it was only 6 songs long. They did not start until 7pm and I have had enough trouble getting the kids to sleep lately. There are too many things going on so no one wants to sleep.

Nicole and Neona have been having some school spirit days this week. Monday was pajama day. They love pajama days. They average about 3 a year. Today was crazy hair day so Nicole had spray on purple hair.  Neona had a clip on multi-colored hair clip attached to her pony tail. It had stripes of bright orange, green, yellow, and purple. There are also a few beads and braids. They were both very excited about today.

Tomorrow is the last day of school for the week so they are having their Halloween parties. They also get to wear costumes to school. They are very happy about wearing them for an extra day. I will have to wake them all up early to get everyone ready and get the makeup all applied.  Okay I better get back to the rest of my crazy life.

James is starting to feel a little better finally. The last appointment was with a hand specialist. They did new X-rays and made him a custom brace for his wrist and hand. She said that any movement would help the infection move around his body.

They also gave him a second antibiotic. It seems that the first doctor did not give him enough and that is why it was not getting better. Now that he is taking more antibiotics and has the brace it seems to be getting better.

Today James’ dad came over for lunch. They had a great deal at Cub Foods this week. They were giving away a free turkey with the purchase of a ham so I made a ham and turkey dinner.

We also had bought a new light fixture for the kitchen so James’ dad was able to help out with that. James has not been able to get to those kind of things the way he has been feeling so it really helped.

All in all it has been a long day and I need a rest.

It seems like it never ends these days. First James was hurt when the man fell asleep and ran into James’ vehicle and now this. James was finally feeling better and able to get back to a mostly normal routine.

It seems like so long ago already so I can not remember if it was last Friday or Saturday. At any rate… He came home from work and said that his wrist was sore and getting swollen. It was the same wrist that he had surgery on two Christmases ago.

It had gotten so painful by 3am that he had to go to urgent care. They said that he probably tore the tendon but nothing could be seen until the swelling went down. Monday morning the swelling was so bad that his skin looked like it would rip and his fingers were going numb. He was also still in horrible pain.

So he went to his regular doctor and found out that it was not the tendons like they had assumed. It was actually Cellulitis from a cut he had recieved. He gets cut so often that he did not even think about it. Everyone just assumed that it was because of his bad wrist.

Cellulitis is a  bacterial skin infection. Cellulitis may affect only your skin’s surface — or, cellulitis may also affect tissues underlying your skin and can spread to your lymph nodes and bloodstream.

Right now we are at the stage of finding out just how deep the problem is. He has been on antibiotics since Monday so there should be a huge improvement. There is very little improvement so we are back to doctor appointments.

Yesterday his doctor lanced his arm hoping that the swelling was because there was pus building up and all she had to do was drain it. That was not the case. We went back in the afternoon for X-rays but we still do not know if that showed anything.

Right now I must help James shower and then get ready myself. We are off to a specialist in Madison.

The girls were pretty upset for a little bit but they are back to normal again. Having lots of pets means that they have lost 2 other pets in the past so it was easier this time.

The guinea pig that died was Noelle’s. He was an albino so they said that he would have more health problems and not live as long. When they first brought him home he really creeped me out. The red eyes made him look evil.

The pet store had said that no one ever wanted him so he was older than the rest of them. I am thinking that he must have been much older than the rest.  We had not planned on getting another guinea pig but James felt bad for him and wanted to give him a home. We do not plan on replacing him since we still have plenty of animals living here.

Hmmm, what else to talk about today?

I think today we will do some laundry and shampoo the carpets in a few rooms. It is getting pretty cold outside so maybe we will catch up on some shows that we have recorded on the DVR. I may even find something to cook in the oven so the house can warm up some.

Today after school the girls and I drove to Madison. James wanted us to bring him the expense check he got in the mail so he could deposit it. Living in a small town means that our bank is a 30 minute drive down the interstate.

When we got to Madison James decided to take a late lunch break since we were all there. We headed to Ella’s Deli. It is a great restaurant for families. It has animated displays all over the walls and ceiling. It also has glass top tables that house fun things to check out while eating. Our table had a litte town with a train that went around a track when everthe girls pushed the button.

We decided to live it up and I cheated with the food. We had mozzerella sticks, onion rings, chili cheese fries, and deep fried pickles. I have heard of them for awhile but had not tried them until the other night when James and I went out to play some trivia. We decided that the girls should try them too. Noelle liked them with ranch dressing but the other two had no interest in them.

They also have a carousel but it started to rain so we did not go on it. Instead the girls got ice cream cones. It was a pretty cold day but the girls will never pass up ice cream.

So it ended up a pretty fun afternoon.

 So I have been VERY busy working on redoing the main website. This is a little sneak peek of it. I still have a LOT of work to do on it though. I am fumbling through it all pretty well. I knew nothing about Joomla so I just learn as I go. I have finally found a template that I love. It even changes with the seasons. It can change from day to night also but I thought that might be a bit much. People probably do not want to see my website all dark and under a moon.

The more I add to the site though the more I worry that I may have trouble when it comes time to move it up a level and out of testing stage. I would hate to go to all of the trouble of adding all of the pages just to find out that I can not get all the links to work any more. From what I have read up on it I will just have to move the files up a directory and then alter a few files so it knows where the files went. Nothing ever works on the first try for me though and I really am not that sure about the altering of the files. I really have no idea what I am doing I am just a fast learner. I used to always say that you learn the most by fixing your mistakes and I make a lot of mistakes.

Soooooo, I was wondering if once I get the front page all worked out if I should just go live with the site even though it is not done. I would leave the old site in place so old links would still work and search results would still bring people to the old site until I am finished moving everything.

I had wanted to completely add all 200 pages and then have a grand unveiling of the full completed site. I would hate to go to all that trouble though and then find out that the links no longer work and I wasted all that time.

So what do yo think? Would it be bad if I went live with the site even though it does not have all of the pages yet? I would have a message on the front page stating that I am redoing the website. I could probably link to the sections in the old website if people still want to find them.  Everything other than the original index page should all remain intact until I delete them. I just worry that I will end up having to redo a lot of the stuff if I do not just go live with it right now. Plus, I am really excited about it and can’t wait to go live. 

So what do you think?

Should I just go live now and add things everyday or would that look bad and I should wait until it is all finished and hope for the best?