Let’s play Catch-up.

Ok, as mentioned in my Thanksgiving Recipe post, I’ve had a perfectly good reason for not posting the majority of this year.
I needed to move web-servers. We kept saying we were going to do it soon and then not doing it, and because it was going to happen “SOON” I didn’t want to add anything that would alter the backups we had already made. Never-mind that of course when we went to move the site, the first step was to take brand new backups.
Regardless, it is done now, so I should be back to posting with semi-regularity, aka, about once a month if prior habit still holds true.
I have broken this post into different sections below so you can just go to the sections you are interested in and skip the part you could care less about.
It’s a long-winded ride, so settle in!

ADMIN

I am no longer with bluehost. That felt so good, let me say it again. I am not longer with bluehost!! I am no longer paying anyone for a shitty shared hosting platform. My site is on my very own server in shmoo’s data center. We have complete and total control.
All back end work is being handled by us with him doing most of the SysAdmin heavy lifting since he got to choose the OS. We bought the server at the beginning of the year, got it up and running early February and have generally only used it as a Minecraft server ever since. Mind you, Minecraft was not the intent for the server, but it has worked out nicely to use it as such. I have migrated my WordPress and Gallery installations over finally this weekend, and made sure that they are up and working correctly.

Part of this migration involved upgrading Gallery2 to Gallery3, and this has killed the plugin that worked for using Gallery photos in my blog, which makes me sad, because I loved it and it’s silly to put the same photos in two places on the server, and now I have to go back to using full links again if I don’t wish to do this. While this doesn’t make me happy, it is liveable. I don’t care for any of the Gallery3 themes, but overall it’s still the best photo gallery software out there, so I’m still using it. What I won’t be doing is going back and fixing any of the links that worked with the WPG2 plugin. I used it for years, and I just don’t care that much about fixing it.

Blog-wise I am using a theme I used several years ago that really isn’t widget compatible. Well it is for the left column, but not the right, and I can’t figure out why, and after a few hour I just gave up and fixed the right column without widgets. I’ll likely be looking into other themes later, but for now, I don’t cringe at the thought of this one and thus it shall remain. I always quite liked this theme, I just moved on because I liked widgets more.

SPINNING

I went to MSW and bought a bunch of stuff.

I did Tour de Fleece this year and spun 40 ozs of fiber, but haven’t done much spinning since. Nothing really of note at any rate.

I did take Felicia Lo’s Craftsy class on Spinning with color, and found it quite useful. I wish I had taken it a month or two before TdF so that I could have planned out some of the techniques to try during that time. Also, Craftsy is pretty awesome. If you like taking classes on your own schedule, at home, in your pajamas, without other people… it’s totally the way to go. Pretty affordable too and they have sales every so often too.

KNITTING

Since the Dim Sum, I have knit a new Nalgene Cosy in broken rib.

The Misogyny Networks Mankini Top

Made with the finest acrylics money can buy!! This fabulous fun fur and fuzzy yarn creation filled me with a dirty shame.
It was so bad that shmoo said my knitting license should be revoked, and he didn’t even have to wear it.
Regardless it was perfect for its intent and I was happy to compromise my knitting standards to help make a point in my industry.
Sometimes you have to take one for team….

A Pair of Campout Mitts for my Nana.

Mod was adding the extra i-cord at the bottom.
The gray is Alpaca and the pink is the same stuff the nalgene cosy and tea pot cosy were made of. I am finally almost out of that yarn. ALMOST!

A Pair of Campfire Mitts for myself.
I still need to take a photo of these, or wrangle shmoo into doing so while I wear them. Maybe next week!
Made these with the two Rainbow yarn bumps I spun up.
I had finished one armwarmer at the end of last year. It got ripped when I changed from the made up as I went along pattern to Campout Mitts.
Made them longer and added a band of garter stitch at the bottom.

I’ve been working on an Entrelac Infinity Scarf for my aunt. She’s been waiting about 3 years for me to make something with this yarn, and I am about half done with it.
Hopefully I’ll wrap it up before 3 more years go by.

I’ve also started a cocoon thing for the cat, but it’s crochet using random scrap yarns. It might end up horribly ugly. It probably will be. If he likes it, he won’t care, and neither will I. If he doesn’t like it, the dog will.

PETS

Daisy and Bri are both fine.

Daisy had another spine/neck disc rupture this spring but seems to be ok and able to live with it. She’s old and has a more limited mobility than she used to but over all is still a happy healthy dog. We took her to Florida this year with us, and for a dog who absolutely hates water, she absolutely loves the beach and St. George Island. Even shmoo noticed how much she liked it there. We took her with us on our morning walks, and she wasn’t interested in touching any little bit of the surf AT ALL, but she would every now and then and not totally panic. Mostly she loved the warmth on her old bones, the sand itself, and the interesting smells.

Bri is doing well. Evil as always. He’s gone to a meat twice a day diet and I am the one that feeds him. I am less worried he might kill me in my sleep and he has stopped peeing on my things, or rather, only on my things. Now when he gets mad at us, either of us might suffer the wrath. I am OK with this because I no longer feel targeted by him. Shmoo is less pleased, especially when I get to point and laugh at him.

OTHERWISE

Work is good. Always busy, always a challenge but I am happy.
I have stopped doing Letter Exchanges because I am a bad pen-pal and haven’t written a letter to anyone since I got sick back at the end of January from shmoocon. I was sick for over a month, ended up missing a week of work total, and did 3 different rounds of drugs. It was awesome, if by awesome I mean, totally sucked.
Facebook and G+ still suck.
Twitter is still my social network of choice.
I broke my Kindle3 keyboard and had to get a new one, just in time for the Paperwhite. I love it other than really missing the side keys for advancing the page quickly.
The game FTL is awesome.
We still aren’t playing WoW, though we have started playing GuildWars2 since they came out with a Mac client.
It’s not as fun as WoW but it doesn’t have a monthly sub price so I don’t much care.
Minecraft has replaced WoW for me for the most part. It’s the game I spend the most time in, and I like to see the things others have built.

That’s it, you’re all caught up!

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