Remember Me

Thank you to FlutieCutie for sharing this on YouTube.

Marines, soldiers, sailors, airmen........ we love you.

Making history.

Big things are happening in the world today. My life is no exception.

I've started my college classes and so far I'm making a good run at it. I'm a bit tentative and nervous but I know it's going to be fine. Underneath this polished funny exterior I'm actually a brainiac. I just need to get my mojo going.

My children are growing and changing daily. My son just started the 4th grade and his first season of football. He now takes some measure of interest in his appearance and his snarky sense of humor is thriving. My daughter can say words (although she usually opts out) and is climbing and dancing like nobody's business.

My husband remains my biggest source of encouragement and inspiration. In that "if you only knew" kind of way.

The web site, meanwhile, has been improved by leaps and bounds. Things have a lot of room to grow and I'm convinced that they will. Given that it has only been around for a few months, and is spearheaded by yours truly-- with no actual expertise-- I'm very encouraged.

Bald is beautiful...

... and it's a good thing. Because I've been pulling my hair out trying to get the web site just so. It still has a long way to go, but it's come a long way in a short time.

We now have:

-An intro page.

-An interactive main site with profiles, private messaging, etc.

-An upgraded forum (from phpbb2 to phpbb3) which is a "slave" to the main site, meaning that only one login is necessary to access both.

-An online calendar for birthdays, anniversaries and special events.

-A members only chat room.

To get to this point there was a lot that had to be done behind the scenes, much of which is invisible to viewers. For instance, I had to install a special component to allow me to embed video on the site and several others for other reasons. The avatar gallery had to be reinstalled on the forum and the smilies had to be formatted. We also had some issues both with logins and user permissions (reading, replying, etc) on the forum which have been rectified-- or so I believe for the moment!

I am still trying to get the "quick reply" function working on the forum. I completed all the steps for installation-- including some PHP file editing that I'm not particularly comfortable with-- and I can see some evidence of my work on the back end but nothing shows up on the forum. So I've missed a connection of the moving parts somewhere and I still need to get that up and running. Also, I need to find a way to edit the flood interval setting for the chat room. If you type an entry too quickly after a previous one, not only will the chat room reject it, but YOU with it. That needs to be fixed.

I had hoped to have every little detail attended to before I start class tomorrow. And though I failed to accomplish that, I do feel good about what's been done thus far and I see progress. It's a step in the right direction!

usmcwives.com: Splat.

There's one thing that never fails to hold true: When trial and error are involved in a process... you have to deal with the "error" portion.

All I managed to accomplish yesterday on the web site was to somehow undo something I had already done. I can't, for the life of me, figure out what I did or how to fix it yet. But I WILL!

I've somehow fouled up the linkage between the login section and the page one is redirected to upon login. I have looked it it from eighteen different angles and have even done a screen to screen comparison with Emily's control panel. I can spot the differences but am unsure how to correct them. Yet.

Web site go boom?

Nah. I'll get it fixed. I just have to step away from the keyboard, do something else for a bit and come back to it. I'm still very motivated about how the finished product will turn out. Stand by!

usmcwives.com: Re-design infancy.

I am attempting to re-design our site. I will get this done and I'm hoping the finished product will be clean, user friendly and pretty. I will accept nothing less for an end result!!

My experience level at this point is in the novice range. I know just enough to tweak something that already exists. This is why I think I might maximize my abilities by using Joomla. I was already aware of its existence but hesitant to delve into it until my friend, Emily, encouraged me by (1) telling me of her own experiences with it (2) generously offering to give me access to her site's files/settings so I could get a frame of reference and (3) making a very nice site with it herself (A Military Life.com).

So, off I go, then, to create genius while relying on the underlying technical skills of the development community!

I have selected a template-- after hours of indecision-- and am beginning to tweak it. Who knows, within the next couple of days I may even figure out how to remove all references to "Landscape Smart" (the template title) from the page! Stranger things have happened.....

Here's the equivalent of a fetal ultrasound for our baby: