Category: Uncategorized

Birthday(s) week almost done…

~ msgracefulnot ~ 22 Comments

Last Sunday, I turned 45 years old! I don’t know if I can actually say I look forward to aging, but I sure am grateful to have survived another year, especially when the odds have been stacked against me so many times.
As a kid I couldn’t wait to have another birthday. I was always the youngest kid in my class in school, and was always trying to “catch up” to my friends (Yes for a mere month, I was just like everyone else)

I didn’t like having an AUGUST Birthday though.  In fact, I hated that BOTH my brother and I got new school clothes for MY birthday.  All of my friends family’s were always trying to squeeze in “one more vacation” before school started, so no one was ever able to come to a party.

When I had my girls, I was determined that they would each have the most memorable birthdays ever!  The fact that they were born 6 years and one day apart, made it a bit challenging and expensive at times though.  Today is Thing One’s Bday, she is turning 27.  Tomorrow Thing 2 will be turning 21.

I don’t know if you ever made these “coupons” for your parents, or received them from your kids, but in my opinion these are the best gifts you can ever receive from your kids.

coupons

This year, my birthday present to Thing One is a set of coupons from me to her.  I volunteered to “mommy” her again for the day.  This consists of me doing her laundry, painting her bathroom, taking her out to lunch etc.  Can you believe I am super stoked about it too?!?!?  I am very grateful that she still WANTS me around, and that she is letting me do something for her.  (I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree when it comes to independence)

If you have a minute more, please join me for a brief trip down memory lane.

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I have to call special attention to the girls 10th and 4th bdays to thank my friends for helping me pull off these big parties year after year….

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The parties started on Thing 1’s bday.  I think about 15 of her friends and 7 of mine came over to go swimming, compete in a limbo contest, go on a scavenger hunt throughout our neighborhood, make tie die tshirts , and concluded with all of the kids spending the night.  The morning of Thing 2’s bday, all of Thing one’s friends circled around the trampoline and sang happy birthday to her, we had pony rides, a pinata, more swimming, and of course another cake.  Have I ever told you I have really awesome friends and family?!?!?

How do you and your family celebrate birthdays?  Do your birthdays all fall close together?  What is your most memorable birthday?

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Tomorrow for Thing 2’s bday we are going to check out 21 of the 100 places that give you free things on your Birthday.  I can feel the sugar coma already.

 

Yes I think I will do it again

~ msgracefulnot ~ 30 Comments

So my adventure with switching to self hosted if almost ( I hope) near its end…and boy do I have stories, maybe a lawsuit, a lot of wtf and smh head moments etc.

I also need more help pretty please….

  1.  Where did you see this post?
  2. will you please comment something or anything on it
  3. let me know when/ if you see my response
  4. If you are a follower and if you had to restart following

really any information you can give is helpful

Thank you in advance!

don’t mind me

~ msgracefulnot ~ 4 Comments

I just keep testing changes that I am making, and all that goes wrong  with those changes…

please feel free to comment if you see this ( as usual) it helps me figure out who is dropping the ball.

This one is published on wp.com (old settings)

The verdict is still out

~ msgracefulnot ~ 20 Comments

While the verdict about if switching to self hosted was worth it is still out, I thought I would take a few minutes to update everyone on where I have been hiding. 

First of all this is “birthday week” in my family.  My birthday was Sunday, Thing 1’s b-day is Saturday and Thing 2 will be turning 21 on Sunday, so needless to say things have been a bit busy.  (and been gaining a few pounds…yah cake?)

The stove/oven was identified as the cause of my C02 leak.  I am happy to report that the shopping for, financing, delivery, and installation of a new stove has been completed.

3 out of 5 of my animals, have had to go to the vet. (2 cats for breathing problems and one dog for explosive diarrhea)  I should be grateful that D.O.G. actually had most of her episodes on my bathroom floor, but if you remember, my bathroom floor is currently newspaper stuck to old tile glue, so it was actually a mini nightmare to keep cleaning that mess up.  The bill for the vet hurt quite a bit too. 😦

My bank went through a conversion and payments ended up not being were they were supposed to go,  So I have literally had to say, “the check is in the mail” which NO ONE believes or wants to hear.

One day, after reaching 7000 steps, I came home and took off my shoe to see this.

The Doctor is calling this Gout

My foot hurts like hell, but I have still been walking every day.  IMO, this is NOT gout, and the uric acid levels in my blood say that it is also not gout, however;  the doctor is still calling it GOUT.  I have purchased new walking shoes, and am having custom inserts made for my shoes, (yah more bills) hoping that that helps, while trying to find a new doctor, that will at least perform xrays….. again SMH

My Shadow

I feel like I should call this little guy more of a stalker now.  He comes to my house Every day and either lurks in the tree at the end of my driveway, or rings my doorbell continuously.  One day, I did have him sit at my patio table, and I let SNUFF out the meet him.  I wrote a note for him to take home to his mother, I read him the note, and reiterated that he can not come over without a parent.  I put my phone number on the note, and have still not seen or heard from a parent.  Instead, he brought another slightly older brother over 10 minutes after he met my dog……smh that is NOT what I said.  I did learn that he is six and his brother is 7.  When I asked about his mom, he said she worked until 4

Switching to Self hosted

As far as the switch to self hosted goes, the jury is still out.  As with most things in life, there are positives and negatives to everything.  One of the positives, or at least one of the reasons I switched include having more options or tools available to use.  When you are using wordpress.com, you are basically “allowed” to use what they tell you that you can use as far as plug ins etc. are concerned.  Last month’s, 370k in spam comments, and no ability to change security plug ins was the final straw for me, so I finally made the jump.

At this point, there have been more negatives, but part of that can be a learning curve.  I think I have said before, that I was skeptical about switching because I read the words “easy and free to transfer”….HA HA HA.  Some of the negative things are:

  • My stats are bunk.  I went from having 200 followers to having 5.
  • While “transferring your site” is “free, I don’t feel that it was easy and required a minimum of 15 tickets to wordpress.com and siteground.com to “complete” the process.  To be honest, I still don’t feel that the process is complete.
  • Not only did my site “disappear” from Reader, I no longer have a Reader without going back to wordpress.com.
  • Most of my comments are still going to the old “whatever its called”, and I am missing several.  To make it worse, some followers are no longer able to comment, and for the ones that ARE able to comment, most are not able to see when I have responded.
  • It WASN’T free.  SMH

There is a completely different dashboard, and staging area.  Siteground is also rolling out a new editor.

I keep trying to remind myself that it is all about the journey, and things will get better with time.  To those of you who still keep looking for me and who have helped me “test” things, I am more than grateful.  Ms Gracefulnot, is still out there, and I am hoping things will get better with time.

If you are reading this and don’t want to lose contact, please consider subscribing to the blog via email.  (there should be a link at the bottom of this post ) From what I can tell, so far, THAT part works