Wedding Photos!

PhotoMatt has posted his wedding photos! Feel free to browse through them.

I promise, I'll post some of my own soon. Along with house photos, Tiara Happy Hour photos and honeymoon photos. Yes, I have a lot of photo editing in my near future!

Just Call Me FireFoxy...

First, my confession. If you are one of those people that watches the log files to see what browsers people use, I am a diehard IE user. (If you are really a fanatic about watching things like that, you probably knew that already.) People have tried to convince me to switch, but I have just never given in. Sites don't always look pretty on Firefox. I used tabbed browsing back in 1996 with Opera, and just prefer IE. I'm used to having 10+ browser windows open at one time, and with tabs I tend to close the main window instead of just a tab. The list just goes on and on.

Tonight, while surfing along, I came across Scott Andrew's tech site, Delimiter, thanks to Ernie. I decided to go to Scott's main page to check things out and maybe listen to some of his music. (Good stuff there, if you ask me.) However, there is a nice little warning that I should stop using IE on the top of the page. "Hey! If you're using Internet Explorer, you're exposing yourself to viruses that can steal your personal information, banking passwords and more." Then a link leads me to his tales of woe and cybertheft, giving me a good solid reason to leave IE behind. Yeah, I had heard it all before, but this finally sank in. Internet Explorer is Dangerous.

He links to many sources that convince me even more. I have downloaded FireFox, and as soon as I close out my 17 browser windows, I'll go back and read the Introduction to Firefox tutorial.

Today Firefox (and probably Thunderbird too), tomorrow WordPress. What's next? My head is almost spinning from all the possibilities!

UPDATE: Yeah, I've been holding out because I'm not a huge fan of tab browsing. Brilliant. When you right click, you can choose "Open in New Window" in Firefox. You can even make that a permanent setting. Doh!

Just In Case...

In case you didn't know already, there is a new Blog Showcase in town. Just thought I would pass that along... [via Red Said]

Or you might prefer to Judge Blogs By Their Covers. Full of beautiful sites I might have otherwise missed. (With lots of great tips - good, now that I have time to focus on things like that again!) [via PhotoMatt.]

Just Call Me Sleeping Beauty...

I've always been a night person. Well, in the sense that I stay up late - because in reality, if I get up early in the morning and get busy doing work, I'm really a morning person and get the most accomplished then. Unfortunately, staying up past midnight normally prevents that from happening.

I'm also one of those people that can be woken up from a solid sleep and function normally. I can talk, cook breakfast, whatever. I'm considering doing Project Blog for that reason, but haven't decided for sure yet.

Last night though? Last night was unusual. I went to sleep at 2:15 am. I am stuck with the alarm on my side of the bed because Mike will sleep through it, so I woke up at 6:30 to wake him up. Again at 7:00. Again at about 7:15, when I begged him to get up so I could go back to sleep. He woke me up at 7:50 when he left. Chelsey called about 9:00 and we talked for a little bit. I told her to call me later, and I went back to sleep. Mike called at 9:50 as he went to get his hair cut. He offered to call back later, but I told him no, I needed to get up and run errands. I promptly went back to sleep. I woke up at noon, lamented over how late it was, and went back to sleep. When I finally woke up at 1:45, I actually screamed "holy CRAP!" Yeah, so much for all the errands I was going to run this morning, right?

However, I must say that I do feel quite refreshed now.

The Original Jellin' ...

I was just thinking about them the other day. Jellies. The fantabulous summer shoes of the 80s. I think I had two or three pairs - I had to match them with my clothes, of course! I'm almost tempted to order some just to relive the memories!

I'm Switching Teams...

I remember the day I came up with the name for WordPress like it was yesterday. Photo Matt was incredibly excited about his new project (not surprising, if you know Matt - he is quite full of enthusiasm), but didn't have a name yet. He told me he kept thinking about printing presses and how they helped get the word out to the common man. I brainstormed for part of an afternoon, and then it hit me. The URL was available, and I think I was screaming on Matt's voice mail as I left him a message about it. He agreed that he like the name, and WordPress as we know it was born.

Once WP went public, he offered to convert my sites. Matter of fact, my huge blog data dump was used to help them with the MT import feature option. But I held out. Life was up in the air for me, things were really busy, and I just didn't want to add learning a new CMS to the mix.

Now? Now I have WP envy. I visit WP blogs, and I realize that posting comments is so much faster. Then I watch over at ScriptyGoddess, and Jenn is focusing all of her time on WP hacks. New, sparkly, twinkly toys.

The final straw? I need to go through and seriously clean up my Blogrolls. They are a mess. I have sites listed that I never read, and sites that I read all the time aren't listed. It's a mess. It was then that I realized that it is silly to tweak my Blogroll (which may be slowing my site down) when I can convert to WP and manage the Blogroll internally!

I've hinted to Matt that I was probably ready for a change. Today I placed the call. Saturday afternoon at Chez Tremoulet we will become a WP family. (Mike was a part of the original dev team, although work pulled him away from it.) Hopefully, with my recently acquired free time, I can help WP write the instruction docs that they need, and I can help find interesting gadgets, tweaks and hacks for the other WP users. I have my new PHP 5 book here, so hopefully I can learn to write my own code. I could never do that with Perl.

This blog needs some changes. Things need to be shaken up. Hopefully, this will help not only me, but it will help you too. The pages will load faster, and commenting will be a breeze!

Have any WP feedback you want to share? Tips and tricks? Interesting things the world should know? (Ok, that was a loaded question, but I'll leave it that way...)

Invitations! Get Your Invites Here!

I finally got invitations! I have five Gmail invitations to give away. Tell me why I should send you one, and I will. One rule though - if you have never left a comment before and are coming out of blurkerdom just for an invite, your need had better be really, really good. Schmooze me...

Leave an e-mail address so I can get the invite to you! (I'm leaving soon to get my hair cut though, so you won't get the invite until tonight.)

UPDATE: They have all been sent out, including an extra one that I snagged from Mike. I'll post again when I have more.

Simply Divine...

Originally, I had said that I was only going to celebrate our one month wedding anniversary, possibly the six month, and of course the 1 year mark. Then we went to dinner at Vic & Anthony's.

Mike took me to Vic & Anthony's to celebrate our engagement the weekend after we got engaged. (We went to Josephine's the night we got engaged, another one of our favorite places.) That was back in January though - and while my memories of the food were accurate, I forgot just how DAMN GOOD their food is. The most fan-freakin-tabulous steaks EVER. EVER. I grew up outside of Chicago, beef capitol of the U.S. I know a good steak, and theirs are among the BEST.

So I had a filet mignon that just melted in my mouth. Like buttah, it was so divine. But to top it off, I had their Au Gratin potatoes. Oh. My. God.

You know that scene in "When Harry Met Sally" where Meg Ryan does the whole orgasm thing in the restaurant just to be a smartass? Well, I was doing that because the potatoes were absolutely out of this world. I have never had potatoes so good. I could eat them 7 days a week and never be tired. I still roll my eyes and make a slight "O" face every time I think about those potatoes.

Some skinny chick walked by our table with a scowl on her face. I know she had some serious carb envy. I wanted to grab her, sit her down, and force her to try the potatoes so she would know what she was missing. Carbs! Embrace the carbs! They are so di-vine!

So now I'm trying to convince Mike that we should never eat out during the month, saving up for the splurge on the 29th of every month FOREVER to go to Vic & Anthony's for dinner. I almost drool just thinking about it. So excellent. *sigh* Is it the 29th yet?

We Will All Be Carried Away...

Oh dear Lord. They just announced on the news that it may be a little less damp this weekend, but that a ton of mosquitos are going to hatch because of it! They even said that our "mosquito alert" is going from medium to high.

Crap. The mosquitos are going to carry us all away. We are so screwed...

One Month Ago Today...

It is hard to believe that it has been a month since our wedding. I was startled on Sunday when I realized that the anniversary was coming up so soon. Normally, I don't celebrate things like that, but this one seems special - so we are. I honestly could not have married a better man, and I am truly thankful for that. If you ask me, that is definitely worth celebrating!

Can we dance or what?!? Go Disco Mike! (Photo courtesy of Rannie.)

And Just Like That...

Last year, I wrote a post about The 9th of November, riding bikes, and Amy Legris, my best friend when I was young and lived in Kankakee, Illinois - whose birthday is November 9th.

I was looking through my sidebar tonight to double check my posts that were recently commented on. It is the little thing I do to try to catch the spam posts, and meanwhile to find the most recent comments. I see the post in the list, and I assume that it's going to be spam.

But it isn't.

It is a comment ... from Amy. And I can assume it is from the real Amy, because she calls me "Chris" in the comment. I was Chris for many years, but when we moved to Houston I decided it was time to be Christine. Call me Chris now and I will go carnival freak crazy on you, unless you knew me prior to 1985.

Dude. She found my blog, and she left a comment. I have her e-mail address now, after all these years. Last time I located her was at least 15 years ago - and now, thanks to a blog post, I know how to find her.

Excuse me while I go freak out.

Strike a Pose!

Yeah, I've had a lot to say, but I left the computer off for 4 days. Now I'll just post a lot to make up for it.

Friday night was the Tiara Happy Hour to celebrate Sarah's birthday. Most of the regulars had arrived when all the sudden this guy walks in. Sarah screams and gives him a hug. I think to myself, "Wow, Sarah's friend really looks like Don from Plastic Fruit." I ask Emily who the guy is. She says she doesn't know. He then turns to me and congratulates me on my marriage. I then freaked out - it WAS Don from Plastic Fruit!

(Yes, when I talk about bloggers to people that read blogs, everyone has a URL tied to their name. Even Mike, who becomes Coffee Mike quite often. There are a lot of Mikes. But I do it to everyone else too.)

Don and Emily took a lot of photos throughout the evening. I did too, but mine are still on my camera. Heck, there are photos of Paris and London still on my camera. Soon, I promise.

The photo that amuses me the most? One that Don took. He was trying to be all stealth and get a candid photo. It has only been a month since our wedding, and I still have a very strong camera radar. Camera about to snap? I must immediately strike a pose. I am just too amused!

Rain, Rain, Go AWAY!!!

It has rained EVERY SINGLE DAY since we returned from our honeymoon. Daily since June 11th, and I think there were even 3-4 days of rain before that. Sure, sometimes there are moments of sunshine, like the day of Jason's swim team divisionals. Fortunately, it waited until about 5:30 to rain that day. Other days, it just doesn't let up.

Our back yard is turning in to a marsh. The mosquitos are getting thick. The mud sucks on your shoes as you try to walk across the grass. It's just gross.

The forecast for the next 10 days? Scattered Thunderstorms for 7 of them. Partly cloudy for the other 3, including the 4th of July. Gah!

The only thing that gives me some peace of mind is knowing that we are going to Minnesota for a family reunion in just over a week, and Fiery Wench pointed out that it was in the 70s today there.

Then again, there was a day that it was hotter in Paris then it was in Houston while we were on our honeymoon. With my luck, that will happen when we go to Minnesota too. The forecast for July 7th is a high of 82 with isolated thunderstorms. Of course.

Please. I can't take any more rain. Someone, make it stop!

Quote of the Night...

"It was like a rhino in quicksand... I just couldn't get away."

It's been nothing short of amusing, to say the least. And the cake turned out well, in spite of our sad decorating skills. (It looked cute when we were done with it!) Really, it's all about how it tastes anyways, and it was mighty good!

Mmmm... Cake!

I'm at Emily's house. I baked a cake for Sarah's birthday earlier today, and I brought it here to frost it. She just wrote "Happy Birthday" on it for me. It's crooked, but it's so obviously homemade, Sarah will just have to know how much we loooooove her. Now it's time for the Tiara Happy Hour, and we're going to celebrate!

This weekend, I promise ... Disco Mike. For now, I have a tiara on my head and a party to attend!

I *AM* The Dancing Queen!

Photo taken by Rannie, May 29, 2004

(It's ok to laugh out loud, you know... just be sure to share the laughter with the rest of us here.)

What A Way to Kick Off Summer!

Back in May, my parents came over for a day of trimming vines, cutting shrubs, removing the nasty Red Tips beside the house, and so forth. Hours and hours of yard work. Hard yard work.

Right before the wedding, we noticed a vine with rather large leaves growing among the jasmine along one side of our fence. Just a vine or two, no big deal. While we were gone on our honeymoon, my parents came over and took some of the vine down, including a hunk that had jumped from the fence to the crepe myrtle in the back yard.

Then it started to rain. It rained several times while we were gone. I think it has rained almost every day since we returned. Afternoon storms are not unusual this time of year. Rain, lots of rain.

And the vine grew. And grew. And grew.

When my parents were over yesterday, my Mom offered to come over this morning to help me clear out the vine. Remember, it's HOT here in Houston. Right now it's 89, and weather.com says it "feels like 97". It's even worse when the sun is beating down on you. Add to that the fact that there is Mexican Heather plants right in front of where the main clump of vine was growing - and the bees love that during the middle of the day.

I got out of bed this morning, got dressed, covered myself in mosquito repellant, got the fire ant killing stuff ready for when they attacked (and they did attack) and started hacking at the damn vines.

Freaking Air Potato Vines that weren't there just a month ago. They almost grow right before your eyes.

I worked for about 2.5 hours. My Mom joined me for 2 hours. We cut down two FULL lawn & leaf bags worth of vines, plus another kitchen trash bag of them. Huge vines. Leaves as big as your head almost. Baby vines that were sprouting up all over. So many vines.

By the time we finished, our clothes were soaking wet. I wish I was kidding, but at 11 am we were just drenched from all the work.

If I see another air potato vine, I might break down and cry.

While standing on the step ladder, trying to pull more of the vine out of my tree, I made a horrid discovery. My neighbors have some of the vine on their fence too. I just hope they didn't intentionally plant it there. There is just no escape!

Bullies for His Playground of Intolerance...

Well said... Abigail Garner's article about how on Father's Day, she can celebrate gift of two dads.

"I'm not asking Bush to join my family at brunch or even to pretend to like us. His record shows he is no ally. But it's mean-spirited to use his power to recruit more bullies for his playground of intolerance."

I entertained my parents for Father's Day by showing them approximately 500 photos of London, 800+ of Paris, and another 150 or so photos from our wedding. Thank goodness for TiVo's Home Media Option and the free 1 month trial version, which made it easy to share them from the computer in the study. And as an added perk, Mike called me from work today to let me know that Home Media has gone FREE! YES! Rock on, TiVo!