dear isobel

I got the call on Tuesday that I got the job! It’s a little less than I had anticipated and it’s a full $2 less than I was making at Comcast, but it should still be enough to get my bills paid and after six months, I’ll get a raise. Plus, the hours are just enough that I’ll make some decent money but it works out that I have three full weekdays and two mornings clear for classes next fall, so it’s really the best work schedule I could have hoped for.

I took my drug test today and I get fingerprinted on Friday. I’m kind of excited to work at a bank, I wonder how much different it will be than Comcast and GGB, the only other places I’ve really worked. I’m just so thrilled to be able to work again and still come out with a lot of free time. I won’t have to give up my Trenton trips during the week! Very awesome news.

I was at the library tonight for the historical society meeting and it struck me that I had never checked out their Internet section so I popped over to see if they had anything about web design. They had a few books so I picked up on about HTML and XML (I expect to get a rehash of what I already know) and one that’s just a general resource on web design. I’m sure I know a portion of the material but it never hurts to brush up.

I’ve been working on the Nora Roberts site. I gave up WordPress and came up with another idea that I’ll be hoping to launch sometime in February. I’m actually excited about the new layout for the site. It’s incorporating a lot of what I’m learning from the CSS book I bought last week.

I got a call today from the HR recruiter at Commerce Bank to set up my second interview. It’s on Monday. I really wanted an extra day so I could hit the salon and get my hair cut and maybe talk myself into the expense of getting my nails done. It’s until 1:30 so maybe I could swing it. Hmm…will have to check the schedule at P&B. Maybe Mondays are still $3 haircut days down there.

I’m seriously so anxious to get back to work. I need to earn some money so I can get back on track financially and put money away for things I really want. Like more design books. I’m obsessed with them. I think I’m going back out and picking up one of those WordPress books. I keep spending half my time Googling some for some specific code and never finding it.

I really have to get back to the Nora site but I’m beginning to think that WordPress and Enthusiast were not meant to be together and I really hate that I’d have to abandon my ideas for that and the new concept for my Jennifer Cruise fanlisting (which has been woefully neglected since I launched it, I feel awful). I’m going to dig back into that tomorrow. I also still have solve my Codesort problem. I’m thinking of just uploading another installation to each domain, use the database and hope that solves it.

I bit the bullet today and posted for a beta for my little fanfiction project. I tend to write better and faster if I know some sort of feedback is forthcoming and the idea of no one seeing these pages (and I’ve written like 15 pages four days. Might be nothing compared to the fifty I used to churn out, but after a year of nothing, it’s a fabulous thing) drives me nuts so a beta might keep me going.

I also want to dig back into my original novel. I was very gung-ho about it after I was laid off but as usual it fell to the back burner. At the rate I’m going, the only published writing I’m going to do is the letter to Soap Opera Digest that got printed about Lucky and Elizabeth in 1998.

And that would be a shame.

I was doing a Google search for some new plugins for WordPress when I stumbled over this: More Google Products. Good grief, I don’t even think I could come up with a reason to use all those services but I’ve been browsing through them just the same.

I especially like GoogleDocs because it’s a lovely idea to be able to share my documents and spreadsheets with others, especially if I’m collaborating on a fanfiction (though I’ve only attempted this once or twice and I suck at it) and even better, it would be great to be able to take certain documents anywhere to be able to work on them instead of having to rely on my forums, which is what I’ve been doing this last year. I just wish it supported Microsoft Office 2007 (or at least Excel 2007).

WebAccelerator is also fabulous. Once it’s installed, it speeds up your site and you can even find out how much time you’ve saved by a little monitor on the browser. After three hours, I’ve saved 5.4 minutes. I know that’s not a lot but every less second something takes me the more time I have for myself later. It adds up

I would definitely recommend checking them out.

I’m finally getting a chance to catch up on my laundry and clean out my closet. I had to wait a week for my brother to finish his. He’s such a pain. I would rather have done this earlier in the week since I have a job interview tomorrow and I didn’t feel like doing this today but you have to do what you have to so things get done. I’m going to be doing that and working on my genealogy blog. I’m taking a break from my Nora Roberts site because the combination of Enthusiast and WordPress is making my head hurt.