Recently, I decided to do some spring cleaning with my blog. I wanted to bring it more in line with a professional feel, and removing much of my older posts has brought it closer to the feel I want for it. For my own sake, my old posts have been backed up and archived, but they are no longer part of the overall blog. It’s fine; a little cleaning now and then never hurt anyone!
Once upon a time, at the early years of social blogging and before modern social network sites, I utilized this blog as much to keep in touch with family, friends, and classmates as it was a creative outlet for writing, art, and articles. Those random posts made the site feel cluttered and no longer served a purpose, so out they went.
I feel the blog will be much better for my decision. I’m much happier with it on the whole.
Thanks to all who’ve stuck by me through the years. Here’s to many, many more posts and updates, sharing and caring, and love all around!
Buwahahaha! So I might be back sooner than expected! Been away for mooooonths due to a computer going down. Argh >_< But, setting up tonight and hopefully should be back in action shortly. Soooo far behind. ^_^;
It’s about friggin’ time, is all I can say. Even though I continue to sit on pins and needles as I await the end of the testing phase, for the first time in three months I had something to be hopeful towards in regards to the Gulf oil spill. In viewing an article earlier today about the Indian Rupee finally getting it’s own monetary symbol, I clicked to go to the home page and saw their newest article, updated a scant 11 minutes before I’d seen it.
I quickly began searchingothernewsarticles and turned on CNN to see, with my own eyes, that the camera trained on the oil spill was, for the first time, void of oil spewing forth.
I almost couldn’t believe it, and of course, sobered as I heard it could be a temporary situation as pressurization tests are underway. Ah, but that’s alright. I don’t think anyone expected such immediately positive results so quickly, especially since it’s an integrity test. What’s important right now is that true, positive progress has been made in containing the situation. I know my nerves will be on end over the next few days as I await the final results of the testing and capping of the spill and I can only hope that it remains continually positive.
Because, quite frankly, we need to be over the containment process and move on to the pressing need to turn more attention to the massive clean up and, eventually, helping more people be able to go back to work.
I know I haven’t written any journals on the issue before today, so it may seem strange with this article coming out of the blue, but just chalk it up to the fact that I suck at writing journals consistently, lol. I and my family have been very affected by the oil spill and I feel no shame in admitting that I cried today just at the thought that the spill had, for the time being at least, stopped.
So, got behind in a few things again, but staying afloat fairly well. Had to slow down on drawing because it started coming harder, but staying strong at least! Should have a few art updates soonish. The hardest has been catching up on old, promised arts, but I am getting there and HAVE gotten some drawn, which is sooooo friggin’ good!
The most important part, I think, is that I can say I actually drew something for myself! I haven’t done that in a very, very long time. It just feels wonderful! Even if it was nothing special. Even if it wasn’t a dear to my heart character. It just felt wonderful and free!
So, expect some finished stuffs soonish. Yoshi! Anyway, now on to a few links to some awesome stuff while I have the chance.
I came across this in passing and was just amazed by the beauty of the layouts presented in this article. I had been thinking lately of how “generic” most journals were becoming. Mine own being subjected to this fault as well. But I did want the freedom to change things up a bit, do something a little more than the norm. These collected journals are beautiful and stunning and simply inspirational! Magazine style FTW!
Also from NetTuts+, a wickedly awesome bit of coding that I’ve been waiting YEARS for! A way to make one element have multiple borders. No more needing to use background images for just a simple box section! I’m planning on using this for the comments section here, for starters. Since, apparently, I never coded it for the DiS v.15 layout. Um… oops?
When you come across something like this: MMA Fighter Rips Out His Trainer Partner’s Heart. Lol, heard about it on the radio this evening. Here’s another article on it @ daily mail. Beware, there’s a bit of gore involved in the news articles….
Also, still arting! Which is beyond good. Getting some older arts nearly finished to send out and show off. I’m feeling a bit more and more relieved every day. For the first time in nearly two years, I’m finally feeling a weight lifting from my shoulders!
And, on a lighter note, I’ll end with this beyond awesome vid!
Just a little update, nothing much. Kids were home for over a week for Easter Break so we split time up a lot. Trying my best to force myself to draw again. I miss it. BAD. The stress I’ve been under for so long has taken a toll on my ability TO draw… but I believe I can get back on track. Trying hard.
For that matter, I went looking for a reference photo for a piece I was thinking of. I sketched it last night and it’ll be of my Gaia Avatar for her profile page, but the idea is good enough for an art piece, so that’s my initial goal. Then the profile page, lol! Looked through Marcus Ranum‘s stock account on DA today and found a few pictures that will be nice to use to help finagle the more difficult parts of my sketch. I adore his stock photos! Much love, MUCH love!
Anyway, just taking things slowly, eating as healthy as I can, exercising as much as I can, and taking one day at a time!
And, of course, I am SO far behind in my work! IF I can get my ability to draw properly back, I have a few requests I have every intention of finalizing. I’ve got a few drawings I did awhile back that are just sitting in my art folders waiting to be finished. And I want them finished!
So, folks, it has happened. Tas-Tas is back online! Been busy last two days doing ALL number of updates.
One important one was officially moving my journal from Blogger to WordPress. After much deliberation, the notice that Blogger was discontinuing its ftp service made the decision for me. It was quite a bit of a hassle getting it done. I looked all over for a good tutorial/service on blogger-to-wordpress conversions, but most only stipulated that the blogger account needed to be hosted on blogspot. In the end, I found this WONDERFUL tutorial, located here: http://www.labnol.org/internet/switch-from-blogger-to-wordpress/9707/ , that made me realize it’d just be simplest to convert my ftp and personally hosted blogger journal to blogspot, and then convert through WordPress. Painfully stupid, but seeing as how that service will be suspended, =shrugs= there’s no reason to fuss over a one time deal.
Anyway, after all is said and done, you are now looking at the fresh install of Dreaming in Shades, WordPress hosted! Lovely, isn’t it? O_o;;; I have to re-code my layout for WordPress, so it’ll be a few days before it’s back up. For now, I’m enjoying the free WP layouts, lol!
I’ve also been having TONS of fun messing with the plugins/widgets/whatnots. Setting it up for all sorts of time saving things for myself. Expect to see just a few test posts in the future, but I’ll try and make sure they’re content worthy. ^_~
I hope to be more active shortly, but only after I’ve gotten most everything updated, lol! Stay tuned, folks!
I’ve had ScribeFire installed for quite awhile now and I seem to use it for LJ predominantly… but I’ve decided to try it with blogger as well and to see how it goes for this journal.
I still haven’t decided if I want to make the full conversion to word press yet… can’t help but love the simplicity I get with blogger. And also, I’ve been with them pretty much from the start but I like a lot of the features that Word Press offers.
So I remain undecided. At any rate, plan on a new layout soon for this journal and for all journals all around, lol! I’ve been a lazy bum design wise. Ah well!
