Small Victories

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Ah, Friday. The perfect day for a brain dump and some blog updates.

As some of you (might) know, I love this whole blog design thing. I taught myself how to do HTML, CSS, and have been learning how to do the more complicated stuff so that you can get the most out of navigating this site (I’m just like you; I get frustrated trying to navigate cumbersome websites too, even when they are my own!).

Truth be told, I love the challenge, and I’m pretty darn proud of myself when I’m victorious. Which brings me to the latest: after three years and a transfer of this blog to self-hosting, things have gotten jumbled, old formatting was replaced with newer stuff, and I’m on an endless game of playing catch-up to get the older posts to match the new. But more importantly, the time it takes to get all three years compiled into a workable, user-friendly project gallery will take more time (it’s in the works – I started with one that I’m ok with, but it’s not working exactly as I’d like, so I’ll be changing things up in the next month or so).

And all the while, I’m still trying to add new tutorials! For now, I’ve created a better, customized organized Archives page for you with plenty of links to help you find your way around. You can find items by date, by category, and also a list of some of my favorite tutorials.

And speaking of small victories, just a few weeks ago, I snapped this quick picture of my front garden and mentioned that the snapdragons hadn’t bloomed again yet:

They’re not doing as strongly as the petunias yet, but they are definitely showing more color!

And the pots in the back yard took a beating a few weeks ago thanks to the rain, but are still growing strong and hopefully will re-bloom soon:

Given my notorious black thumb, I am pretty proud of myself for keeping these guys alive. I know more of it has to do with simply choosing the right plants for the area, the season, and my ability (or lack of) to care for them, and they sort of do the rest. But I’ve tried growing things for years, and managed to kill most things (even succulents!). Funny to me that neglect is probably the best thing I can do for most of the plants around the house (considering that I pick them for exactly that reason).

How about you? What are you proud of this week?

(Psst: To create the new page, I used a combination of several tutorials like this one, but I had to further customize it for my site. If you’re on a WordPress blog – using the Genesis framework – and are interested in getting your own similar Archives page but aren’t comfortable attempting this yourself, feel free to reach out to me through the contact page – choose “Blog Help/Design” in the drop-down menu. I’ll charge a small fee for the file, but this takes the guesswork out of it. With the file, I’ll also include instructions for how to add it to your child theme and how to add posts to the Favorites section).