Happy Halloween!

Today is the day before NaBloPoMo and I thought I would just talk a little about what is in store for you in the upcoming month.

I know that I am not a good writer like most of you are. I lack sentence structure and the skill to put punctuation in its proper place. I am also a mess with quotations. That is probably due to the fact that I was a slightly below average student to begin with and then in 9th grade I started skipping classes to do blow off the floor of the girl’s bathroom.

So many times I will avoid writing about things all together that I feel may blow up my spot as being pretty lame at the whole writing game.

The thing is I really don’t want to do that anymore.

I want to write things with more quality and openness. I want to really go into who I am and how I think. I want this to be something more. I feel like my life can’t start until I have children and a home, but this right here…Me behind a desk typing to you? This is a life. It’s my life and I think I need to stop waiting for bigger things to happen and enjoy where I am now. Then all things will fall into place.

So my goal for NoBloPoMo is not just to type every friggin’ day for the next 30 days. It is to type something that you would want to read.

Things might be shaky at first, but I am hoping it will fall into place and keep getting better and better.

I am actually someone I think you would like. I have this interesting ability to get along with almost everyone. I also like to laugh and dance crazy. Stick around.

I have magical super-power. Do any of you? I don’t often mention this super-power because I don’t think it is polite to brag, but today I feel that it is time.

I have the amazing ability to make phones ring and people come from all over the area to ask me questions, get keys cut or just arrive. I tap into this power simply by trying to do something else.

I could sit in my chair, gazing at the phone, with a pen in hand. I would sit there waiting for someone to call so I can take down their message or transfer them to someone who cares. Yet nothing would happen! It would not ring.

The second I get up to do something such as file or go to the bathroom, the phone will ring! It’s eerie.

When I am sitting at my desk tinkering around on blogs or e-mail usually people don’t come in. The moment I heat up my lunch though someone is bound to walk through the doors. You could say it has something to do with the time or day, but I rarely eat at the same time.

The people arriving are more bothersome than the phone ringing to me. I am not a very social person at all. We have talked about this. My desire to be alone increases ten-fold when I am eating. I just don’t want to talk. Yet people can chemically sense this so a lunch alone is a very rare occasion. Someone will always come in the shop. Oddly enough it’s usually the workers who are on the road most of the day.

Do you have your own person super-power, however bothersome it may be?

I have been tweaking my website a bit more in the past few days and one of the things I added took freaking forever. I compiled all of my old entries from before I had this site (I have two different xanga accounts) and I put them all on Diaryland. I choose Diaryland because it’s plain and simple without a lot of things to customize. I also liked that I was easily able to make the date for whenever I wanted to.

So to the left over there you can see it say Older Archives with a link underneath. Read at your own risk. The older the entry, the closer to being a teenager I was and we all know how that goes.

The other thing I did was update and clean up my Who is this girl? section and I also changed my 100 things to being Fifty things. I think 100 may be too many and I would like to know people actually read it. So those are the little changes I made.

The Mrs. went away with her school to a Leadership Conference. Not for long. She’ll be back tomorrow night. I was invited to go along, but due to work I was unable to go. That’s alright though. I’ll have a little more time to do some me things. I want to work more on a scarf I am knitting and I also would like to do some writing. I really want to improve on what I write here and how I write and I think that NoBloPoMo is just the thing to help me achieve that.

I am not feeling well today. I woke up sick yesterday, but through blueberry tea and Echinacea-Goldenseal I thought I had willed myself well. Today it seems that is clearly not the case. I just took three more capsules so we’ll see where I am at tonight.

I have been using Echinacea-Goldenseal for about 5 years now, but more so when I lost my health insurance 3 years ago because it’s very important for me to not go to the doctor. You may know my stance on medicine. I just really want to keep my immune system strong and ready to fight for me so I don’t take medicine or pain relievers and I try not to use anti-bacterial soap. I know there have been studies to say that Echinacea-Goldenseal is ineffective, but the fact is I always feel better a little while after taking it.

Many people think I am a little nutty for this stance on medicine and I don’t disagree. It just worries me. My sister, for instance, doesn’t know how I get through my period and it isn’t easy. I use a lot of hot compresses on my abdomen and drink tea. However I do always have a very hard time that week and every single day I have to convince myself to go to work and not call out.

I’ve been asked what I would do if I were ever diagnosed with a disease such as cancer and truthfully I don’t know. Part of me has always felt that things happen for a reason and that everyone has a time to go. Now I actually have dreams of being an OBGYN and my favorite show is Grey’s Anatomy, so in no way and I anti-doctor. I just worry that all of these new impressive medical procedures aren’t delaying what is supposed to happen. I feel a little bit like maybe if you get something like that you shouldn’t fight it because it’s your time to go. That these procedures help you cheat death and what might those ramifications be? I know this sounds crazy and awful and thought I feel this way a little I never talk about it, but today I felt I had to get it out.

I was raised Christian and I know now that isn’t what I believe and right now I don’t have any spirituality in my life and I think having some sort of faith would probably help me feel more solid in my beliefs.

What about you? What do you believe? What do you think about medicine, surgery and being cured from diseases?

Don’t think that you are ever going to be flamed either. I enjoy and value differences in opinion so unless you tell me that I am a heathen and going to burn in hell, we’re cool and even if you did do that I would just delete it.

EDIT @ 12:20pm 10-24-06 :
I just wanted to add that I am sure if I did ever get into a situation where I needed surgery or treatment to survive I would do it. If anyone in my family ever was in that situation I would push them to go through with it. I just worry about what all this means. I wanted to make sure you all know that.

Jessica is like Superwoman. She should have a shirt that says Internet Super Hero! Thank you, Kerflop!

After I resized my masthead and uploaded it onto my cPanel I refreshed my website and magically there it was. It said to me, “Behold!”. Very powerful stuff. So I decided with my complete non-knowledge for anything computer related to go into the style.css and change things around. I changed the fonts I didn’t like, I changed the colors and I added my tagline and my header to my masthead. I have to say I am pretty pleased. I did many google searches on color #’s and HTML since I know none at all and I am really sort of proud of what I have done.

It’s still not perfect, but I am so thrilled.

These are the things I am working on:

• Getting my site name to be a different color. I think adding in code to put the tagline angered it.
• The date and filed under sections to be brown with everything else.
• My main text space being a tad bigger though I am pretty sure I would have to resize my masthead and I am not ready for all of that. It doesn’t bother me enought for that.
• I miss the adorable icons that used to come when I made a list using the whole < ul > and < li > thing. I tried to add in code from another theme, but I think they use two different HTML types or something because my site went to heck. I’ll be working on that more in the upcoming week. As you may be able to tell I was able to figure out where to put the codes and what to change with them. I also decided on little stars because starfish are my thing.

All in all I am amazed that I actually created something myself. Perhaps this is the begining of much more….then again maybe not.

Is anyone else participating in the HUGE NaBloPoMo Challenge? You already know I am, but I also finally bought Maggie’s book so that if all else fails I can write about something in there. I’ll share more when I get to that.

Are you guys seeing many more links than usual? Well you should. I haven’t been very linky low these past months at my new address because I hated how light the link color was on the white background and I felt like they were hard to see. Not anymore! Bright red links next to dark brown text. Oh how sweet it is.

Tomorrow after I put in a few hours at le office I am going to go to the Salvo with my lovely friend Amanda because we are buying Halloween costumes. I tend to be not so costumish, but I have a party for The Body Shop so I figured, why not? Guess what we’re going to be?! Surgery Interns! Oh we are so cool.

Speaking of The Body Shop, Jessica if you would like to pick something out I will so send it to you for helping me. I am not even kidding a little. Is jewelry more your thing? I have that too. Still not kidding. I get even the more expensive peices (up to $100) for insanely cheap so you can feel free to pick something out. I’m serious. Thank you. Still serious.

I just wanted to note that we may have to go back to my old theme since I seem to have completely ruined this one by trying to upload my new header using the HTML editor on cPanel. Just thought you should know. It looks nice here right now, doesn’t it? I think I should learn to leave well enough alone.

EDIT

Okay well I fixed everything by uploading the old theme once agian and deleting the old one. I did get my header up, but the entire rest of the site was a mess. I have to try and figure out a way to do this. Hmm….

So yesterday I spent a while trying to create my own header/masthead. I achieved this with a very simple header made from a photo with the use of Kubrickr. I love the way it turned out and it is so very perfect for my site. I just wish that I knew how to load the damn thing. I tried to upload it into my cPanel because I figured I would go into edit, copy the code, go into the main header file, go to edit and then replace that code with the code of my new header. Alas, everytime I tried to upload the new header when I went to show file contents it was one of those little error boxes. I went on the WordPress Support pages and asked for help there so we shall she where it brings us. Do you want to see the header? Sure you do.

Then after I actually get it up I need to figure out how to make it link to my main page. Then I want to change my font color to chocolate brown while keeping the links red.

What do we all think of this theme? This is the one that I originally liked, but there were things I wanted from my site that this theme didn’t have. That being pages over there on the left, which I love and I think it’s a nice little greeting and my tagline wasn’t in the header. Sooooo, I went into the codes for my other main theme and put the code for the tagline into my header and I fixed up the sidebar. I still might attempt to create something of my own, but for now it’s this. This blog creating this is hard! I really wish I took some computer classes in high school. I should see if my area Vo-Tech offers classes which would be helpful.

Also I am THRILLED that Jeffery won Project Runway. After my dissapointment with last season’s choice I am so happy that they picked a collection I liked. Of the four finalists I liked Laura and Jeffery the best. I am not feeling the whole safari thing and neutrals. I loved the second gold dress she made. I thought it was gorgeous. Though as a whole the feathers were not doing it for me. Jeffery’s collection was the most interesting and different. I hope I remember to buy the Elle magazine that he debuts in.

You know. I could have sworn that there was an option back here on my side of wordpress to create some sort of page name and now I don’t see it. Hmm… More confusion.

I lost my planner and my main set of keys for a whole week and a half and I drove myself crazy trying to find them. It turns out I left them in a bag in The Mrs.’s car and she just found them both today. I feel so much better now that they have been found, but I also noticed that I completely missed a party last Saturday. Ugg! I am glad it wasn’t for someone new. It was a local woman, but she didn’t call me at all. I wonder if she forgot as well. I will have to call her today, but I am dreading it a bit. I also thought I scheduled two parties in one day, but I didn’t and I thought that I booked for the day I was supposed to do the craft fair, but I didn’t do that either. I am glad I have some of my organization back and I’m glad I didn’t make too many mistakes.

I’m trying to post a little more now to get ready for November when you’ll all be hearing from me every single day. Aren’t you lucky.

You know what? I just wanted to say something about the button I choose for National Blog Posting Month. Did you know I am anti-guns? Do you remember the time I accidentally touched a gun? Yeah. However I kind of like that it makes me feel more urgency about keeping up with the whole posting thing and I didn’t want to be lame and more holy than thou about it. Perhaps looking at a rifle every day for over a month will help desensitize me. That or you’ll notice it’s been replaced with the more zen-like Yoda one.

Today’s blog project? Categories. I am going to try and clean them up and make them more organized.

I am tired of this site looking the same exact way and me not being able to do anything about it. So I am trying to learn how to use WordPress and possibly do all of that very confusing computer stuff many other bloggers are so adapt at. This all began after I wanted to do the Challenge M. Kennedy featured on fussy.org.

She started National Blog POSTING Month where if you have a blog you are challenged to write every single day of November. She also created cute buttons to link to her on your site. I really wanted mine in my sidebar, but I had no idea how to do that. So I asked many people and found that the files on my site for design are not writable, which means I can’t add or change anything in my themes. So right now I am working on getting that changed so that I can add it in.

So I figured that since I am learning about editing my theme and my site that I should learn how to do other things as well to make this site more of my own. I plan on staying at this blogging thing for a while.

I am going to move my site to a new domain name once my year agreement to this site runs out. The whole SparklieSunShine thing is from high school and I am growing out of it. I also realize that I spelled Sparkly in my own way back then and it didn’t bother me until I started this website and now it makes me feel illiterate. So I am going to be thinking up a new domain name and I might even more before my year is up. My e-mail address and most of my screen names are under the same name and being that all of my business cards say my e-mail on this I feel it may only be a matter of time before this site is found by someone.

So I am going to be making changes and moving my domain in the future. Please bear with me. I will most likely replace the other theme soon until I am able to create one of my own.

I am going to be working on this today. If you have tips for me feel free to leave them. Thanks!

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EDIT 4:57pm - Thanks to some very needed help I recieved from M. Kennedy and tons from Jessica I was finally able to edit my sidebar so I switched back to my original theme. Just be aware that I will most likely be tweaking this theme quite a lot and there is a good chance things will get ugly. Thanks for bearing with me.

Oh! Remember those annoying links to nowhere at the top of the screen? Yeah, those are gone too.

Sunday night I pretty much had a mental breakdown. Usually I keep things to myself and even with doing that my depression issues haven’t been too much of a problem lately. Yesterday after that outing with my sister and mom and a miniature argument with my father I was waaaayy down. So The Mrs. picked me up and she could tell something was wrong. I told her I was feeling sad and I ended up crying about the problems I had that day. So we went around the block a few times and then went home.
Once we got home and got into bed things started some more. It was kind of good for us because I tend to keep my thoughts to myself and this time I just let everything go, but I started to trudge up other things. Why I usually have problems with friends. The way I feel empty without a place of my own to stay right now. A lot of things. It’s interesting for me to see myself the way that other people see me.
I never realized in my last apartment that I seemed to alienate myself from my roommates. The way I am when I am at home I find things for myself to do. I am very self-sufficient and I often don’t think about how other people might see me. You can lock me in a room for an entire week and I will find things to constantly entertain myself. I will create my own routine and I will just have a wonderful time. I guess I just don’t realize that other people might think I’m being snobby or that I don’t like them. I don’t know… I just so often in my life have wondered why people tend to not stick with me as friends and I think my independent mindedness has a great deal to do with that. Perhaps it’s something I should change, but I don’t know how. I don’t know if I would want to change that. I like that I am rarely bored (except at work). I like that I always have something to do. Perhaps the secret is involving others somehow.
The Mrs. suggested that when I am starting a project and someone else is at home I let the other person know what I am starting and let them know we can watch a movie together while I am doing it or something.
I have been seeing a lot more of my friend Amanda which has been great. Also my wonderful friend Ariana helped me out at my most recent party with The Body Shop and I am 100% certain that it went as well as it did because of her. She helped with everything! I hope I get to see both of them a whole lot more.
All in all though I have been doing really well emotionally and I am glad I had the huge breakdown Sunday night featuring my “ugly cry”. I need to get those things out so that I can be happier later.
It’s good to cry it out.