and the beat goes on…

Well now that the semester is over what do I do with this blog? Well for one – change its name.  I have to admit that I’ve grown to like this mode of communication (even if no one is reading!).

The other night, while out with a group of friends, the topic of tradition came up. Those of us who are parents felt that some how we had let our children down by not passing on to them this all-important concept of tradition that we had as a child. Somewhere in the depths of my mind, I knew that this was untrue. What we were truly lamenting was that we hadn’t lived up to the tradition of our youth.

In my mind’s child eye, Christmas was this wonderful event filled with togetherness, laughter, joy and family. Weeks before Christmas day, we sat around the dining room table with mom decorating her special sugar cookies. Some years we drove hours from home to spend Christmas with grandma  and great grandma. Most years we stayed home and our grandmas came to visit. Every third year our maternal grandparents would visit.  The house was always decorated with a tree, stockings were hung on the living room wall and Christmas cards tapped to the woodwork surrounding the entry to the living room.  We watched ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ and ‘Dr. Suess’ The Grinch Who Stole Christmas’ on TV. Christmas morning we would open our stocking gifts as Mom prepared a hot breakfast while our excitement built it until it finally exploded and we tore into the presents under the tree.

When I married I was introduced to a new Christmas tradition that was so elaborate that it made my childhood Christmases seem like just another day. My husband’s family spent Christmas Eve with family at his home. His mother spent days in the kitchen preparing her special sauce and meatballs for their Christmas Eve Lasagna dinner.  They would then attend Midnight Mass while Santa was placing their presents under the tree at home. After mass they opened their Santa gifts then off to bed. On Christmas morning they opened the remainder of gifts then went to spend time with each set of grandparents. The day was filled with fun, cousins, food and presents.

As young parents we tried to merge both traditions together. Our children were dragged around to two out of the three sets of grandparents on Christmas Eve. By the time we returned home, they were so tired that cookies were never left for Santa. Christmas Day it was either off to grandparents number 3 or busy preparing to host the family dinner.  These whirling, swirling days ended when we divorced and the children and I moved away. In my adult mind this is when Christmas tradition ended for my children. Christmas became this patched up holiday that lacked any joy.

Last night my youngest set me straight. We did have a holiday tradition and I wasn’t following it this year! Mom, she said, every year we go together to pick out the Christmas tree that we decorate together with our homemade ornaments. Then on Christmas day we go to grandma and grandpa’s house for Christmas dinner and spend time with our aunts, uncles and cousins.  Listening to her it was very clear that I was the one who was tradition-less. Where was my sense of wonder and amazement. Why was she the only one who cared!

The truth was that I had created a tradition for my children. It was very different from the one I knew as a child but that matters none. Our tradition was based on craving out precious time to spend together and in the end isn’t that what this time of the year is all about – having gratitude for the blessings we have in our lives.

Gremlins found in Snygg Hall

This can be the only explanation as to what is going on with my project 2 pages. Again last night my pages were broken. This time the main navigation images were missing. It was then that I  realized the only possible explanation was gremlins obtain substance by eating bytes! I’ve placed a call to Sharon Gursky-Doyen of Texas A&M University as she may want to bring an expedition team here, too. Until recently gremlins were last seen alive 85 years ago.

Imagine the splash this would create if she tagged an Oswegonian Gremlin.

Never too old to blog

While struggling with format issues  I stumbled upon a blog written by an 82 year old grandma - Helen.  How cool is that?! Her grandson set the blog up so she and her best friend, Margaret, ( for the past 60 years) could stay in touch.

During the election, Helen wrote a few blogs about John McCain’s running mate.  They were an instant hit and now their blog is read by people all over the world and has more than 1 million hits.

This lady is a hoot. She reminds me of my great grandmother – Orabell. I loved listening to her stories as well as her take on the world. She was born in 1898 and lived to be almost 94. She was a strong woman not afraid to speak her mind just like Helen.  However, unlike Helen she could not share her options with the world. Web 2.0 rules.

Grrrrrrr

Formatting this blog is driving me NUTS. I finally figure out how simple it is to create ‘archive’ pages but still can’t get my front page to stop displaying all of my posts! I’m sure it is a simple thing and after I figure it out I’ll be force to paint an ‘L’ on my forehead. Also, I accidentally deleted the time format from my settings page and now all of my posts appear to be written at ‘(Art 517)’.

[sidebar - I'm resiting the urge to end all of the above sentences with at least one '!' out of fear that this blog will be included in PC World's next list of lamest blogs!]

Onward We Go

We have started work on project 3 – a group project. I really loathe group projects. It’s been my experience with academic group projects that work is distributed unevenly. Of course I understand that this is not an unique experience – it is likely human-nature to believe that I DID MORE then anyone else in the group. As a grad student I’ve found myself in some pretty dysfunctional groups, however, this time I believe that I’m finally part of a wonder group.

Our project is to design a ice cream shop’s website. Since this is a ‘web 2.0′ project our site will contain a blog for visitors to discuss how wonderful the shop is, the ability to book parties and order ice cream and toppings. We quickly agreed on page topics and an overall page design. So far, my duties are to design and create the forms necessary to book parties, order ice cream and vote for the next special flavor.

As life tends to be two-steps forward followed by one-step back, so is my course work. Thanksgiving Day after shoveling snow, eating turkey and fixing dad’s computer ‘Dawgs of the ‘hood’ held is premiere familial viewing. In my family, silence speaks volumes. So I’ll take their overall silence as a sign that it didn’t suck big time. During the ‘showing’ I realized that the pug page wasn’t loading properly. The only thing visible was the background brick ‘hood’ image. So after downloading and installing ‘Putty’ I discovered that my attempt to clean up a stray CSS inline font styling was not fully executed. I left behind the opening comment string thus commenting out the whole page! As often heard on ‘Hee Haw’, “if it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all!”. It’s been fixed but 2 days late.

Dawgs of the ‘hood

Written on 11/21/08

Well it is finally a done deal. All that is left to do is upload my last few changes. I wasn’t really sure about setting up font styles in css so most of the pages contained html font tags. Today I went back in and found that each of the pages had an inline style associated with them. Once it was removed the h1 tag format changed. Now things made sense and I was able to go back; remove the html font tags and insert h1 … h4 tags instead.

I also change the link color and link visited color. And fixed the typos. Now all I need to do is email the site link to all of those hood dog owners!