Summer Flu And Blog Cramps

Barbara: I was doing so well. I felt awesome. The summer has been divine; hot, sunny, carefree. I was getting lots of writing done. My time has been both frivolously and well spent. And then it hit me: achy, crampy joints and muscles, sore tired eyes, heavy chest and itchy throat. What was this, I asked myself??? How was it possible to be so healthy and upright one minute and then positively legs-cut-out-from-under-you flatlined the next?

I crawled into bed—oh the muscle/joint aches were the worst—and succumbed to sleep. But then I woke and discovered I … couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t read, not even your wonderful blog posts, couldn’t (oh the frustration) write, couldn’t enjoy a lunch of Vietnamese noodle soup with my hubby (I love Pho Tai, it must be the best, cheapest comfort food known to man, but what, oh, what was this flu-ridden lack of enthusiasm?!)

24-hours later, the achy joints finally abandoned me (I guess they couldn’t take all the whining), but the fatigue and discomfort linger on. I can’t sleep for all the hacking. It’s a fucking cold, people! Why do I feel so helpless? But it’s also summer and who wants to be forced inside on a summer’s day when there are so very few of them? (and no, neither walks in the sun or half-hearted workouts have managed to “sweat it out” of me.)

And then there was this: this blog, with its funny, sweet little face that I just wanted to pinch and pat. 

Remember this?

And even so my daughter and I decide we’re going to play with it a bit, just check out some options (you know girls and their makeovers), and all of a sudden “apply” gets hit and we have crap on the screen and we can’t get the old face back, try as we (she) might. Our lovely readers have already mocked and kindly advised me in the comments’ section, bless their hearts (that’s for you, Karen), but there you have it: blog re-boot by fire. Thank god Deb was sweetly gracious about the whole thing and tagged along on the now-necessary task of a complete overhaul. (is it just me or is Blogger offering fewer template options??? And some really weird neither-here-nor-there colours…)

Just so you know, there have been a few issues working out the width of the new columns so they fit into all browser pages, so please let us know if it’s getting cut off on one side or the other.

Anyway, big thanks to Stefanie for her patient re-tooling and mocking up of the new masthead. Deb and I just love it. Hopefully you do too!

Blahbedy Blog

Barbara: So if you look at the date of our first post, you might notice that it says April 1, but you might also notice that we are only really going “live” this week (April 19). And you might ask yourself, Boy, what took them so long to get going? And I might––but probably shouldn’t—tell you that we’ve actually been trying to get this baby up since February!!!! And these blogs were written that long ago!! Apparently this is exactly how long it takes for two tech-illiterate middle-aged women to acclimatize themselves to the confounding worlds of (in no particular order): the internet, setting up a blog (we actually designed 7 different ones on 3 different sites before settling on this one), learning and sort-of using html (what even IS that??!!), writing blogs, and tentatively but excitedly exploring the outside world of other sites. Hopefully, our poor taxed brains won’t self-combust in this new venture! Wish us luck …

Deb: I don’t see what the hell you’re complaining about. It was EASY! I sat here quite content in my bloggy ignorance while you did all the work. Easy. Then I took time out of my very busy schedule so you could drive to my home and explain it to me. Easy. 

Barbara: No, that’s absolutely not the way it was!!!! ... well, um … maybe it actually kinda was …

PS We have received several private emails with amazing insights into friendship––but it seems Deb and I aren’t the only ones hesitant about the blog-world because none of these people were sure how to comment and join, and several people HAVE joined and commented and can't be seen! So … I’ve changed the comment setting to “anyone”, meaning you don’t need to sign up to comment. But if anyone can give us more info about these other settings (that look so damn professional on the screen, but have confounded pretty much ALL of us), we’d be eternally grateful!!