You know, I'd really like to tell you all to hurry up and stop using Internet Explorer. There are, after all, so many browsers that would suit you better. Besides, does I.E. have plushies? I think not.

Anyway, I am a lifelong FireFox convert, and nothing will ever be quite as grand in my eyes. Especially from a design standpoint. It really is frustrating that some (read "one") programs do not know how to translate pixels properly. I think I have it fixed now. Let me know if things still look wonky to you. Thank goodness that the latest offering from Microsoft now recognizes the 24 bit png—that, I must say was a pleasant surprise during my first foray into html in some two and a half years. I heart transparency! It's super spiffy!

I am writing an essay on an ethnic group to which I belong (can only think of one). I am writing roughly an essay-plus a week in my current block of classes. I am fortunate that word count poses little challenge for me, but it is rather exhausting and I beg you to forgive my sometimes-silence here. Once upon a time I had free time that I didn't spend on sleep! I am confident that I will have that once again . . . years down the road.

Besides, I find it difficult to be cute and clever when my brain is wrapped around credos and xenophobia!

Site Re-design is underway. This was a much more streamlined project when I was able to dedicate more time than five minutes here and five minutes there. I am having problem with IE. As always. Stupid Microsoft. I also haven't messed with the css overmuch, so this is far from polished. I would have preferred doing a private redesign and then unleashing it all at once, but I was having problems getting the databases pointed the right (or was it left?) direction. Then I got impatient.

I am in love with browns—from a creamy mocha to a rich mahogany, I find it a completely decadent color. I especially love it paired with blue tones.

I am in the middle of a re-design, but I am squeezing it in around school and work and Sophie, so it will be a slow process. As of now, in its incomplete glory, the new design needs the plugins will be on the right. Don't get freaked out! Everything is still there! I know change is hard, but we can weather it together!

I'm tired...life is very full. I don't often feel well. My memories are very painful. My heart is aching.

Entries here may very well be few and far between for the near future. Nick got home late from work last night and teased as he brought up lauralore.com, his nightly ritual, "Still no update. I see how you are."

"I told you, chances are I'll be giving [blogging] up."

His face became serious, "How does that make you feel? Are you ok with that?"

"I'm not okay with how little time I am able to give to writing, I'm not okay with the quality of my entries." There were times, both during my marriage and my mother's illness, that I needed writing like I needed air...it was my escape from reality, from my front-seat view of suffering, from feeling as though I did not exist.

"I'm perfectly okay," I continued, "with being too busy living life to give any time to the documenting." I began to stutter something else, pleading my case, when Nick interrupted—

"No, I completely agree. When I first met you, you had an entry up every morning at [the same time]. When you were taking care of your mom, you needed it more." It doesn't help, naturally, that I've met my first comment troll and that I'm having to be a momma bear protecting her cubs when words of those I hold dear turn abrasive.

That's lousy, guys, really frigging lousy. I began monitoring comments for that very reason...if Mom were still alive I wouldn't have to, because she'd fight fire with fire and send all you naysayers back to the fiery pits of hell from which you came.

God, I miss that woman. She had the gumption that I lack.

In fact, when Miles first left, she grabbed my shoulders several times and shook me with a surprising vigor, scolding that I was being too nice. In the end, she told me she was proud of me for keeping my dignity, being the bigger person, but she still would've liked to see me spit a nail or two.

And then she laughed, because she knew such a thing would never come to pass, and it made her glad...it would be one of the last times I heard her lovely gurgle of glee.

Anyway...entries will most probably appear here and there, but for the present, the daily posting is officially on stand-by...perhaps when I begin to trust the world again, or, leastwise, the people who waste a couple minutes of their day to read about what's going on in my life, I will return in fine form. I'm just too weary right now.

Mom loved this site, which is why it continued for as long as it did last year, after my world began to crumble in June. Now, my spirit is taking a much needed respite, and I am going to shade my vulnerabilities from the light of day for awhile. Until we meet again...

I. The Site
Does it look a little different around here? Yes? That's great news! Your eyes are working! Kudos! If not, I suggest a rendezvous with F5. You kids enjoy, now. Don't stay out too late.




II. Me
This, my friends, is the face of wonderment. You may not recognize it, at least not on my face. The cause? EMPLOYMENT. Nice, huh? I like to think so.




III. Miles
He commented yesterday. Some exec in the upper echelon of Laura Lore managed to mangle his Serendipity log in. Accident or deliberate? You'll just have to mull over that one. I don't tend to admit to accidents if I can help it.




IV. You
Your comments on my post the other day were most generous. Thank you kindly. I was thoroughly amused by your coined "day of lurker-speak".




V. Clem
Yesterday was his birthday. As I watched him fixated on the sink of water tonight, his favorite pastime of fixations, I decided that he's pretty special...notwithstanding the particular fascination with certain body parts of yours truly. Happy Birthday, Clem!




VI. Mom
We have a long day at the hospital to get through. Her bilirubin levels (Hah! You start sleeping and all of the sudden you sound smart again!) were high in the emergency room last Saturday when she went in for pain at her sternum. They ordered an ultrasound, I assume blood work, maybe tea with the queen, and then a sort of tête-à-tête with the man we refer to as "the oncologist".

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My JavaScript isn't working quite like it needs to. I've assigned the task of fixing it to the messiest webmaster of all. Anyway, the entries with pictures that open in a cute little window sized for the picture? Yeah, they're not working now. The *.js file is still there...just playing hard-to-get.

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JS error FIXED!

Well, it hasn't even been a month. I wonder where the master procrastinator hath gone? Maybe she froze to death.

I have the site redesign safe in a *.PSD...I am waiting on some finicky techie stuff from your favorite webmaster and mine, that's all...and then I get to work with file permissions, stylesheets, and all that jazz. Yay! I love it when a plan comes together!

I know it's hard to just take my word on it, being that you're still seeing the quick-n-dirty, took-all-of-2-minutes redesign that went up almost two months ago. I've been rather cheap with it, I know. I also probably need to write some kind of about text. It seems cruel to not have at least a blurb saying, "Hi. I'm Laura, you may have heard of my lore? Yes, well I like coffee and cats." And a gallery? I don't know, are galleries boring? Self-important?

I'm rambling. I know I'm rambling. I do that on occasion—well, on a regular enough basis to secure wordy fodder for a weblog. I'll give you a teaser of the new look...how's that?

What happens when you enter www.mlphillips.com in your browser? Anybody?

That's right!—you get to this page. Well, imagine the wonder in typing www.lauralore.com instead and arriving in the EXACT SAME PLACE!

That's right, I'm moving! The two domains are on completely friendly terms, and welcome the opportunity to direct your way through Cyberspace. Eventually, I will wave my little wand and physically move this web journal over to lauralore.com...but procrastination is my strong suit, let us not forget. Nevertheless, both addresses work for the moment. I have been soliciting feedback on lauralore.com, and after a unanimously positive response...well, you now know the rest.

Cheers!

It's not a variation in layout, as that would take serious thought and considerable time in EditPlus, but the colors are different...and that should count for something.

The photograph was taken at Fort Fisher, during one of our last weekends in North Carolina...I guess that would make it sometime in June of 2005 for you detail people. The photograph from this post was taken the same night.



The camera was freshly home from Kodak's repair center, so I was picture-happy that night, and have been during the entirety of the 3 months following (...and, I suppose, the 3 years previous, if you want to get technical). And thus, I present to you an abbreviated array of our parting glances of beautiful North Carolina:

No interesting news today, as ever. This shall be short and sweet, so don't go thinking that you've got adequate time to zone out and drool before coming to the end of the last paragraph! No sirree! Not today! (Be sure to tune in tomorrow, though!)

Since the implementation of Serendipity last May, we have had to deal with the decay of two atrophied links...namely, about and photographs. The gruesome heap seemed unscalable, requiring work and...focus. [Gag.]

I've ignored the problem, oh yes I've ignored it. The decay was all but forgotten—the stench having dissipated sometime during early July.

No more, I say. No more. An about page now exists. It has a picture. AND WORDS! I go all out for you people.

The photographs page is up as well. It's the same code from the old, pre-Serendipity days, but the whole thing needs a face-lift...and here I left the scalpel in my other purse.

The site needed a makeover. It was all but beggin' for it. (clears throat) Readers, meet Serendipity...Serendipity, meet readers. Serendipity is a PHP-based weblog system and it is going to help me maintain all of these darn entries!

I am still porting over the archives, and the pictures, erm...just about everything. I can't quite seem to shake the lilies, though. I started the redesign with the intention of veering away from the callas when divine intervention struck with water lilies. *sigh* I like lilies...what can I say?

Anyway, the point: the site has many broken links at the moment, but doesn't it look pretty?