Domestic Geek

Well, it's November 1st and I'm going to once again attempt to complete NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). It wasn't until I was looking at my blog last night for something that I realized it was ready to happen again. I don't know what happened last year. I just suddenly stopped after 4 days. I went back through my Facebook timeline to see if something triggered it (like the previous year's health issues), but nothing. Oh, well...

A lot has changed in the past year — I'll try to address a lot of that over these posts. There's also a lot of things I had put on hold (some without realizing it) and I'll try to address some of those, as well. All I know is I want to get the old blog back up and resume posting regularly. I miss this outlet. I'm going to update the Expression Engine CMS this month and try to get the commenting system issues fixed. Then I want to get my CSS skills back and dive into some HTML5. My web skills are rusty and it's time to break out the oil.

The biggest and most important change this year was that I finally found a job in South Dakota. It was the ultimate catalyst to get me out of my comfort zone and away from the soul-sucking job I had in Denver. When my boss there quit for the 2nd time, I was killing myself to try and keep the department from sinking. I was working 60-70 hours per week, my office mate was a dumb ass, my new boss totally inexperienced, they weren't looking for anybody new to hire and I just couldn't do it anymore. Funny that they finally hired 2 people to replace me and now I hear my old boss is back. I'm not going to post where I work now or what I'm doing, but I took a huge pay cut and at least I'm back in a field for which I actually went to school. While I'm pretty sure this won't be a long-term gig and I do still have dreams of my own business (which I may one day share), at least it is good for right now. I am going to have to find some additional income, though. I was working at night for my former company while they were getting their newbies trained (managed to keep that up for 2 months), but even that became unbearable.

So, as of August 1st, I became a South Dakotan. It's weird, because I've never lived in any other state. Seeing South Dakota license plates on the old Baja for the first time was a little strange.

The second biggest thing is my father passed away on October 16th. He's been in bad shape for well over 2 years. While I'm sad that he passed, I am glad he is finally out of pain and hopefully in a better place. I will be flying to Denver on Thursday for his service at Fort Logan. After that, I really won't have any ties to Colorado other than Marcus is still living there. I can't wait for the day he can cut ties there, as well.

I'm also going to attempt Project 365 once again to get it knocked off my 101 in 1001 list that I started up again. The photo below is from the Long Draw prescribed burn about 5 miles southwest of Hill City:

Wow, 15 years ago today, I made my very first blog post back on Blogger.

I know I have been lax lately, but I've got plans to update the old Expression Engine and get back into this. I miss this. Stay tuned...

I was watching a little blurb on The Today Show this morning while I was getting ready for work about some Australian model/Instragram star that is leaving social media because she claims it's ruining her life. While I can't believe all of her problems are due to social media, the story did get me to thinking. All the social media outlets are definitely distracting and a time suck. I was thinking about why I never seem to accomplish anything anymore. I used to craft all the time. I used to cook a lot more than I do now. I used to read a lot. I used to have lots of beautiful houseplants. I used to garden. Hell, I even used to watch a lot of television. While our living situation the last few years is partly to blame for why I don't do hardly any of that anymore, mostly the culprit is the Internet.

I spend an alarmingly large amount of time on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Ravelry. I spend so much time reading about other people's lives, that I'm really not living my own anymore. I may even be addicted. I didn't have my phone at lunch a couple of weeks ago and I was twitchy without it. I haven't even kept up this poor blog. I used to spend all sorts of time playing with the CSS, learning the code, etc. I still haven't fixed so many things I broke doing an upgrade a while back.

I'm taking a week off from work next week. I'll be up at Homestead North with just Mr. T. Except for the NaBloPoMo posts, I'm really going to make an effort to stay off the Internet. Hoping I can accomplish some real things.

The time change this year, paired with Marcus and Mr. T being up at Homestead North this week without me is kicking my ass! I am weary to the core. I have a whole list of things I want to accomplish this week and I have yet to cross one thing off. Hopefully, in the morning, I'll have the energy to make a significant post.

Just a quick post today to say that I don't feel well (never do when the time changes). I'm depressed over work crap and I'm exhausted, so I'm going to take care of myself and go to bed. I'll post my Project365 pic tomorrow, as well.