tap tap, is this thing on?

I GIVE UP! It's a very cool You Tube that shows women in art through the ages.


*I tried like ten times, plus Blogger help, the thing won't embed. And I've done this before, so I don't know wassup. ARGH. But I have things to do, bills to pay, etc. etc.

************
This comes to you from You Tube via Kousin Kiki. ENJOY!

Ummm...it's the emperor's clothes post. Better click on the link in the post below.

It's eight degrees out there, I don't want to know the wind chill, thankyouverymuch!

And I'll be at church at night, without the advantage of the sun. Yeah, this will be layer city, I'm thinking...

So a few words on blogging. I have added a few to the right (and I still laugh at when I first did a post on adding things to the left and Poppy was like, um, is your screen aligned differently?).

I have been spending the morning at Poppy's. We're kindred for many reasons, including she is also a Sagittarius. I sometimes worry about how I spend too much time on one blog, commenting five times in one day, are they going to think I'm stalking them? Because, truly, I'm not. I'm just bored out of my gourd, this being the fifth day of this cold and I've only been out of the house twice. (Friday, to spend some much needed time with my peeps, and Saturday to work a few hours and grocery shop.)

Yesterday I wrote a rant about how everyone in Pittsburgh has their family nearby (except lil ole me). It was a little too ranty for my own taste, I may tone it down and take it out of drafts. I'm also crafting a post on "Mama Said" because mine is the smartest woman in the world. Or so she claimed, when I was in fourth grade. Nowadays she denies that she is the SWITW, but to me, she always will be. In my real world, I'm working on a "positive piece" about the bus crisis in da Burgh to publish over at I heart PGH. I will not be publishing it under Sarah Louise, or linking it to this blog, but you're smart enough to figure out how to find it, I'm thinking. While I do not currently ride the bus in da Burgh, buses are an integral part of this vibrant city and...well, they just can't take away 100 routes without a fight!!

My diet is pretty much oatmeal and ramen soup, clementines, water, and zinc. Although the zinc is not really helping--it usually clips the main pain of the cold after the first day and hasn't this time...

So, I have added on the left, I mean the right, Colin, a student at MIT. Found him through Pat and Adrian. There's this fun Pittsburgh expatriate vibe going with Adrian and Colin...anyways.

Also, Jenny. She is a hockey mom and very funny. The meme below this post is one I swiped from her.

Let's see, oh, I added Paula's photo blog, Finding Beauty, to the "Bohemian Shoes" area. I'm considering stopping the whole "Shoes categories" because I have a definate order in which I read them--it should be like "Everyday shoes" "Once a month shoes" "Once a week shoes." Because some of my friends don't update but every two months (but I still love them to pieces!!) I think there is a way to fix the HTML (maybe with RSS) so that you can see which ones have updated (because Bloglines is like crack for me--a bad idea) I think the PCUSA blog has that going on. Maybe since I'm homebound AGAIN today I'll work on that. Or maybe not. I feel a nap coming on...

Also, church is during the SB, but GO BEARS!! I wonder if You Tube has the Superbowl Shuffle...

(The super-fun music video was pulled due to copyright worries, but this gives you an idea at least...)

Blogger's going bonkers

So, on any given day, the beta-bloggers and the non-beta bloggers can't comment on each other's blogs. Blogger Status doesn't have all the answers, but they are a good place to look for info. I've added them to the left, right below Favorite Shoes.

In which Sarah Louise figures out one more thing on Blogger...

...how to have my yahoo! email on my profile not my gmail account. I rarely read my gmail accounts (I now have two.) So ALWAYS if you want me to read it (and I check email pretty regularly as I work on them all day) make sure the address is a yahoo! one!

THANKS!

(btw, this was not an intuitive thing to fix.)

This, on the day when my work email gave me a message on Monday, Tuesday and today saying "Your email is closed." And I had three people: my immediate boss (wrote a note), my boss boss (library director, stopped by to tell me), and my district representative (called me on the phone) tell me my email was closed. Thanks, I knew that, and am working on it right now. Oh, internets, I need food. Otherwise I may bite someone's head off!!

My hissy fit is over now...

Thanks guys. Actually it's those 363 readers that lurk every week that I was mad at. Whatever. Although I've had at least two nice de-lurks this week--grace and gratefulness are clearly things I need to work on...

Also, now that I have a gmail account for my blog different from my gmail account for work list servs, today I found 3 emails--ack! So if you want to email me, don't just randomly click. Go to my profile where my YAHOO! mail address is listed. (Sorry V, I didn't get those emails from October!) Update: crap, my profile email is the gmail--I'll fiddle with that later--egads!!

And my apartment now has places for folks to sit and put down their drinks. The closets will be full with doors closed and the bathtub might have a few items (Sally said, no one will be looking in your bathtub--well, unless they read it here...)

All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well (Dame Julian of Norwich)

Oh, and Sally (another one--I collect them, remember?) and I are going to the Handmade Arcade Saturday since I'm not working on a Saturday, woo hoo!!

Buh-bye, gotta go sit in a CYAS meeting (that would be Children and Young Adult Services...)

Yer pal, SL

Things to do when you're already grumpy: changing up my blogroll on Beta

WeirdBunny commented on this and blogged on this and it's something I've been meaning to do, so here goes:

How to make your blogroll your own, for once and for all or once again.

Basically what Blogger-beta has done has dumbed down the HTML. Whereas before, we had to go under the hood in the template and could mess around with our links there, now that is no longer there. Um, not so crazy about that. But whateve. I don't want to move to a different blogging software.

So get your template up. Depending on your template, your "page elements" will be on the left or the right. If, like me, you had your blogs separated out (Shoe Shopping for the regulars, Local Shoes for Pittsburgh Links, Church Shoes for my church friends/other Christian bloggers, and Work Shoes for library links and blogs and Kids shoes for kid lit blogs and links.) this will be a tedius task, as at the moment, all those links are in one big chunk again, "shoe shopping." (Well, I just added local shoes, but most of the links are still in one chunk.)

So--if you have all your links on one "page element" it's not pretty. If you want to add new links because you lost them or you just want to add more, it's less tedious.

But I'm in the first group. So you click on the page element called "links" or "blogroll" or whatever you call it. It's a lot of cut and paste, let me tell you.

You will want to take breaks, like I just did to warm up some soup and another one to flip my laundry. Hold that thought.

I'm back. Okay. So you'll see all your links in their blessed non-html format. Argh. This is where the fun starts, if you have a long blog-roll. If there is an easier way, don't tell me for a week. Open up a blank Word document. Better yet, Notepad. (You'll find Notepad in Accessories. It's the most basic way of transferring plain text and is a good tool to have in your toolbox.) Then go to the links you want to move. Yes, you'll have to do this one at a time...hold on, let me try something....Okay, here's a tip. If you can highlight any of your links, do it!! Then post them in an open Word document (you do not want plain text for this, trust me.)

You'll only be able to get a few at a time, so this is what it might look like:

Faith, and Culture document.write(" ");

Edit Delete ↑ ↓

document.write(" LyssaBlog "); LyssaBlog

document.write(" ");

Edit Delete ↑ ↓

document.write(" Eileen "); Eileen

document.write(" ");

Edit Delete ↑ ↓

document.write(" Urban Saddle "); Urban Saddle

document.write(" ");

Edit Delete ↑ ↓

document.write(" Emerging Sideways "); Emerging Sideways

Or not. Let's check the soup, shall we?

Oh, cup a soup. I'm not generally a soup person, but when I'm sick, it's DA BESTEST.

Where was I? Besides thanking my stars that I never took up Technical Writing...

So you have some links in your Word Document. Let's look there a minute.

What you see above is HTML goobly gook. In Word, it looks different, I promise. So you'll have these boxes and they'll have the title of the link and then then url for the link. This is your raw data. So open a page element, this time, we're doing Church Shoes (gotta love Windows, that I can do this at the same time that I'm blogging it...) The page element you want is "link list." Give it a title, in this case "Church Shoes." Then cut and paste from your Word Document. It's tedious, yes, I know.

Then you may lose it and then you may forget you are using Foxfire tabs and that you've lost your post--FOUND IT!

It's like the shampoo bottle: repeat. Again and again, until you have it looking like you want. It's tedius and if you have wordpress or something else, this is not the time to gloat. (Or do it silently.)

So maybe by the time you read this, I'll have my categories back...

Oh, and dear readers, another great thing about beta--it shows you where your HTML is wrong. So at least I can just delete the highlighted text instead of searching for it like before. Let's try this again, shall we?

What I do on Sundays

• Listen to Jeff Foxworthy. Today he talked with Blake Shelton, who had a song "Austin" out a few years ago. It's one of my dad's favorites. My brother now lives in Austin. (Oh, and I got to talk to him last night!!)
  
• Go for my morning walk. Sunday is one of the days I hardly ever have a morning thing I have to be at, so I can be leisurely. Today I just did the west route to the Park. Now some of the dog women know me and wave. Their dogs smile at me. I smile back.
• Depending on my wallet, go to Tazza. Last time I went, I was reading The Myth of You & Me, a heart wrenching novel about a friendship that was great and then broke. I sat there and cried, wiping away the tears. (I have set that book aside for a while.) Today I got my Tomato and Cheddar samwich and read about Bob O'Connor, our late mayor. Hey, I saved the paper from September, I'd better read it, huh? When I finished that, I continued with Riding the bus with my sister, by Rachel Simon. I cried, wiping the tears with the white square café napkins. Then, as I was gathering up my trash, I noticed someone that looked familiar--it was Jake, who used to work with me at Fox Books! He's a poet and teaches at Pitt, so we talked about writing and life. I haven't seen Jake since right before I moved to Virginia, so like eight years!
• (Sometimes) Go to the movies and/or watch a movie at home. Today I think it's Jerry Maguire at home and if I go out, either The Illusionist again or One Night with the King. But I really want to laugh, so it might turn out to be Little Miss Sunshine (this would be #3?).
  

Then of course, 6ish, I head over to the OD.

If I get inspired either today or tomorrow, I'll pull out "favorite posts" and snazz up the sidebar. I am liking Blogger-beta. I realize there are glitches and annoyances, but that's why it's called BETA, folks!!

Oh, and last night we had a real frost. Oh how I love the cold weather!!

Blogger Beta: Check!

Very exciting. I know you can't see anything different, but the email comments are wunderbar--I got one comment already and it tells you which post the comment is on! (Instead of scrolling around to figure out which post someone commented "that's so funny!) (Which is a perfectly accceptable comment, btw.)

I am very excited (not exited) and stay tuned.

Meanwhile, here are a few bloggers I know that are using beta:

Emerging Sideways (bobbie)
Weirdbunny (weirdbunny)

I get to put labels--this is too exciting!!

Oh, and Babs said those magic five words today: "I have my own skates!"

Making a list, checking it twice...

No, not that kind--although, it is a great segue for my dad's philosophy of Santa Claus and the three stages of man: He believes in Santa Claus, he doesn't believe in Santa Claus, he is Santa Claus.

The list I'm formulating is of my categories. Yes, I will soon be crossing to the dark (or is it light?) side of Blogger Beta where my posts can have categories. I am very excited.

This morning, when I heard about the sale of the Penguins to a Canadian businessman, I thought I definately will have a category called hockey. My heart almost skipped a beat before the radio announcer continued, saying that the Pens would be staying in Pittsburgh. Babs and I talked about going to a game this season...

I don't know what my other categories will be, but I'll keep yins posted n'at.

Cue the theme to "Golden Girls" and a list of the books I scored at the yard sale

A girl can never have too many shoes or too many friends. I have been saved by my friends this week:

• spending Monday morning with Babs and offspring. We went to look at a lovely table which she bought.
• Emily gave me advice Sunday morning on smiling at guys: it's good! Don't analyse it! Don't think it to death!
• Sally coached me through not spazzing out about the diagnosis I don't yet have of the sonogram. Vickee emailed me on the same subject. I vented to both. (Did you know that women create endorphins when they vent? Now, all we need is for men to create them by listening...) (Dreaming, I know.)
• and yes, you can be friends with organizations. My two favorites: the Open Door (usually listed in this blog as OD), my church, and the Union Project (the building that houses the OD, the new Union Station Cafe, and other lovely things.) (often referred to as the UP.) (NOTE: they are both now on my links, see right, under "Local Shoes.")
• Why I love the OD: It's the bestest church I've ever belonged to. It just is. I really like the people, the music, and well...just I like it. I even love it.
  
• Why I love the UP: The new cafe--love the samwiches, love the staff. The events they hold: love the First Fridays, loved the Rent party. The building and the beauty of it: I could wax forever on this.
  

The yard sale update: (sorry no links and some of the authors aren't mentioned. I'm making ya work for this one--I got a reprieve to go into work a little late today so I'm writing this on the fly. Maybe I'll update it and link it later...)

The HP yard sale was Sunday, as I mentioned earlier. Well, the UP had a table and everyone loves the UP, so they donated a lot of stuff. Well, a lot of it didn't sell. Five boxes of books, baby! I was helping them, because the books I took were books they didn't have to cart off to Goodwill.

Read em and weep: (some I'd never pay money for, but for FREE, hey, why not.)

Penguin Classic version of Persuasion (this would make 3 copies in the collection?). This one has a "memoir of Jane Austen" in the back.

The Millionaire Next Door: This was a pretty popular book years back when I worked for Fox Books. Hey, maybe I could learn a thing or two.

Barn Blind, by Jane Smiley. (her 1st novel) As Duplicate Keys, another JS book is one of my top 5 novels (at least in today's brain), thought I'd give this one a whirl.

Crossing to Safety, a wonderful book that I discovered after I wrote a paper in college on a different book by the author. (Wallace Stegner). About two couples and how their friendships were wonderful--I probably already have a copy, but I could give this as a gift! It is really a very life affirming book. I'd say more if I remembered more--its been years since I read it.

Possession (Babs talks so much bout it)

The Way men act (copy #2) Elinor Lipman. I mean, Lipman seems to be on a downward cycle (see Bab's recent post on books) so we might as well hoard her good ones. This was not stellar, but it's readable. I've read it twice, as opposed to other Lipman's that I've read thrice at least (Then She Found me, the first comic book about adoption I'd ever read. Y'know they're all always so weepy either from the mother's or daughter's point of view. This one will make you laugh out loud.)

Complete Idiot's GT Personal Finance in your 20s and 30s. Hey, I'm not an idiot, but I'm neither a millionaire. Just so long as it doesn't tell me to make all my coffee at home.

My legendary girlfriend (I read another book by this guy, Mr. Committment) Brit guy-lit. (as opposed to chick lit. You can probably rhyme your way to another name for this phenomenon of guys writing light romance novels.)

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: Never read it, never really felt the need, but it's a hardcover in good condition. Vacation reading?

The Broke Diaries (do you see the money theme repeating itself?)

Medieval Lives I know very little about ze mittel ages, so why not?

The letters of Abelard and Heloise I've heard about this, so why not.

I also scored some roosters which Bep will love as gifts eventually (you'd like pictures, wouldn't you, but I'm not playing that game, mateys!) Oh, and a picnic set that has a cutting board!

Author's note: Gotta love how Blogger keeps track of when you CREATED the post. Changing the date stamp to when I PUBLISHED it. And please excuse the spelling mistakes. Thank you for overlooking my misuse of it's/its in Monday's post. (In the same sentence, even!)

I like to go rock scrambling.

(Moira Kelly)

Also-rans for the enviable "rock quote" were the Google Finance page on the Buffalo firm, Gibraltor and a Tad Hunter quote about Rock Hudson. The title is clickable. Still working on getting the underline-y thing so that you KNOW the title is clickable.

I saw this rock outside one of my favorite galleries in Fort Ligonier. Isn't it lovely?

This rock is imbedded in the walls of the National Cathedral in Washington. It is a rock from Mt. Sinai. There are a lot of foriegn rocks imbedded in the walls of the National Cathedral. Did you know that's where Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan are buried? Downstairs in the crypt!


Show and Tell, courtesy of the lovely Blackbird.

Waiting for the images to download...

My parents are in town, on their way to a wedding in Michigan of folks they went to college with.

Ach! Downloaded one wrong picture!

We went to dinner at a former Catholic Church that is now a Brewery and Restaurant. It's called The Church Brew Works and is on Liberty Avenue. When I worked downtown, the bus passed it daily, so I saw it being transformed from vacant church to thriving restaurant. Their logos are a little tongue in cheek: on the water glasses, "And on the eighth day, man made beer." The food was fabulous!! I did not have beer, since I imbibed two Coronas this afternoon due to blinding cramps. (Tylenol is my only pain recourse and it doesn't really work for cramps.)

So, luckily, my parents have a key to my apartment and let themselves in, since I was sound asleep when they arrived. I hope to return to that state in the next half hour.

Oh, and if the text at the top is doing that disappearing thing, just run your mouse over the area and it's like magic. Because there *is* text above the first photo. Gotta love Blogger.

And I do!

More new stuff on the right!

My template and I are fair weather friends. Like right now, all the stuff (my profile, my links, etc.) are at the bottom of the blog for no explainable reason. I think it has something to do with amount of posts per page and length of post, etc. Someday I'll get the book Babs keeps recommending me and I'll go under the hood with my template. Right around the year 2010, when Babs gets a full night of sleep. (Maybe sooner, for both of us--we can only hope!)

So anyways, all that to say, I don't mess with my template daily. So I have a file on my desktop of links I want to add and when I get a list or I find a blog I absolutely have to add to my blogroll right this instant, I add them all.

What blogs are you adding today, SL?

Funny you should ask, dear reader! The blog I discovered today brings my geek meter up, waaayy up! If you use the DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification) you may squeal with glee. But it's my blog, so I'm adding it. This is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time (I live a quiet life.) If 398.2 doesn't look like a very exact cooking temperature, or seeing 974.71 makes you want to "start spreading the news..." this might be the blog for you. So, I present for your enjoyment, 025.431 The Dewey Blog.

I'm also adding Vickee's World. Vickee blogs from the Rockies and is very sweet. She's like me in that we have the same comment style (a little story of our own about the post that's up), so I feel I've found a kindred spirit. She won my heart when she praised my post on dream jobs, which I linked up. She loved my links...bless her! I recommend her blog. She's a fun one.

Jeanne is another new add-ee. She's a knitter and a librarian. She posts pictures of knitting (yes, really!) and art (very cool) and has a regular feature that I still don't understand called "Swing Jacket Monday." Her blog is called A Bluestocking Knits and I think it is very cool.

Another newcomer to Pink Sneakers N'at is I heart Pittsburgh, which is, you guessed it, all about our fair city. It was the first link that came up on Google when I searched for Hope College coffee Beleza. (A new coffee shop on the No. Side run by some kids my bro Terzo went to school with!) (More on that, later on!)

That's all for today...now I must go under the hood with my template. Wish me luck!

*398.2 is the number for folk and fairy tales. 974.71 is the number for history of New York City.