dianaschnuth

Yeah, I know. I used to post every day, and now I post about as often as I shower.

OK, OK, not really. *paranoid glance*

I have quite a bit to blog about, but I’ve been working on other things and actually having a social life. Amy came up this weekend, and she and Aaron and I went up to the Ann Arbor Art Fairs. I have some pics to post of that, and I think that will be a good excuse to try my hand at creating a database-driven photo gallery. Anyway, that was my Saturday, and hanging out with Amy in BG was my Friday evening.

My Sunday was a drum corps rehearsal up in St. Clair Shores, MI. The staff shared some new information about our trip to the DCA Championships in Scranton, PA, but some of that is still privileged info. Suffice to say, that last hour of rehearsal was one of “oh shit, we have HOW many rehearsals to get this show clean?!” For me it was, at least. I tend to be a little high-strung about rehearsals, even without the unexpected kicking-it-up-a-notch.

This evening, I planted some Lilies of the Valley that Scott from work thinned out of his garden. It’s not exactly the best time of year to plant, but maybe — just maybe — I’ll be able to keep these full-grown plants alive better than the baby ones.

I also started working on the LSM site redesign again, after a week of slackitude that I could scarcely afford. I now have a userTable and an eventTable set up in my happy content management database. My goal for tomorrow is to complete a functional calendar and event detail pages. I think it’s a reasonable goal, and one I can accomplish in an evening.

And that’s my life in a nutshell. I have lots of details I want to fill in, but goodness knows when I’ll get around to it — that is, assuming I don’t get totally derailed by some other blog topic in the meantime, and end up forgetting to post about my nifty bamboo sax or about the abortion protestor in Ann Arbor.

Man… I wish I didn’t have to sleep. Or shower.

Finished Book Six.

OMG OMG OMG.

These are *not* children’s novels. Not the kind I read as a kid, anyway.

I had the inkling the book might end something like that, but I was hoping I was wrong. Damn… OMG…

Off to read Sheryl‘s LJ posts about HP6. Then off to bed.

OMG, I can’t stop reading. I’ve been reading for over two hours now, more like three. Damn you, Jo Rowling, damn you and your addictive writing style and characters to Zarth’s lowest hell!

…And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

*dashes upstairs to keep reading*

I had such plans for my evening. I made my dinner, I did my Yoga For Dummies, I checked my e-mail, I almost-balanced my checkbook… then I took a Harry Potter break.

Six chapters later, I haven’t worked on the LSM website, I haven’t practiced my mellophone, and I haven’t written a review of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

*sigh*

Since faxing my Independent Contractor Agreement back to the company for which I will (hopefully) be doing some new media contracting, I’ve decided that I need to devote a two-hour block each evening specifically to design projects. This is because 1.) I need to get back into the swing of working on a given project without distractions, and 2.) I need to get some of my own projects done before I start accepting freelance projects.

So, my Friday evening and my Monday evening were much the same: make dinner, check e-mail while dinner is cooking, eat dinner while reading a book, finish that chapter. Then come downstairs and finish my e-mailing and blogreading and general crap. Between 7 and 8pm, start designing. Don’t stop until at least two hours have passed, or until I reach a good stopping point (usually after two and a half hours).

These past couple of days, I’ve been working on making more comps for the LSM site redesign. I finally decided that five will have to be enough for a start, and I emailed the Executive and Assistant Directors with the URL to start a discussion of the designs. I think they’ll be duly impressed. My current favorites are #3 and #5, I think.

Next step: learning MySQL and figuring out a database structure to make News and Schedule tables. I’ll do that during tomorrow’s design time. I’m done for tonight.