If you’re reading this, you’re viewing the site on the post-MSS webhost.  Welcome to something that should actually work!

This is only a blog post because I hadn’t done it before. I am not going to post every time I get a haircut.

Yesterday after school let out, I finally did what I’ve been thinking about–I went to the mall, found a hairminion, and got a dye job (I was waaaay due for that, roots were showing a LOT) and an actual styled haircut. Shorter than it was, to get rid of the split ends, plus layers–seems now like nothing’s the same length. I think I like it. No, I’m not going to post a picture–Chilsa won’t hold the camera and I don’t want to do the whole Myspace stand-in-front-of-mirror thing.

I remembered that you’re supposed to tip hairminions, giving me cause to reflect that it wasn’t a total waste of time when Mom made me read that ancient etiquette book. I didn’t remember how much, so I went with the next amount after 10% that brought the total to a round number. It seemed to go over well.

Upgraded 6 hours after it rolled out, instead of 3 extra weeks of having to tolerate known bugs and security holes.  I heart this automatic upgrade plugin.

Poll to follow shortly.  I’m gonna let people think for a minute before the running tally begins.

Would it be worth it for me to add Gravatar support here?  As in, would anyone actually use it?  They’re the Latest Big Thing that the Wordpress community is buzzing about, drowning out even the category/tag debate that popped up when word went out that there was going to be a version with both.  OTOH I don’t want to waste your load time if nobody would use it/care.  And yes, finding a usable OpenID plugin so that I can bring that back is a higher priority…it’s just not going smoothly.

Recently, two spam messages related to cat litter boxes worked their way into my Akismet queue.  The reason this is worthy of mentioning is, neither of them worked its way into any of the Felis domesticus posts.  This amuses me.

My planbook, which I’ve BARELY been using since August, is in the first round of reviews…I have to turn it in by 3 PM.  Must reconstruct everything I’ve been doing all quarter.  I couldn’t sleep last night, due to sleeping too much yesterday morning I think, therefore am functioning on approximately 3-4 hours plus caffeine.  I have to do my taxes TODAY (got the 6-month extension, 6 months ago).  World caving in.  Going to die.

I went to the school today, to work in my classroom and make copies.  I didn’t get around to the copies, though–this is embarrassing, but I’m still not sure which door my key that supposedly lets me into the main building unlocks.  I never need it when people are around to ask, you see.

Mostly, it was a focusing exercise.  Break Week is over…the time of sleeping in until noon if I feel like it is over.  I’ll have two weeks for that in December, though.  I need to figure out what math I’m going to use, tomorrow, as the context for reteaching procedures and study skills (after a week, not a chance on most of them remembering how to “go to school”).  I need to finish ingesting this “fruit punch (b+potassium) vitaminwater.”  I need to crash early tonight, in order to get to the school early tomorrow and make those copies, which is bad, because I’ve been sleeping late because I’ve needed it.

Ready is a strong word, one that I can’t use because there’s too much left to do.  But I’m as recharged as I’m going to get.  I’m not freaking out.  I have most of a plan.  In short, I think I’m OK.

As I was StumblingUpon the internet, I found this page of extreme cuteness.  Everyone must read it immediately.  Now.

It’s too early to make this post. It’s also too early for this post to be necessary, which is the problem; I think I have to stop reading the news and shopping. I’ll do an upgrade-and-repost two months from now, maybe.

Overcommercialized Christmas is a given. My main childhood Christmas tradition was three hours of frantic shopping on Christmas Eve, another one of wrapping (once one is allowed to do one’s own wrapping, which was a lot older than it should’ve been because it took Mom that long to give up on wanting everything perfect), and half an hour of unwrapping on Christmas morning. One of my more vivid Christmas-related memories is a Christmas list my sister started in September and kept adding to. I’m tempted to say I didn’t pick up on the emphasis on “stuff” to the same degree because of being a kid, but even so, it seems like it’s getting worse.

I stopped caring much about Christmas when I was 12 or 13. My parents were having Problems and my dad wasn’t around that day; I’m not sure where he went. Probably somewhere with friends from work. I get it, my mom was a more serious pain to be around than usual during that time, and he was raising the bar on parenting compared to previous generations, but it still torpedoed Christmas for us kids. Would that have happened if the people involved were focused on making Christmas a nice time for each other, rather than getting stuff and impressing others with how much stuff they buy? Probably not, I think.

My good Christmas memories rarely involve shopping. Snow was good, when it applied. The few that involved spending money in any direction were things like the card exchange last year, in which we all had would have had to buy stamps and either cards or the stuff to make cards but shopping wasn’t the point, and the giving tree at Chemeketa (in which some of us spoiled other students’ kids).

And yet, people can’t seem to figure it out, to the point where it’s worth it for stores to have “holiday price wars,” some people don’t think twice about whether they need “Christmas loans,” and last year’s Christmas spending predictions came in at numbers such as $795.86 and $907 per person.

When I read the holiday price wars article, I was ready to boycott Wal-Mart. Two things stopped me. The most obvious is, I already don’t shop at Volde-Mart, but I think the other is more important: they wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work. They’re trying to get into people’s wallets, which wouldn’t work if people weren’t willing to get that wallet out. $800-$900 per person for Christmas shopping can’t all be at Wal-Mart anyway.

So, instead, maybe I’ll boycott people.

Note to self: Do not leave thumb on upper edge of fridge door while opening fridge and closing finger.  It’s hard on the thumb.