Life on the Road

This is the third in a series of “Photo Challenge” themes being posted as part of a contest over at Two Moms in a Blog (go check it out!).

Today’s theme is:

Saddest Moments

Wow, not your usual topic, eh?  The point, they say, is to remember that these moments were sad but that we did get through them.

The saddest time in my life so far was losing my father in January 2003.  (Yep, for those of you with a scorecard that’s just a year before the happiest moment.  Busy decade…)

I know lots of people never know their father, or lose him very young, so we were blessed to have had him at all.  But among our peer group (I was in my early 30’s, my sister still in her 20’s), most people still had (and in fact have) active and involved parents.  One of the comments I heard most from the caregivers when I was helping him through the last couple of years was, “But he’s so young!” (it started at age 59).

So anyhow, this photo is my sister delivering the eulogy at his memorial service.  It’s not the best photo, per se, but of all the photos of the service, this is the only one that really caught an emotion. 

To remember the happy times…  This is my sister again, with my son Nick and my dad, just two years earlier.  We had this enlarged and framed for the service.

I love you and miss you, Daddy.  But I know you are happier now, and at peace in the arms of Jesus…

Just wanted to share a couple of cute things I’ve run across online recently:

Elf Yourself

This is a fun/silly activity - see my kids elfed! 

Free Baby Stuff Giveaway!

The folks over at Our Blessed Arrows are preparing for a military transfer next spring, so they’re clearning out the inventory from their online shop by having weekly giveaways on their blog - just comment to enter.  This week’s giveaway is for a pair of Pedoodles baby or toddler shoes.

Happy beginning of the holiday season…  Regardless of the fact that Christmas stuff has been in stores since Halloween!  ICK!!  LOL

This is the first in a series of “Photo Project” themes being posted as part of a contest over at Two Moms in a Blog (go check it out!).  All of them are based on projects from the Kodak Ideas Gallery.

Today’s project is the Holiday Accordion Book with Pockets:

I decided to turn Nick (13) loose on this one, to make Christmas gifts for the family.  In fact I had just gone to pick up our family photos from this year’s venture, and Nick had school pictures done from the school where he has his band classes, and Iwas trying to think of a unique way to give them to my mom, my sister, etc.  Perfect!

For simplicity of construction, and since I don’t have any little frou-frou to put in them anyway, we went for a “pocketless” version.  For the transition to a kids’ project, we used construction paper for the accordion as well as the picture trim, with largely hand-made and hand-drawn decorations.

Thanks for the motivation to get some things checked off my Christmas shopping list!  (Good thing they don’t read my blog, eh?  LOL) 

This is the first in a series of “Photo Challenge” themes being posted as part of a contest over at Two Moms in a Blog (go check it out!).

Today’s theme is:

Photos That Inspire

This picture is really inspirational to me for a lot of reasons - some “public,” some personal:

• The light shining down from above - God?
• The glow through the flag (nice camera work, Wolf!) - very patriotic!
• The general idea of conquering the mountain
• This is Nick, 12 at the time.  The last time he’d faced a climbing wall he slunk away in defeat.  This time he was determined - and he did it!
• Bonus: Nick’s t-shirt is from the Audio Adrenaline concert he went to, with the lyrics, “I get down… HE lifts me up!”

What inspires you?

I cannot express how frustrating this migration process was.  Everything that could go wrong, did.

Apparently the FTP program I have been using is not what you might call reliable, and a lot of files were lost/corrupted/whatever during the backup process from the old site.  So we had to download fresh WordPress files (and a new FTP client).  Then we had to work around the SQL errors being generated by the database.  Then we had to figure out how to use the quirky system 1 & 1 has in place to access the database.  Then we had to diagnose the errors WordPress kept throwing - including deleting one of the plugins altogether.

I could never, never have done this on my own.  And, frankly, the 1 & 1 Tech Support email team left something to be desired in the exchange (you know that feeling you get that you’re talking to someone in Pakistan who is reading you rote responses off a checklist?).

The hero of the piece?  “MichaelH” of the WordPress Support Forums.  What a guy!  Patient and knowledgable…  Thank you!!

So, as far as I can tell, other than my frayed nerves, the only damage done is that the “uploaded images” folder was found to be completely empty.  I do have all the pictures on my hard drive, but now they need to be manually uploaded all over again, one by one, and inserted into the appropriate place in all the posts in the history of the blog.  I’m going to work my way backwards.  It may take a while… 

Just an advance warning that there may be some periodic downtime over the next couple of days as this domain is migrated over to a new hosting provider.  Unfortunately, time constraints do not permit me to do this in a more orderly fashion.  Read on… 

I’m not one to call people out in public, but I do think the public deserves to know when a company is behaving badly.

For the last couple of years, my websites have all been hosted at Angel Towns.  Although there is not a lot said about, they appear to be a Christian company - Bible verse on the homepage, restrictions about your site content, etc.  And best of all - Cheap! 

So, as I say, things have been going smoothly for a couple of years now.  I have a few minor complaints about the ease (or lack) of using certain features, but I always figured that was part of the price I paid, for the price I paid… if you know what I mean.

Then earlier this week I got an error when I tried to upload a photo to a post I ws writing about Jewel’s First Haircut (very cute!).  After tracking it down in the WordPress Support Forums, I concluded that it must be a PHP Memory limitation on my server.

I logged into my cPanel and checked, and sure enough there was an 8 MB limit there (just as the Forum users suggested), and it was not configurable on the user side.  Immediately I emailed Angel Towns Support, asking why this limit had suddenly appeared, and requesting that it be raised or removed.

The email I got back was probably a form letter, and it explained that the 8 MB limit had been placed on all hosting accounts “as a temporary measure,” and it would be removed “soon.”  Further inquiry yielded the clarification that it would probably be lifted in about two weeks.

Two weeks?!

I can’t post any photos larger than a thumbnail for two weeks?  Not only is that not acceptable for my personal posting, but I have a commitment to Guest Host a really great contest for a popular blog on Monday (make sure to check it out!).

So I emailed again, explained my predicament, and informed them that if they did not remove or raise the limit on my account (which I never agreed to when I signed up, BTW!) I would be forced to move my hosting business elsewhere - and fast.  Well, they never even responded…  Not good business practice, nor good Christian ethics.

I have begun the process of transferring the entire domain to a new provider.  1 & 1 has great features, great service (already used it!), and … Cheap! 

The move includes our business information page at http://www.tiffanyblitz.com, and two complete subdirectory installations of Wordpress which house this blog (http://www.tiffanyblitz.com/blog) and our sales team training website.  Whew!

Keep your fingers crossed that the process goes smoothly, and I’ll be ready for Monday’s BIG CONTEST POST!

Man, those Two Moms in a Blog get the good stuff to give away!  This month (coming up) it’s a Kodak EasyShare 5300 All-In-One Printer - a $200 Value!

They are actually having 14 “projects” throughout the month, each of which earns you a chance to win this bad boy (and other cool prizes along the way!).  Check out their Contest Page for the schedule, and links to each project as they are posted.

If you win, remember that you heard it from me, okay? 

What a fun idea!  Overwhelmed with Joy brings us the 2nd Annual Holiday Cooking, Blogger Style Recipe Exchange!

This is my favorite recipe for any festive occasion.  It’s an old family recipe from Mississippi (that would be Wolf’s family).  And don’t worry, it tastes nothing like buttermilk!  Maybe we should change the name to Sugar Pie…

Buttermilk Pie

Makes 2 pies

2 1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter
4 eggs
3 Tbsp. flour
3/4 c. buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. coconut extract
2 9″ pie shells

Preheat oven to 400.

Cream butter and sugar thoroughly.  Add flour and eggs, mix well.  Add vanilla, buttermilk, and extract, mix well.  Pour into pie shells.

Set oven to 350.  Bake 1 hour, until pie doesn’t shake.

Tiffany’s notes:

• Depending on your location and oven, this may work best of you cover the edges with shields (or just foil!) to keep them from overcooking.
• We have tried this with many different types of extract in place of coconut.  Although they are interesting, for some reason it just doesn’t have that certain “something.”  Even Wolf, who dislikes coconut in general, prefers it the “original” way.
• Why set the oven to 400, then turn it down to 350 when you put the pies in?  I don’t know…  but it works much better if you do!  (Presumably it has to do with the heat you let out when you open the door to put the pies in, eh?)

Well, what do you think?  Pretty cool, eh?

We’re actually still refining the details, as this is a custom theme created just for us by the gracious and talented Nataly of Simply Beautiful.

If you have any feedback, we’d all love to hear it!  Don’t be shy…

Okay, I KNOW it doesn’t look quite right yet…   But it’s better than being SOOOOO SLOW like the previous one - right?

Be patient with me, I’m working on something better!