Before the Blog: Happy Easter

Whozat's learned even more about web design in the past few months on the job, and has decided that her plans for the new version of this website sucked, so she started over. This time she's doing a total redesign of the appearance and the content.

Of course, this update is only being "posted" on the new site that's still "in production," so there's no telling when anyone will actually get to see it!

Speaking of Whozat's job, it's going well and she's really enjoying it - something she's not used to.

We dyed Easter eggs with Shrike's family this evening, and we'll be hunting them tomorrow. Whozat hears that there will be prizes and chocolate involved, so she's looking forward to that.

We're going to The Millennium March on Washington, including the Equality Rocks concert in a couple of weeks, and we can't wait!

We're going to spend the week of Memorial Day in Texas, visiting Whozat's family and friends. We had hoped to go in mid-May for Whozat's birthday, but Shrike couldn't get off work that week. This works out better, anyway, though, since the holiday means we can take a whole week off work and get another weekend for the trip. Whozat's looking forward to that; she hasn't been home since Christmas.

There's probably a lot more to tell, but it's about 2 am, and Whozat isn't very coherent, sorry!

Before the Blog: Happy Anniversary

Not much new happening since the last update - Whozat's been too busy with work and with redesigning some websites for her dad to do much on this one, for those of you seeing this on the "old" (current) site. She's working on a redesign, but it may be a while before it sees the light of cyber-day.

In other news, last weekend (Feb 12, to be exact) was Shrike and Whozat's 2nd anniversary. We got all dressed up and went out to a hoity-toity restaurant for dinner. We were planning to go out dancing after, but ended up blowing that off and just coming home. That was more fun that stupid old dancing, anyway! ;-)

Before the Blog: New Year, New Car, New Job!

Oh my, I can't believe it's been over three months since I've updated the web site! So sorry! But, we've been busy, busy, busy.

So, going back to the beginning...

Whozat had a great visit to Texas back in October and got to visit all the friends - and restaurants - that were on her to-do list. When she got home, she continued with the long-term substitute teaching job she had started before the trip. That was, uh, interesting. If nothing else, it confirmed for her, without a doubt, that she is ready leave the teaching field.

Of course the holidays came and went; we stayed very busy before with shopping and decorating, and very busy during, doing the family thing. We even manage, in the middle of all the rush, to buy a car for Whozat.

We spent Thanksgiving with Shrike's family, and then managed to spend Christmas with everybody. We did "Christmas Eve" with Shrike's family on the 23rd, because of various people's work schedules, then Shrike worked the evening of the 24th, so we had our own Christmas at home when she got in around midnight and spent Christmas Day with her family.

Then, on the 26th, way too early in the morning, we flew to Texas, and spent a few days with Whozat's family. Down there we had "Christmas Eve" on the 26th and "Christmas Day" on the 27th. We flew back home on the 30th (before planes started falling out of the sky - oh, wait, that didn't happen, did it?)

New Year's Eve wasn't too exciting, since Shrike had to work, so that if the world had ended, everyone could have read about it in the local paper. But Whozat drove over around midnight, and Shrike came out to the car, so we could at least be together and have a New Year's kiss.

Meanwhile, Whozat was sending out resumes again, hoping to find a web design position, for when the teaching gig ended. And, guess what? She did! She started this Monday, and is starting to feel a little more acclimated and a little less useless, and has actually done some real work the last couple of days.

Other than Whozat's new job, the excitement of this week was the big snow storm we had on Tuesday. Whozat was quite impressed!

As you can tell, Whozat is trying to practice what she's learning on her new job and do a major redesign of the web site. Don't know how long it will take, so this update may be out of date before anyone sees it! I'll try to be better about updating in the future.

Before the Blog: Leavin' On a Jet Plane

It's been a while since the last update, we've been pretty busy lately. Whozat's been spending a lot of time working on some new web sites and she just started a long-term substitute teaching assignment this past week. She did three days, and tomorrow she heads to Texas for her first trip home since we moved to BlueState.

She'll resume the teaching assignment the next week when she gets back. She's really looking forward to this trip, and has a list a mile long of people to visit and restaurants to eat at!

In fact, she should be asleep right now, since she has to pack in the morning and catch at plane around noon, but she's evidently too excited to sleep - so she's updating the web site....

Before the Blog: Wedding Postponed

Well, this weekend we decided that even with Whozat's upcoming long-term assignment, we're just not in a position to be shelling out the kind of money required to put on the wedding we'd like to have, so we've decided to postpone it until we're a little more financially secure.

We're still planning and keeping our eyes open for good ideas, but we're going to wait until we've got the money coming in a little more steadily before we reset the date.

In meantime, we're still working on the plans, keeping our eyes open for good ideas and trying to decide if a "red hearts" theme would look stupid at some other time of the year. Thank God we haven't engrave those toasting glasses yet!

Before the Blog: A Job!

Well, as you might have guessed, Whozat's been pretty busy lately updating the web site, as well as working on a few others.

She started substitute teaching a couple of weeks ago, and doesn't seem to be having any trouble staying busy with that. From the looks of it, she could work every day if she wanted, but probably needs to be home a couple of days to keep working on her web design classes.

More good news on Whozat's job situation - she's lined up for a long-term sub position, covering for a teacher on maternity leave, from mid-October to late January. After 20 days, she'll go to full 1st year teacher salary - which in BlueState is just a couple of dollars less a day than she was making in her ninth year in Texas! It'll be really nice to have that money coming in, especially right at Christmas time.

In other news, Whozat bought her plane ticket this week for a visit to Texas in October - she's really looking forward to that.

Other than that, work and dog-sitting for Shrike's family has been keeping us pretty busy these days. Guess that's about all our excitement for now!

Before the Blog: Birthday Boy

Whozat's job search continues, but she's started doing some online training in HTML and other web design stuff through Ziff-Davis University. We're hoping that she'll soon know enough - and be able to prove it - to get a job!

We went to the BlueState Pridefest and Lilith Fair this weekend and boy, was it hot!!!

The big excitement of this week is Shrike's nephew's birthday party, which is coming up on Saturday. He turned 2 on Sunday, August 1.

We're watching him all afternoon, so his mom (Shrike's sister) can get things ready for the party - we may need a nap by party time! We're looking forward to it, though.

He's a cutie and he's really starting to warm up to his Aunt Whozat, which she is thrilled about! Not too much other excitement happening here, sorry folks. :-)

Before the Blog: Capital PrideFest

Well, dinner with Shrike's family went well. Her sister had already told their grandparents that Whozat is visiting for the summer, so we guess she'll just like it so much she decides to stay! Shrike's mom still made small talk with Whozat about her job search, but we don't think her grandparents heard any of that.

We went to DC yesterday for the Capital Pride Festival and it was great! As Whozat commented on the way home, "That was probably more queers than I've seen in my entire life - even if you count all the ones that I didn't even know were queer!"

That's probably true - they were predicting around 200,000 people to attend the street fair, and it didn't look like the intermittent rain kept anyone away.

This was our first Pridefest, but it certainly won't be our last. We're definitely making plans to attend the BlueState Pridefest that's coming up. No new news on Whozat's job search, we'll keep you posted on that as things develop.

Before the Blog: Meeting the Grandparents

Well, we've now been in BlueState for almost two weeks and we're starting to get somewhat settled into our new apartment.

We still haven't unpacked much, but since it's temporary, Whozat is thinking of every box unpacked as just another one to repack in a few weeks!

Whozat's job search is progressing, she should hear back in a couple of weeks from an interview she had for a software trainer position and the web editor position should be interviewing about that time.

She's decided that since she was dreading the possibility of the high school she interviewed with last week offering her a job and since she was relieved when they didn't, that she should take it as a clue that she's done with teaching, so she's not pursuing any of the other teaching positions she's heard about.

She has signed up with a temp agency, in hopes of getting a little work between now and finding something permanent, but nothing has come of that yet. The agency also offers some pretty advanced computer training about an hour away, so if nothing comes of the other jobs, she's planning to look into that.

We have plans for dinner this evening with Shrike's family to celebrate her grandfather's birthday, which was this week. Whozat is a little nervous about meeting Shrike's grandparents, because they know absolutely *nothing*.

We assume that they know Shrike had a roommate when she was living in Texas, but as far as we know, they have no idea that her "roommate" has moved to BlueState. We're hoping Shrike's mom has at least mentioned this to them, but Whozat's thinking they still may wonder what the hell she's doing at a family function.

Shrike's sister suggested telling them for now that Whozat is just here for the summer (believable, since she's a teacher) but Whozat isn't too keen on that, since she figures the only good topic for "small talk" with Shrike's parents will be her job search! It should certainly prove to be interesting.

Before the Blog: Welcome to BlueState!

We made it! After three days and 1500 miles of driving - we're in our new apartment in BlueState.

The apartment is, well, it's temporary, is what it is.

We'll just be here until we know where Whozat will be working, then we'll find something a little (a lot!) nicer.

Speaking of the job hunt, Whozat has an interview tomorrow for a high school teaching job in the town where Shrike's parents live and she sent out a resume today for a web editor job.

She's given them the URL of this page as an example of her web skills, based on the theory that if anything they read here stops them from hiring her, it's not a place she'd be comfortable working anyway. She's a little nervous about it, so let's all keep our fingers crossed on that!

Other than that, we've been pretty busy trying to get moved in here, and we still have a long way to go with that. And speaking of, it looks like it's time to go unpack something, so watch this spot for more information!