I want to go on public record as saying that I FUCKING HATE AOL. Those bastards allow their customers to mark any incoming messages - including those they SIGNED UP FOR - as spam. No problem, right, as long as that designation affects *only that customer*.
But no. AOL, in their infinite wisdom, takes it a step further. If a certain number of AOL customers mark your messages as spam, then you start getting blocked at the server level. Meaning: NONE of the AOL customers who requested your email can get it. The only way to get out of this AOL black hole is to get added to their "white list," but for that, you have to agree to include your mailing address AND PHONE NUMBER on EVERY SINGLE EMAIL you send to an AOL account.
Let's review. I have, as part of QuiltIndex.com, an opt-in database of subscribers for my various mailing lists. They opt in, and they can just as easily opt out. That database is currently at 34,000 records, including 18,000 active subscribers for my largest mailing list. Of that number, 3,200 are AOL/Compuserve (same thing) subscribers. NONE of those people can get my emails anymore, EVEN IF THEY WANT TO. Not only is this costing me roughly $500 in direct income every month, but a not-insignificant-number of my subscribers are pissed off at *me* for requiring them to change their email addresses to remain eligible for prizes, thinking (wrongly) that I am just picking on them. In addition, I have had to remove approximately 25 quilt shops from my database, because they use AOL addresses exclusively, meaning they wouldn't get my emails to them, either.
I am not going to put my phone number on every email I send. Too many of my subscribers are of the "old school", and would not hesitate to call me if they had a question. I work from my home, and I am very prompt about answering email. I don't require my subscribers to give me their phone numbers, and I don't care to give them mine. I don't want to start getting calls all hours of the day and night at my home, especially when I can conduct the entirety of my website's business through email.
And the real bitch of it is - there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING I can do about this. AOL has no appeals process, other than that damn white list.
In summation, if you are an AOL subscriber, get out. Several of the quilt shops I work with have let me know that they are not getting all of the emails they need. AOL is filtering emails not only from me, but from LOTS of other legitimate mailers. So if you want to get your messages, get a different ISP. Trust me on this.
I've spent the last couple of days (in between work and whatnot) restoring the archives for 2005 from the old site. While I've got 2005 done, 2004 and the latter half of 2003 still await me. But that's ok; it'll all get done in time. The only month I'm REALLY worried about is October of last year. (Update: November was no big picnic, either.) I was a blogging fiend in the run-up to the election! As ever, if you see something broken, please let me know.
Right now, the site is very "brown wrapper" plain. I might change that in the future, if I find time, but content will be the priority. Sue me; I'm not a graphics artist. Anywho, other changes you'll notice is that I don't yet have comments installed here (they're coming, eventually). Also, old links to specific posts won't work with the new site, so instead I've linked them to that month's page, with a reference to the date's entry. I will most likely eventually have permalinks (of some sort) here, but again: not a priority.
This new site won't have a blogroll. I don't read many other blogs anymore, anyway. No offense intended to anyone - just a matter of supply and demand, with time being the commodity.
And in other WordPress news, yesterday a spammer managed to post three comment spams on posts that do not exist. Those bastards get craftier and craftier all the time. All the more reason for me to pull the plug on the whole damn thing.
I've noticed in reading some of my old blog entries, that on some days I really am a raving she-bitch! I don't know how (or why) SexyHusband continues to put up with me, but I'm ever-so-grateful he does. :)
I've been doing some scrapbooking lately, and will scan and post pictures once I get a chance. I've also started the work on Kayla's room (dubbed "Care-a-lot", since she wants it decorated in Care Bears). To whit, I've started ripping down the ugly blue wall paneling, revealing the horrors beneath. I'm going to get it all down before I decide exactly what to do, but at the very least I'll need to get creative.
Guess that's about it for now. Back to the joy of HTML markup. :)
I’m just about at the same point Margi was when she said:
This is one of the reasons I will probably give up blogging when the baby comes, if not sooner. If it’s not a new tweak to keep the spammers at bay, it’s a “security exploit” that causes me 12 hours of installation time.
Blogging has become a drag. Between the comment spammers forcing me to spend hours closing comments, my ISP changing servers on me (without providing me new information for accessing my Control Panel), new vulnerabilities that make me spend either time or money upgrading, and fact that my ISP switched to an all-forum tech support method (as opposed to the direct-email system they used when I signed up), I’m fed up. WordPress blogging software is simply not THAT much more convenient over plain ol’ HTML.
Some of you probably know that before I wrote here at Note-It Posts, I had another home, over at a site called 2Frogs. I quit journalling over there for good last year, when it got too tedious to blog both here and there. But that site has been around since December 98, long before blogging was a fashionable trend. It might not be as pretty, or searchable, or as categorized, as WordPress, but dammit, the upkeep is WAY easier.
So I’m going back. I’m going to spend the next several days porting my old entries over into an archive of their own (HTML only; I’m a busy girl), and will resume my blogging over there. It will be mostly journal, I expect, just like it has been here. But I’m going to do my linky commentary and political observations over there, too (which is something I didn’t do before).
If you liked reading me, and you want to keep up with what I’m doing/thinking, please change your links/bookmarks to the new address. Once the archives have been ported over, I’m going to redirect the noteitposts.com domain name to that site.
I expect to continue to have comments there, but using a home-rolled, hubby-designed system, as opposed to WordPress’ innate comments. Thank you for your patience while I work on getting everything moved over.
I’ll be 15 weeks tomorrow. We went in for another OB checkup today, including another ultrasound. Babycenter.com said we might be able to tell the sex at this gestational age, so we were hopeful. Blood pressure is normal (136/70), I’ve lost 4 pounds this month, pulse and urine are all normal, so we were good to go for the u/s.
What did we find? Well, this kid is a happy, healthy, VERY wiggly, acrobatic…
baby. It was moving SO much we couldn’t begin to get a good femur measurement, much less a good genital shot. But it was still fun to see him/her moving around in there, doing little baby aerobics. It looked to be lying tummy-down, lengthwise in my uterus. It pressed its little feet against one side of the uterus, propelling itself over to the other side, where it bumped its head against the opposite wall of the uterus. Over and over and over again. The doctor teased me, asking what I ate before I came in (implying I’d hyped the kid up on sugar).
You can bet that next time, I’ll eat nothing but bland, low-sugar stuff, so maybe the little thing will sit still long enough for a sonogramic peep show. ;)
Last night, while I was failing miserably at trying to fall asleep, I finally felt it - the quickening. There is really nothing so magical as those first little fluttering movements, those tiny, frantic kicks made by this tiny little person. I can only really feel it when I’m lying almost on my stomach (balanced on a hip and a knee), but it was unmistakable. I woke Mike up so he could be in on this development.
Then today, as I sit here working, I feel that telltale tug on my lower abdomen that means that my uterus - slowly but relentlessly - is shoving everything aside to make room for the growth of our newest little gift.
This is my fourth pregnancy in five years. You’d think I’d be a jaded “old hat", and I must admit to being less engrossed in this pregnancy than the first, but the wonder of my body’s ability to make a whole person never ceases to amaze me. I’m stunned that it knows how to do this, how to accommodate a person and not kill me in the process. It is (mostly) a joy, and always a miracle.
Of course, this also means the GreatEver-expandingBellyOfDoom is on the horizon, too, but that’s ok. Just means I need to get the remodeling on Kayla’s room done. Now. While I can still see the damn floor!
Another layout I did today. This one was a challenge from another list, to “scraplift” this layout.
This is a layout I did today, of our Wal-Mart pictures from 2004. I know the scan is pretty sad - I’m still learning the “stitching” technique, and my scanner is too small to scan a 12" page all at once.
Kayla was playing dress-up this evening. She got as far as two mis-matched glittery shoes, a purse with a too-long string slung around her neck, and a glittery skirt around her waist.
Me: Daddy, look! Kayla’s playing dress up! She looks a little like a streetwalker.
Kayla: Yeah! I look like a streetwalker!
Adam: I want to dress up like a streetwalker, too!
Kayla: You can’t, cuz there aren’t any more streetwalker clothes.
Mike: Thanks, Mom.
From the non-blogging Mike: “And anyway, we need to find some other Muslim country and set them up the bomb… $2.76 a gallon..fucking killing me. We must need more blood…cause we sure need more oil.”
These are the flowers I got for my birthday from my friend and business partner. Thanks, Rusty!
In Adam’s history lessons, we’re talking about Plymouth colony. Today he got a new unit about “building a village.” Part of the accompanying story went thusly:
Everybody went to the meetinghouse on Sundays for two church services. The preacher read from the Bible and gave a sermon.
As we are heathen, church-shunning folk, I knew this would go completely over his head (the concepts, not the words), so I decided to pause to have a little impromptu lesson about religion.
Me: Do you know what church is?
Adam: He’s the one who tells the news in Plymouth.
Me: No, that’s the town crier. Church is the place that people go to pray. Do you know what pray means?
Adam: It means an animal eats a different animal.
Me: (falls out of chair laughing…)
So then we got to have another little impromptu lesson about homonyms.
Ain’t homeschooling grand?
I was all set to have a crappy birthday. I had some plans that I made a couple of weeks ago, which I had to cancel at the last minute. Nobody’s fault, just the planets didn’t line up right or something. So I was looking at a day at home, rather than a day going out doing fun stuff. I know, I know - selfish, but isn’t that what having a birthday is all about??
But much to my surprise, I had a great birthday! This, despite getting a pinched nerve in my shoulder early in the morning. I had to spend a good portion of the day in bed, on pain medication and reading. That turned out not to be a bad thing, though, since I got to catch up on some sleep and finished a book I’ve been working at for a little while. I got some great gifts from wonderful people (including binoculars, birdwatching books, cash, and gift certificates), and the phone rang all day long with people wishing me a happy birthday! I got emails or phone calls from mom, dad, mom & dad (Mike’s folks), my sister, best-friend-since-4-years-old, niece, and many, many friends. I felt very special, loved, and thought-about.
I had apple pie a la mode for my “birthday cake", and jambalaya for dinner (per my request).
Thank you to everyone who wished me well here, and/or sent emails or made calls. You helped make a great day for me. :)
I think you should be allowed to open your presents the night before your birthday, so you can enjoy them the whole day OF your birthday.
I’m just sayin’.
May I please just share with you how I am absolutely craving - to the point of fixation - chili cheese fries from A&W? And how I can NOT have them, because they have, like, a WEEK’S worth of allowed sodium at a time when I need to be eating low-salt?
And how much this state of affairs truly sucks?
Just sayin’.