So as you may have noticed, I did a redesign. (Refresh if you actually don’t see it.) And so of course, this morning I begrudgingly opened up the piece of crap that is Internet Explorer, and it looks pretty damn bad. The header image doesn’t fit, the border is BLUE for some strange reason, and the far right sidebar starts halfway down the page.

Rest assured, it doesn’t look like that if you use Firefox like I do. Right now, to me, it looks great.

However, the nice thing about WordPress is that it comes with that nifty plugin for multiple themes. If you are using Exploder, uh I mean ExploRer, and you just can’t get on board with Firefox, scroll down to the theme switcher and you can go back to my beloved Harry Potter theme if you’d like. You may also want to switch to that one if you’re still using 800×600 because this layout is 864 pixels wide so you would have to scroll right to see the far sidebar.

I figure as long as I leave up at least one theme that works for everyone’s browser and resolution, I can design the rest any way I please. 🙂

I don’t think Hayley has quite gotten the concept of “I Spy” yet. Sometimes she gets it and other times?

Hayley: I spy, with my little eye, something that is… yellow!
Sherry: This book?
Hayley: No, my table!
Sherry: Okay, you’re supposed to let me keep guessing.
Hayley: Okay, I’ll go again. I spy, with my little eyye, something that is yellow!
Sherry: Uh, your table?
Hayley: Yes! That’s right! You’re so good at this game Mommy!

Not too long ago we made a decision to consolidate some of our bills by getting a special trio package from Videotron, a local provider. Now instead of a ridiculous charge for our phone, plus a bill for satellite and another one for Internet access, we get our phone (VOIP), high speed, and digital cable on one bill for just over 80 bucks a month. This is a good deal since Bell Canada was charging us almost that much just for our damn phone.

Anyway, the cable is okay but the downside is that we have less choice in our package. The upside though, is that we get CMT – Country Music Television. It’s not a big secret that I LOVE country music, especially the newer stuff, and it’s not much of a surprise either if you know that I grew up with parents who listened to country and 60’s rock and roll more than anything else.

In the afternoon, I tend to put CMT on and listen to country for a couple of hours and I’m ecstatic. A lot of people don’t really understand my love of country music, because they think it’s all the same and that it’s all “wah, she left me, she took the kids, she ran off with my best friend, she burned my house down, and my dog died too, pass the whiskey”. Some of it is, but like any genre, there are sad country songs and happy country songs.

But in country music you can get away with things that just wouldn’t fly in, say pop or alternative music. For one thing, you can sing religious stuff and people will like it and sing along even if they’re spiritually confused or ambivalent like me. Every time Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take the Wheel” comes on (only about 500 times a day), Hayley sings along loudly and enthusiastically and she doesn’t even know who or what Jesus is (other than an occasional expletive). A pop song about Jesus would be weird. Country? It works.

But you can get away with weird stuff too, and that’s what makes country music fun. Only in country can you get away with lines like:

“Way down yonder on the Chattahoochie, it gets hotter than hoochie-coochie”

“Her cloest’s missing half the things she’s bought, yeah Tequila makes her clothes fall off”

“Oh won’t you be the queen of my double-wide trailer with the polyester curtains and the redwood deck”*

Seriously. That’s the secret – country music is fun. Y’all don’t know what you’re missing.

(*Kary, I always think of you when I hear that because I remember how hilarious you thought it was.)

I am totally making one of these because I suck at folding t-shirts.

Jade & Melanie! Thank you for the package! Do you think Breanna liked the Heffalump outfit? I think so! See?

Hayley also decided the pajamas you sent made Breanna “very soft”.

And in other random pictures…

Beautiful Hayley. Her eyes have recovered so well.

I may insist on buying Breanna an entire wardrobe of red clothes since it’s such a good color on her.

I acquired a great desk to replace my table I was using for my computer (and I love it!), but until it was set up, it was a “house” for Hayley.

Remember that book-turned-movie, The House of Sand and Fog? I’m going to write my own book and call it The House of Snot and Phlegm. Once it’s adapted to a screenplay and becomes a movie, the tag line can include some mention of “sleepless nights”, “spiking fevers”, and “ow, my stomach hurts”.

So. Who wants to come over with all that in store?

When I was pregnant with Breanna, I didn’t want to be wishy-washy about discussing it with Hayley. If you ask her how Breanna got out of my tummy (or uterus, since she knows where that is too), she will tell you that “Mommy pushed and the baby came out of Mommy’s vagina, like a beautiful butterfly!”

(The butterfly part is something she added on her own, as a result of many readings of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”.)

(Also, I’d like to take this moment to say hi to pervy Googlers who have now found me by Googling “Mommy’s vagina”.)

Anyway, this amused many people, especially my mother. Then she pointed out that things could get interesting if, after being convinced of how they come out, she decides she wants to know how they get IN. I laughed and said I’d have to cross that bridge when we get to it.

I’d rather explain that fact of life to her than the other fact of life conversation we need to have tomorrow where I will need to explain to her that Nicodemus, the dark brown rat on the left, died this evening. I wish we could ignore it like we did whenever a fish died but a missing rat is a little more noticeable than a missing goldfish.

I’m just glad she was sleeping so she didn’t have to be a witness to how sad it was to watch Mozart try to cover his tankmate with his paws, clicking nervously at me. I had to pet him gently, assuring him I wouldn’t hurt his brother, and then I distracted him with a little egg sandwich at the other end of the tank so I could take Nicodemus out. Nic was happily eating yesterday so he must have just gone to sleep today and never woke up. I hope it was fast and painless. He was really old though, for a rat; we got them around Christmas of 2003. I never expected them to live this long.

R.I.P. Nicodemus, my daredevil buddy who escaped TWICE this month, and who was named after the awesome Nicodemus in The Secret of NIMH. You’ll be missed.

New entry up.

I’m seriously considering just putting journal entries over here. I’m getting tired of writing in two places on my site.

Great. Another minority government but with Conservative Harper at the helm. I am overjoyed with a Tory leader.

Sigh.

Yawn, I’m so tired, I hope Breanna goes back to sleep quickly.

We watched “Four Brothers” last night – it was amazing. It had a lot of really funny moments with the interaction between the four of them, it had a ton of action, and a fantastic ending. Also, Mark Wahlberg continues to prove he’s come a long way since his days as a rapper and underwear model. I’m glad he decided to go into acting, because he’s really good at it.