What You Missed While I Was Gone.

I might have jumped off the proverbial blogger cliff, but I didn't stop for a second in the real world. So here are a few things you may have missed while I was gone.

I alluded to outdoor change in this blog post, but never got around to telling you what we did.
We bought retaining wall bricks or stones (what-ev) and we Adam dug around the tree in our front yard and stacked 'em up. Looks ten times better, never mind the fact that we ran out of money steam and didn't complete the backside of the tree mound. From the front it looks AWESOME. Yeah. pretty exciting stuff. So exciting in fact that we decided to do the same thing to the front (in front of the basement windows) and around our walkway to the front door.
This will have to come next year I think.. we've already moved on. Darn that ADD!  Can't see anything through to fruition. (I think that might have been written on a report card once in my life..I had a bit of deja vu writing that last sentence.)

Before (when we first saw the house): 

Adam working hard on the project:

                                           

The AWESOME After: 

 Yep. There you have it. We've done a few more things around the house while I was gone. I have to update you on that later. More to come!

Autumn Already, Where Did The Time Go?

Sorry I have been away for so long. School sort of sucks the will-to-blog right out of me. But, I'm back again. I have good news, I have again done excellent in school. Yes, I just did a virtual pat on the back...to myself. What can I say, I'm proud.

So I'm learning the basics of design and just finished a class on Layout. So if you don't know what that means (mom) here it is simplified: Basically it is the arrangement of 'whatever' to a pleasing affect.

Example: A magazine has words (articles) and pictures arranged on a piece of paper. The layout of these words and pictures is very important, so the viewer/reader can understand what an article is about. It also will grab the reader's attention and entice them to read the article (or look at the pictures). The layout must be clear and easy to read.

Another example would be website layout: A person or client might go to a company's website to purchase something or to find directions/ information. If the website is cluttered and the client doesn't know where the information is or cannot find the product, then most likely they will leave the site and that company has lost business. The worst possible layout design for a website would be where there isn't a logo or company name clearly labeled:  the client would open the website up, but the site isn't clear whether or not this is even the right company.

The class was fun and informative, but made me think about my (neglected) blog and I wondered if I would be able to use my new knowledge of layout software on it. Unfortunately I only know the design side and haven't learned how to implement it yet. Since I'm impatient I've recently started looking into how to change the design of my blog, only to discover that I know... NOTHING! Ahh.
It seems that I know less than the average person. Which is shocking to me since I thought I knew a little bit more than the average joe. Apparently to make a blog or website better you must use HTML or CSS... ( of course I had to look up what the heck those things mean). I now know that HTML and CSS have something to do with the computer. ...yep thats all.
I read wikipedia, blogs and googled my heart out only to understand a bunch of gobblety-gook that told me nothing about what it really was. All I understood was that it was hard to understand.
So I'm in a slow, very very slow, process of trying to understand coding. (which is what wikipedia told me HTML and CSS is, haha)
I've decided that I can't be the only person who is as clueless as I am, so I've decided to update what I learn through the process of changing my own blog. Hopefully it will help someone 'out there' who maybe needed it  wanted to know how to do it too.