21 Aug
Things I’m Grateful For on Thursday 21 August
Today’s list of things to be grateful for or appreciate:
- Getting a really good night’s sleep. I think I was ready for it last night, and I managed to get up 15 minutes before the final alarm, with no snoozing.
- More weird dreams. Dancing spiders.
- My lovely, warm, comfortable bed.
- I had a really good time at J’s mom’s last night. We had a curry, and chatted about anything and everything - babies, Spain, Paganism, manic depression, fleeing the country, etc.
- I’m not in work until 1PM.
- I’ve created myself a couple of jobs to do, to keep busy.
- I have another long weekend coming up - I’m off Sat, Sun and Mon because it’s a bank holiday. I might do some more work on the blog then.
- Playing with Wenna this morning. She was excited about going for a walk, which is always funny. Lots of jumping about, and howling, and throwing toys about.
- Physical healing. It seems that the good feelings I had over the weekend have helped clear up my excema.
- My readers and commentators. Reading your comments brings a glow to my day.
- Mom has swapped me some change for the parking meter.
- Nice dry weather. We’ve had a sufficiency of rain just recently, thank you very much.
- My reliable, cheap car. 22 years old and still going strong.
- A lovely hot shower. I love the endorphin rush I get.
- Tasty breakfast cereals.
- Hot coffee. I especially love Palenque coffee, from CaféDirect.
- I think I may have discovered a way to restrict access to one of my blogs by IP address. This blog is, always has been, and always will be, private, and current plugins don’t really address the issue all that well. Being able to limit access to my IP address only will be very useful. See #33 below.
- Also finding a way to hide/remove all feeds from a Wordpress blog.
- Some sleuthing has turned up a useful plugin that I’d like to add to the blog. It’s called Comment Quicktags, and it’ll enable commentators to use HTML quickly and easily.
- I have a job interview next Tuesday!
- A of A travelling Spouse has pointed me at a very interesting personality test today.
- Being able to prepare my own food to take to work with me.
- I’ve been paid back by another $3 on Kiva.org. I’m up to $549 now.
- Safe driving.
- Work went well. I had a couple of customers that made me laugh.
- Tasty food to eat on my break.
- I caught up with a few jobs that needed doing around the front end.
- More free Revels, and some free bits and bobs.
- I avoided spending any money all day.
- Just one more day before a three day weekend.
- Seeing bright sunshine after rain. Everything seemed much more vibrant and alive.
- I got another pre-sell today. And another round of applause from my colleagues.
- I might be able to get some free films for my new camera. H found 4 boxes of 3 today, that are a year out of date. They’ll do for me to practice on, providing I can have them.
- A tasty evening meal.
- I’ve had a problem getting the IP based block on my other blog working, because the host I’m with, NearlyFreeSpeech, have an unusual setup. So, instead of an IP block, it’s based on a password, that only I know. I followed the instructions here, and with the help of my hosts FAQ, managed to get it set up in about 2 minutes. And it works flawlessly. Now my private blogs can be private, without fear of anyone stumbling across them.
- My web host. I signed up with them when I did the transfer (remember when I stopped posting, and then you suddenly got a weeks worth of posts in one day a while back?), and added $20 to my account. Despite buying a new domain name through them, I still have nearly $10 in my account. They are fantastically cheap, and a very good service to boot. There’s not much hand holding, but if you need some technical support, then these guys know exactly what they’re doing.
- All of my blogs now have the relevant security measures installed, and all the relevant plugins installed and updated to their latest versions.
- Discovering a neat Firefox bookmarks trick. I have a subfolder in my bookmarks, where I keep all the bookmarks I have of a certain type. By using a separator, I’ve been able to organise them in a much better way than they were previously.
- Tidying up some other loose ends on the computer.
- Using the instructions found here, I’ve successfully changed the database prefix on another one of my blogs. By default, it’s wp_. Which is fine, but having it as a random string of letters makes it more awkward for a hacker to guess.
- Cold milk.
- Realising that I’m not hungry. I was doing a bit of cupboard-mooching earlier, and I realised quite quickly that I wasn’t hungry, and came back upstairs. I seem to be doing a lot less mooching just recently, and I seem to be resisting the siren song of unhealthy food too, when I’m at home.
Things I’ve laughed at today:
- This lolcat. And this one. This one too. And also this one.
- This and this from Not Always Right.
- Kelley.
Things I want to manifest:
- A quick, simple, pleasant day at work. MANIFESTED.
- 4x Bach Flowers. MANIFESTED.
Things I’ve done for others:
- Served a lot of customers in a pleasant and efficient manner.
I’m glad you enjoyed the quiz. I know they’re not scientific, but that one was surprisingly close. I’m always being shot down in flames for being too much of an idealist
A.s last blog post…An idealist, am I?
August 21st, 2008 at 3:13 pmSeriously, you are a wordpress pro
I may have to come bug you one day with questions 
Congrats on the interview! Wishing you lots of luck.
Sandy (Momisodes)s last blog post…10 Years Shaved Off…Poof!
August 21st, 2008 at 4:28 pmSolomon, Good luck with the job interview.
Today I am grateful for my kids friends. They all have nice circles of good friends. We have very little drama for their age group and what we do have I get to blog about! Better than low drama, we have few if any serious problems, no drugs or drinking. I have a lot to be grateful for.
carols last blog post…The Space/Time Comtinuum Is Again Breached
August 21st, 2008 at 7:42 pmOn August 21 at 3:13 PM, A. said:
It was. I’d love to see the logic behind it. Probably something along the lines of not noticing the people means one is a hermit, and the road represents direction, or something. I’m surprised at how similar we are. I was kind of enjoying being unique.
On August 21 at 4:28 PM, Sandy (Momisodes) said:
Feel free. I love hacking the site about. I’m thinking about learning PHP so I can do some coding on it, too. And thank you. I’ll need the luck, probably.
On August 21 at 7:42 PM, carol said:
Thank you.
And I think we all do. It’s just so easy to forget that.
August 21st, 2008 at 8:34 pmi assure you, unless i had a can of aqua-net in the black can and a match, i was not in that dream with the spiders!
August 21st, 2008 at 8:36 pmOn August 21 at 8:36 PM, quin browne said:
It was odd, like I was in a display at a zoo. The thing is, I’m actually rather scared of spiders. Having one doing kung-fu moves on my lap was enough to scare me awake.
August 21st, 2008 at 8:45 pmHey Sol - great to here about you getting a job interview, Good Luck! I admire you for trying things, wanting to progress/change. I’m one of life’s wimps so believe me when i say - I think you are amazing!
(Even if you don’t get the job, you will have still ‘tried’. To me, trying = success, ‘failure’ is not trying at all.
More free Revels - you lil’ Piglet, lol.
Which is your favourite? I bet it’s not the coffee ones! I’m yet to meet anyone who says “My favourite Revel is the coffee flavour” lol.
Just wanted to ask you something. I’ve read a few articles about ‘breaking habits’. Some say it takes 21 days to break a habit, or create a new habit. Others say it takes 28 days. Which is it? Or do you believe that it’s up to the individual - that it could be 5 days, 1 month, maybe a year, depending on the person? Thought you’d know the answer, you seem to know alot of things.
Have a good Friday Sol, enjoy your weekend. I read your lists every day. I don’t mean to sound creepy, lol but they’ve become part of my every day life now. Please don’t ever stop writing.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:36 pmOn August 21 at 10:36 PM, 48weetabix said:
I think it depends on the person. For example, I set myself New year’s resolution to do a specific thing every day, a few years ago. I figured after 21 days, it would be easy, because everyone said so. 2 months down the line, I had completely forgotten about the thing I was supposed to be doing.
A] I didn’t really want to do this thing, I just figured I ought to, and B] I didn’t attach it to an existing habit. I’ve found I get far further with a habit if I want to get the end result (and constantly remind myself of that), and I tack it on to something I do every day anyway. For example, say I wanted to do 10 sit-ups every day. I have a hot drink in the morning, no matter what day it is, so I’d do my sit-ups right before drinking my coffee. That way, I get a built in reminder to do them.
Also, try not to look on it as ‘breaking’ a habit. Habits can’t be broken, they can only be changed. Right now, I’m in the habit of not doing 10 sit-ups every morning (because I’m lazy). The morning will come and go, whether or not I do the exercises. So, I’d look on it as “developing the habit of doing sit-ups every morning”, rather than “breaking the habit of not doing sit-ups every morning”. The former is more encouraging than the latter.
With regard to the Revels, the coffee one is indeed my fave, followed by the orange one, then the flat chocolate one. The raisin one is at the bottom of the list.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:53 pmWow - my first meeting with a coffee revel fan, well hello there, lol.
Thanx for replying Sol. Yeah - I agree that we should not think about ‘breaking’ habits but instead ‘changing’ them. And yeah, there’s no need to put a time limit on making changes. We will all change in our own time. When i read those articles - i kinda thought it was silly to say “you will achieve this in 21 days” coz’ that’s setting some people up to feel like failures. I just needed someone else to agree that time limits are silly, lol. I listen to you Sol - you could tell me the sky was green and i’d probably believe it, lol. I respect your opinions/advice/comments. I always try to be perfect, that’s my problem, lol. I put pressure on myself “I must do this” and “should do this” so then when i can’t do it - i crumble, ending up in a heap on the floor - feeling like a failure (again!) Thanx for being here Sol. Wishing you a good sleep tonight, my lil’ chocolate muncher.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:25 pmOMG, I’ve read four or five posts about spiders today.
just sayin…
Rees last blog post…Self Discoveries in Blogging
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:41 amSounds like you had a very good day. I hope your job interview goes well and if you want it afterward that you get the job.
Eves last blog post…A Bit of This, a Shake of That, and 2 Liters of Oxygen
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:34 amOn August 22 at 2:41 AM, Ree said:
Maybe that’s not a coincidence? Maybe the one your cat spotted climbing up the window was just the scout, preparing for an invasion!
Or maybe not.
On August 22 at 5:34 AM, Eve said:
Thank you. I hope it goes well too.
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:19 pm