Since the start of tree pollen season here in NW Arkansas, I have been feeling way more drained and tired than usual. It didn’t help that this coincided with a week or two long teething spell for Verity! I was so sleep-deprived and discombobulated – it felt as though I had just had my wee one, only I couldn’t rest all day because I had two to run after and jobs to keep!

Towards this last weekend, I felt in despair. I thought something must be wrong with me – I have had no energy or attention span to work for more than about 2 hours a day, and I couldn’t focus on the kids very well either. Combined with dizziness while gardening and a few other things, I finally checked in with myself and began to get a regimen for getting back up to “speed”

With the help of some great advice from friends as well as a few chapters of The Fourfold Path to Healing; Working with the Laws of Nutrition, Therapeutics, Movement and Meditation in the Art of Medicine, I realized I need to revamp my dietary laziness. I’m following the recommendation in the book now, as much as possible: 40% animal source, 40% vegetable source, 20% grain source. The animal source must be raw as often as possible (raw butter, raw milk, etc) or pasture-raised fresh meats not cooked at too high a temperature (and bone broths, etc), the vegetable source can be only steamed or raw, and the grain source (and legumes, nuts, etc) must be properly soaked or sprouted.

What does that all have to do with sleep, you ask? Well, you’ll have to get the book or begin following Weston Price literature to get the nitty gritty. In the nutshell, however; eating this way means you are giving you digestive system foods it can properly break down, leaving your body with more energy for the other systems and functions (including brain — hormone! — function). I already eat only organic produce, pasture-raised meat, and unrefined foods. But what I don’t do enough is soak and sprout. Maybe once a week for a split pea soup or black bean side, but otherwise I bake with whole wheat pastry flour, etc. I do get sprouted sandwich bread and sourdough artisan bread, however, because I already had a gist for the logic behind it. What I didn’t understand is was how much I needed to eat, what percentages, and how those 2 or 3 days of eating a muffin and a coffee or something similar was contributing to my low energy level and moods. Man, you slack off just a bit and WHAM, teething, allergies, illnesses – (”I get knocked down, but I get up again!”)

Moving on!

Another thing I changed a few days ago was my sleep pattern. I never take naps, and I rarely fall asleep before 1am. I also can’t fall asleep for at least 30 minutes. Then I nurse a few times in the night and wake up around 8am feeling like I just went to bed. I am not a morning person, never have been. I feel cranky and ethereal for a few hours and can barely function until I have some protein in my breakfast (bowl of cereal = raving lunatic. poached egg on steamed kale = happy mama.)

On Mother’s Day, I took for myself a rare treat. A nap. What was odd, to me, was that I felt tired again early that night and crashed about an hour earlier than usual. Then Chris let me sleep in on Monday morning and do you know when I woke up? 10 o’clock! This was more sleep than I have had in a span of DAYS this year. And finally, I didn’t feel guilty about it – I didn’t fret over all the things I didn’t get done because I was asleep. Instead, I felt calm (no! getting sleep helps you feel calm! Say it isn’t so!) and trusted that this is what my body needed to do to recuperate. If that means I get behind on a few things, maybe those things weren’t that important. Also, maybe I’ll have the attention span and energy to finish them better and faster once I’m rested. For a few days now, I’ve taken naps (which, according to this article, DOES make folks learn better and increases memory function) and getting to bed before midnight. Already, the quality of my waking is more alert and energized. Halle-flippin-lujah!

I should add that I’ve also been more conscientious about taking my fermented cod liver oil (SO important, esp for pregnant/nursing mama’s!) and adding to it a range of therapeutic essential oils to support my immune and digestive system. Also back on the bandwagon is my use of lacto-fermented beverages. I’ve been drinking my homebrewed kombucha daily but slacked off on my kefir smoothies. Until I read that the recommendation for me to fight fatigue is also to drink less water (flushes gut with water – not letting stomach vile do its job in digesting the food) and more lacto-fermented liquids instead (kefir smoothies, yum!)

So I’m going to continue this super nourishing diet, extra sleep to support that I nurse all night still (attachment parenting, respond respond respond! ), and cod liver and essential oils supplements. Besides being a little more energized, calm, and alert, my skin is less red and rashy (woo hoo!). I’ll touch back after a few weeks and let you know if anything else is changing.

THIS is what I love about allowing negative emotions to come to the surface, yet having the perspective that they are not evil or wrong or stupid, but just a message. A message to make a change and shift your priorities. The few weeks of fatigue and restlessness and worry prompted me to take the time to do some soul searching. I journaled about some things I need to do, including getting alone and girl time each week, starting yoga again, along with the diet change and more sleep. I prayed about some of these things, in particular that I would find a good Vinyasa yoga class in Fayetteville, and low and behold, today I was at the co-op and saw a flyer on the bulletin about a new 6 week series for Vinyasa flow. It’s on Sunday afternoons, a great open time block for me, and not very expensive either. I’m soooo relieved!

After a good night’s sleep, I also emerged with some answers to things that were bothering me. Career changes/ timing, Chris’ joblessness, the kids, so many things. What was clear to me when I awoke was this: I need to focus on my faith, writing, art, and family. Period. The financial situation will iron itself out, likely in a way that I can’t even foresee right now. But having mini-breakdowns every week because there is no time for the things my heart and mind is needing more of is making me less productive and less joyful, more tired and more stressed out.

The blog, something I was ready to give up for lack of time to commit to it, might end up sticking around, if only for a place to share my thoughts. I’ll be taking a writing course with my neighbor soon (who actually named herself Ryder – cause she is a writer – which I think is so bold it’s cute). Next I want to take some watercolor courses. I’ve always felt really dyslexic when it comes to watercolor as a medium, and I want to remedy that.

Oh! And I’ll be hosting a summer reading group (through Vintage) to discuss the book “Radical Homemakers; Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture“. Can you see a theme here? Doing things good for my soul, learning to let go of roles I don’t need to cling to anymore, taking a leap of faith – eventually hoping to be more generous and infectiously joyful in a world so riddled with greed, fret, and hopelessness. Wish me luck

Well, I won’t go on – this is getting rather long. And I have a playdate, so…

Be the Light,

Mama

Hark! The sea-faring wild-fowl loud proclaim
My coming, the swarming of the bees.
These are my heralds, and behold! my name
Is written in blossoms on the hawthorn-trees.
I tell the mariner when to said the seas;
I waft o’er all the land from far away
The breath and bloom of Hesperides.
My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This week has been absolutely full with a teething baby-turned-1 year old (sleepless nights, oh my, the fatigue!) and when not tending to children we’ve been busy planting and readying the yard. We put in a 20′ x 4′ vegetable bed in the backyard, continued to chop away at overgrown honeysuckle TREES (yes, they are huge here! and very prolific!), clear out lose branches from last Winter’s snowstorms, and plant two garden beds. In the front yard, we’ve put in a small 3′ x 8′ vegetable bed and planted flowers and a dogwood tree at the front of the walkway to liven up the curbside a bit. All of this is preparation for some special plans that are shaping up, so despite the recreational connotation of gardening, we are indeed working hard towards an important goal too. This weekend we’ll celebrate May Day very casually, a backdrop to the prep work taking the forefront of our activity this month. Sunday plans include finishing the chicken coop and next week the arrival of our starts to get the veggies in the ground. (Phew!)

I’m struggling with my need to recuperate and refocus before changing gears career-wise, while faced with the reality of lose ends I must tie up before I am free to pour my whole self into my new venture. Also, the “Position Filled” responses keep coming in on job ads Chris has applied to, reminding me to keep surrendering my worries that work opportunities are still scarce for him. I’m trying to stay positive and present while shedding some baggage. My heart aches to focus solely on my role as wife and mother, a role that I have often sacrificed in the name of survival – attempting to be the main bread winner AND childcare provider for our family for the last 4 years. Until recently, I would not have entertained the thought of letting go of this role, largely out of fear, of loss of control, of being thought of as unwise. The shifts in my focus have been culminating for about 3 years now, (beginning homeschool of Ethan, having a second child, and leaving a city I otherwise loved in order to pursue a lifestyle that would allow us to switch roles) all have been building to this sort of climatic moment when we must make some more decisions.

I see so many “signs” around me that I am right where I need to be, and that is encouraging. I have a deep sense of the importance that taking a leap of faith needs to be whole-hearted as well as mindful. I see a future in which I am not up late at night working anymore; I have more energy in the morning, am free to focus on the relationships in my life and create a home for my family without the stress of multiple deadlines and the guilt of having so little left to give.

With this, I also plan to take OFF my plate any thing that doesn’t need to be there. Writing for this blog is one of them. I plan to continue writing and journaling privately, and instead using MamaSeasons as more of a photo blog. As a person who has always found over committing to be a very tempting way of life (!), I’ll have to exercise a lot of discipline to let go of the excess and streamline my time. I just keep telling myself: the kids are only young once. Right now, creating a loving, balanced environment for them is my top priority.

Ok, I suppose I have rambled long enough! Have a Happy May Day, everyone! May your May hold promise and purpose!

For the most part, neither Chris nor I have ever lived in a rural area. Urban or suburban, even a retirement island in the Gulf of Mexico, yes, but not rural. Not the country.

This new move to the Fayetteville area has us considering a rural homestead for the first time (Fayetteville would be the “urban” option while a surrounding rural town could also be an option), and in doing so it’s brought a lot of things to the forefront of my mind.

For one thing, I was thinking about how limited I might be in a rural setting to find a “emerging conversation” type of church. Of course, I assume we’ll drive into the city on Sundays if we do settle down outside of “town”. And I got to thinking, But Why?

As I know it, the emerging church has been a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stagnant (among other things) conventional church I had been a part of (where adding drums to “Lord I Lift Your Name on High” was “edgy”). We had some like-minded folks in Lakeland, FL that we could have plugged into, but I don’t believe that we, as a family, were ready to do so. Of course, one isn’t hard pressed to find an “emerging” church in Portland, where you can actually be picky about which emerging church to go to based on who approves of female elders or not! *amused at self*

Let’s get back to my thoughts, which are kinda new and I’m not really sure I can articulate this well, but…

You see, the books I read in college about the emerging church seemed to boast that this new “conversation” was one that would engage culture and participate with deep involvement at the community level. I think I took this to mean, based on all the examples given to me, that this meant that the emerging conversation could now take place with a glass of wine in hand or a clever pipe stuck between the lips of a goateed young pastor. Engaging culture seemed to be limited to POP culture, or in the very least, URBAN culture.

As I began to imagine our family in a rural area outside of the city, my knee-jerk reaction was, I admit, that the part of me that feels its a missional mandate to engage my culture would have to die, lol. Which, I began to realize is so odd because I’m basically saying that the rural setting offers no culture with which to engage. No community? No change is needed or wanted?

Is that really true?

I wonder why all the homestead books and emerging church books speak of the lofty goals of reaching inner city and revitalizing forgotten bungalows without offering the alternate scenario: that small towns could also use brave folks who love Jesus and also care about social issues and environmental issues, who are (gasp!) democrat and also read their Bible? Could we go so far as to engage culture by having an emerging cohort meet at Denny’s (parish the thought! lol) or the Waffle House? Or maybe starting or finding a home church out in an area predominantly occupied by chicken farms just seems like too much of a juxtaposition. I don’t know. But doesn’t it beg the question???

I found this article when I googled this question and I really love this part:

I refuse to believe, as I’m betting many reading this do, that the emerging church is, or can be, only a big-city phenomenon. In fact, I and many others need to refuse this notion because many more of us than are known serve churches that are located on county roads, in the midst of cornfields, or in places with populations under 10,000 people. These local cultures of small-town sports and NASCAR and Harley-Davidson, of garden clubs and heritage festivals and factories and depressed neighborhoods next to new subdivisions, yearn for and are able to receive a genuine incarnation of God’s kingdom just as much as the punk rock kids and ravers in downtown Chicago or Minneapolis.

So let’s hear about the emerging Texas pastor who preaches in cowboy boots. Let’s hear about the group of young people ministering to others in their trailer park. Let’s hear about the church that gathers next to the lakeside cabin in the woods for baptisms. Let’s hear about the work being done with factory workers, miners, and farmers. Let’s hear about relating to attendees of bluegrass festivals and county fairs, of churches started in barns and storefronts, of conversations in taverns and greasy spoon diners and truck stops.

Let’s hear about pastors whose hearts burn for these types of places where postmodernism isn’t the label used, but where people may wonder every bit as much whether Jesus has anything worthwhile to say to them. These are places where there may be less competition by other religious worldviews and more by economics, local or national politics, or “this is just the way it is.”

The opportunity to broaden perceptions about this movement is there. The stories and examples exist.

One doesn’t need a big city to do what emerging churches do. But in these smaller places, we still need to do it.

I don’t know whether we’ll end up in town or outside of town, at this point there are many variables. But I think this has put a little fire in my belly about viewing rural areas with more understanding and desire for ALL people to have a living, loving relationship with Jesus and their community.

Anyway, more of this as things unfold, I’m sure. I might even start a separate blog to continue this journey, as there are SO many things I have to share. This year one of my priorities is to deepen my spiritual life and get to know God better. Anyone ever read any Thich Nhat Hanh?

When I give a whistle, here me shout!

Phew, does any one else feel like the compression in their brain is reaching the “red” territory and sirens are going off with weird “Lost” voice WARNING alarms??? Or — is that just me?

For now, I don’t know how to catch up this blog and it’s readers because I am still not at liberty to reveal the details of the journey I am on. In fact, I won’t be “in the clear” to do so for several months! Kinda agonizing for me to not get this out there for processing, actually — but I’m trying to see it as a lessons in keeping some things private

Suffice it to say, we have lots of decisions to make. I am having to learn all kinds of stuff right now, like a crash course in the grown-up-world (which I have in many ways been too stuck on “survive” to take part in for many years!) Arg, again, I would like to say more about that but trust me, the time will come.

I can feel myself being propelled forward by necessity and desire, yet at the same time that Still Small Voice and many wise friends/family remind me to take this slooooowwwwwwww. I can’t even describe what mixture of feelings and thoughts run through me in the course of a single day lately. I am burdened for they heavy, heart-breaking circumstances happening in the lives of people I love right now. I am struggling to stay present in my own life, (work, homeschooling, marriage, cooking, laundry) while at the same time doing the very real and necessary steps of future planning. As a plan unfolds before me, I feel at first relieved that it is there and then quickly that relief is replaced by the uncertainty of still more unanswered details. (You can relate, heh, Maw Maw?!)

Staying present is SUCH a practice in surrender — and I for one SUCK. AT. IT. Choice is at once liberating and a weighty responsibility — which must make me sound like such a preteen, lol, but it’s true.

Will my family flow gracefully into this next chapter? What hiccups will interrupt our song? What fallen trees will litter our road? Can we “let go and let God”? Can we trust that He is holding on to our loved ones during a time when we are helpless to be of any practical service to them?

Oh, I am just not cut out for life on earth!

And now I am going to spout off words to let off mental steam (tip me over and pour me OUT!):

settling, creditors, SEP, liability, CD, HSA, taxes, jobs, unemployment extension, wagon, reliability, mileage, towing, u-haul, Upstate, budget, giving, saving, credit score, lease, waiting, goals, waldorfing, masters degree, FAFSA, 2 hour yoga class from which EVERYTHING HURTS, fermented, bulk buying clubs, homeschool group let downs, postpartum, mental health, new mexico, job loss, unusable ankle, recovery, counseling, identity, homesteading, solar powered, first time homebuyers programs, dreads, new city, new friends, new neighbors, new church, new farms, new home, new yard, new chickens, new beds, new life — old habits?, JESUS!, decisions, liver and egg yolks.

I feel this week as though so much has changed. A simple, yet profound, shift has taken place. Will it last? Dear God, I hope so.

First of all, I have home schooled. Really home schooled. It’s been a long time. Since before we moved into the community house nearly, what, 10 months ago. Does this mean we did worksheets, flashcards, field trips and quizzes? No.

This week: Ethan made bread. He made Advent candles. He started ice skating lessons. He watercolored his heart out. He played with his nature table for HOURS each day. He didn’t watch TV and stopped asking for movies. He started taking 1 hour naps at the same time each day. He started whining less. He started reasoning with himself rather than arguing with us for the heck of it. He didn’t fight much at bedtime. He used his imagination. He learned new songs. He played outdoor games. He fell more in love with his sister. He fell more attached to his stuffed dragon, Scorch (who now comes everywhere, even ice skating.) He also enjoyed mama’s raw milk hot cocoa every day after his nap. His low point was a boy fight with a friend on Monday – the next time he saw him, however, I heard him say, “Let’s not fight anymore, okay? I really want to play good with you.”

Another endearing thing he said: “Mama, wow. God gave you really special eyes. They are beautiful. Like the inside of kiwi berries.”

He’s ran up and hugged me out of sheer excitement and joy several times a day. We’ve bowed a namaste to each other to share a moment of appreciation, a new “bit” we share.

This week: I spent time with my son. I gave him my attention. I mustered up more energy. I took two yoga classes. I didn’t work much (sigh. the tradeoff? I hope not…). I knitted two waldorf wool gnomes and made one floor puppet waldorf doll for Christmas presents, purchased an amazing wooden kitchen set made just this week by a local grandpa woodcraftsman to gift my children with for Advent/Christmas morning, made lots of soup, made lots of simple oatmeal cookies, made my FIRST loaf of bread in the oven, finally ordered a copy of All Year Round, ice skated with my son for an hour, and oh so much more. When I wasn’t with the family I was either working or feverishly crafting for the holidays. It’s been a tad glorious.

I also moved to a new blog, but kept the archive for mamaneedjava. In many ways I had outgrown that skin. And staying in it was holding me back creatively. The theme was too scattered and it wasn’t growing with me as I’d hoped. The audience was scattered, too. As delicately as I can put this, I must admit that I am now writing for an audience of peers, not extended family members simply looking for an update on the kiddos.

You see, MamaNeedJava began as an experiment in three things: 1. to exercise my writing, 2. to record mine and my childrens’ happenings, and 3. to integrate all of the various aspects of myself, the different “parts” I show and play for different people in my life, into one open-book, transparent, what-you-see-is-what-you-get-Vivian. And I’m so glad I did; It was a great experiment. It DID do all of those things for me. It totally fulfilled its purpose.

But now its time to scale back. Now its time to be vulnerable and transparent, but with more freedom and purpose. I can send photos and updates via email, but here, at Mama Seasons, is where I journal. Here is where I explore my limits, reflect, and set intentions. I want Mama Seasons to be for me another yoga mat; a place all my own, where I can feel weighted as well as the weightless, where I can feel as small as a child and as strong as a warrior in a matter of moments, where I can even doze off if I want to. I want this blog to be a safe place for me to do all this. A place where insecurities of others isn’t blasted into my comments nor the concerns of well-meaning parents show up in my inbox. This isn’t the place for that anymore. This is more intimate, more private. Please respect.

This is the place where I walk the path, and where ever I am is okay. This is the place where I spot “findings” on the side of the trail and bring them here to share with the walkers beside me, in mutual appreciation for this journey’s highs and lows.

As I continue to format and update the new blog, enjoy old entries of MamaNeedJava (with a grain of salt ), and look forward to picturesque moments caught on camera, Advent thoughts and ideas, and other Mama Seasons findings for the month of December.

I have been at a loss these last few weeks – a loss of what to share with you all. Not just on the blog but often in person as well. I feel like all the little munchkin workers running the factory inside my brain have all caught a cold; Everything is a little slower. Harry called in sick and Margaret is complaining about her migraine. Come on, Brain People, get to work!

I have tried a few times to bring you a new and interesting post, and each time I managed to get my wheels turnin’, my brain just said, “fart.” I’m not even kidding. I wish I were. I even think what came out had a bit of foul odor.

Is it motherhood? The constant lack of quality sleep? The ferocious amount of mental energy it takes to keep all the balls spinning on each and every finger of my hands (and the one I balance on my head too!)?

It’s not that I haven’t had anything on my mind, though. Just the opposite. SO.MUCH. Where to begin? How to carefully divulge — with what amount of vulnerability am I willing to risk?

On one hand, I could start and end with the daily hum drum of my life: What I did this week, how yoga is going, how my diet is going, how my marriage is going, how the kids are doing, how homeschooling is going, how work is going.

To all those questions, I would describe things as “just fine!” Nothing newsworthy, which is often a good thing. The week has been fairly balanced, I am still loving yoga even though I wanted to cry when my body would not do an inversion in dolphin position this week (don’t you love how yoga brings out those emotions, showing us how hard we can be on ourselves?!) I’m eating well enough. My marriage is having a good week, we’ve talked a lot and bla bla bla. The kids are good, though Ethan still drives me absolutely bonkers. (The phase he is in is the “DEMANDING” phase. Holy cow. Talk about stressful.) As you could see from my last post, Verity is doing great, already crawling and getting into every little thing. Homeschooling is a lot more like “unschooling” these days since I have been working quite a bit. Last week we went with the homeschool group to the Sauvie Island pumpkin patch and today was the Halloween Party (Chris, Misty and I went as Bollywood stars, Ethan was an alien — thanks to the crazy mother who stayed up all night knitting him a green hat to make into an alien costume…). Work is work. Between 3 clients and another 3 folks I “barter” my services for, things are busy, busy, busy. I’d say the category of “work related” stuff I do each week is teetering on over-time (i.e. 40+ hours/wk), simultaneous with my work as a mom/wife (160 hours/wk). I just keep telling myself that one day, rest will come. One day, the kids will be a little older. One day, Chris will bring in more income. One day. And I don’t say that in a woah-is-me voice, either. I truly am hopeful for that one day. If my dad harped on anything, it was the phrase, “This too shall pass.” Sweet Jesus, how true.

Then there’s all of those thoughts and questions which my mind just turns and turns and turns, until everything inside it is sweet n’ creamy butta, baby. Short and long term financial goals, mine and Chris’ strengths and weaknesses, personal triumphs and failures, which learned roles I take on that I really don’t have to, why I so easily slip into survival mode, why I can’t let go, where we’ll all be in 5 years, will Ethan and I ever be close again, will I ever be able to homeschool the way I want to, why I feel the need to not just deliver but IMPRESS, why I’m all of a sudden disgruntled with our choice to be carless, why we are always broke within a week of a paycheck,… all of these and so, so much more.

More things like new herbs I’ve learned about, new projects I’m knitting, how our new homegroup is growing, if and how I fit into the body of Evergreen Community, my frustration at the sewing machine for wrecking up the pillow covers I’m sewing –

WILL IT JUST SUFFICE IT TO SAY THAT I’VE GOT A LOT OF POTS ON THE STOVE?!

Yep. That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.

This has become a novel, hasn’t it? One big brain fart of a novel. And I didn’t even tell you the details of what I got out of the Betrayed, Redeemed Conference last weekend or anything else of significance in my life lately. I guess I’ll just save that all for a rainy day.

K, I just looked outside so I’ll rephrase that: save that all for a DIFFERENT rainy day.

Cheers, and happy almost- all saints day (stole that off of 30 Rock last night. That and “Good God, your breath! When did you have time to eat a diaper that you found on the beach!” …Ha! Cracks me up…)

Among the changes I wrote about yesterday, I’m also shifting a bit with my work-at-home-ness. While I continue to work on an as-needed basis for one client, it looks like my other long-term work relationship will be getting even more so as my role will be expanding a bit. Adding another title to my list of Random Things Vivian Does For a Living; namely, “Blog Editor”. Which I love – just the word “blog” gets me all smileys.

I worked on my new business website from Vivian Writes to Virtual Creatives last winter and while I haven’t had a chance to go back and improve the functionality yet, I’ve finally just let it be out there for the public because even unfinished it represents what I do much better than Vivian Writes did. I’ll be taking down the Vivian Writes site soon, I suppose. As of now, I’m not looking for another on-going client, unless Chris and I end up having him join me as an independent contractor and he would handle administrative tasks for a new client relationship. We’ll see. It’s a thought.

Well, baby is losing a lung right now she is crying so hard, so I better jet. Just wanted to throw this little tid bit out there.

What’s totally weird?:

• Being down to single digits on the countdown to Verity’s arrival. Tooooootally.

• At last upgrading to the latest Wordpress and updating to a new theme (after doing so for 3 clients already, finally giving a little TLC to my own blog). Kinda “spring”-ish, don’t ya think? Should last a few months, anyway.

• Having nothing, literally NOTHING, else to say right now.

UPDATE: I’ve just gone ahead and updated wordpress and my theme. Please excuse the dust while I spend a wee bit of time customizing! Also, let me know if you are having trouble viewing mamaneedjava in IE! I’m viewing it fine in IE 8.

If any one can help, here’s my prob:

Recently I was notified that my site isn’t showing up in the current version of Internet Explorer. According to an article I read, wordpress.com and photobucket.com (where I create my slideshows to embed here) are both having compatibility problems with IE 8. I want to make sure my blog is basically viewable for IE visitors to see my birth announcement when Verity is born, so I want to try to resolve this issue quickly. I do NOT have time or energy to get the homepage up to web standards because every little plugin and widget I have added over the years technically has some errors in validity. I plan to upgrade my version of wordpress to 2.7 and my customized theme to a web standards compliant, premium theme — BUT, that’s a project for like, maybe this summer, with much more on the front burner right now.

If anyone knows, for real, about why or how to resolve the IE issue quickly, drop me a line (vortecho (at) gmail (dot) com.

THANK YOU!

You probably can’t help but notice the redesign I did today- seems like this just has to be done sometimes, esp since I usually play with a wp-theme so much it becomes pretty dysfunctional!

After like 3 months of looking for the right free wordpress theme, I finally decided on Pitr. I’m sure I’ll play with the background, header, and colors allllll the time, but I do like the basic layout of his theme. Since some of you have written me about various problems with the last theme in your browser, I’m hoping this clean slate will help with that. I appreciate the feedback!

So enjoy! And let me know if you like it!