Scribblescratch.com is finally renewed again, for another year. Yay! I was starting to sweat like a pig for a minute there, thinking I was going to lose it. I’m so happy I didn’t and have to say, I really appreciate all the help Ermina provided for me in seeing that this got done. What a relief, a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders!

Now I can concentrate on getting the design blog up and running. I’m happy to report that the domain name is ready, Wordpress is installed, the design is up and all that’s left to do is add the content - aka, the premade design elements (themes, headers..). I’ve got several designs completed at this point, 7 to be exact. I decided to trash 2 because, well, I just didn’t like them in the end. Here’s a sneak peek of what’s finished thus far, just to give you an idea.

Click the image to view a larger version

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get ready to whoop some butt in a game of Yahtzee. I’ve not been doing very well in this game lately though, so I may need some help. I think tactical gear is a little extreme though…

To those of you coming to Scribblescratch.com for the free Wordpress themes, please know that I am working very hard to get the Live Demo site back up. I apologize for the inconvenience this may cause for the next few hours. I’m currently re-uploading all of the themes, and then I’ll begin adding the theme switcher back to those themes for easier browsing. Cross your fingers that nothing else goes wrong during this process.

EDIT; Adding links from scratch. Please bear with me on this, I’m sure there are going to be links I forget, I’m sorry - I hope you understand.

Scribblescratch.com has been a nothing more than a disaster for the last 8+ hours. An upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress went crazy, but I found the culprit - hacking. I hope it’s fixed now because I do not want to go through that crap again. I was on the verge of tears. And believe me, if I would’ve cried, I would’ve needed some pool floats to keep my head above that kind of water. Every time I go the new version installed and the SQL files imported, it went right back where it was. I decided to give it one last try and instead of importing everything, I’ve only imported certain things like the comments, posts, categories and I’m in the process of importing the links - bear with me, please.

I’m still having some issues with the categories, but I’ll try to work on that tomorrow. I’m way too sleepy and frustrated to work on anything else at this point.

To those I host, I’ve backed up your databases and had to completely wipe them out along with your Wordpress files - entirely. I apologize for doing this so suddenly, with no warning but it had to be done because each and every one of you had the same issue I have been dealing with tonight. I will try to work on adding databases for you tomorrow and install the newest version of Wordpress as well. After I’ve done that, I’ll import your backups and you should be set. I apologize again for the inconvenience you may face for the next 8-12 hours.

That being said, I am going to sleep. I don’t have the patience to do anything else at this point.

Sometime tomorrow, I will be taking Scribblescratch.com offline for a bit. It’s nothing major, I just want to put up a new theme and make sure everything functions properly and is validated as well. The validation part is already kicking my butt and I’m hoping that it’s not going to succeed in kicking my butt (aka, me giving up on it). I’m also hoping to incorporate a daily photo portion of the site, though I’m not sure if I’m actually going to follow through with this part or if I’m going to start back up with my photoblog (eyetakepictures.com). Either way I feel like it’ll eventually pose as more of a chore, so I’m still not 100% that I’m going to even do this. Ha!

Anywho. I just wanted you all to know that in case you stumble onto the site during that time. I’m hoping it won’t take very long and in the event that it does, I will likely just put the site back up until I have more time to tweak things. We’ll see!

I decided I liked that new theme I released so much that I had to use it too. Of course I tweaked mine a teeny bit from the released version. If anything looks out of place, please let me know. I finished it with very little sleep. I won’t deny the possibility of errors.

I also wanted to update everyone on my entry 50/50 chance. M. came out of surgery fine. It went better than expected and though they originally planned to keep her sedated for 48 hours post surgery, she was awake later that evening. In fact, she was sitting up in the bed having ice cream just hours after coming to. They were worried that she’d have seizures during the surgery but to the surgeons surprise, she didn’t. She began chemotherapy today but I didn’t think to ask how many treatments she’d have to have. We’ll get another update later this evening from her parents.

It has been a terribly long day. Well, yesterday was. It’s after 3am Newfoundland time.

First off I didn’t get much sleep. I woke up around 9am but didn’t actually get into bed until nearly 5am. Getting into bed didn’t mean falling to sleep right away, so it was at least a good 30 minutes before I finally wound down enough to relax and drift off to sleep. After getting up and having a bite to eat I decided to finish working on the site. After a few hours off and on, I decided I was satisfied enough with it. After finishing up with that I decided I should probably go ahead and upgrade my Wordpress. This is actually something I don’t recommend doing when you’re utterly exhausted and feeling as if you’re going to pass out at any given moment. Seriously. It was just like my brain shut down as I began doing the upgrade. Thank goodness I remembered to back up my database, themes and plugins. Shoo. It came in handy when I wiped out everything by accident and of course when I finally got everything back up it was like I forgot how to import my sql file. Whoops. Thankfully though, I was able to sort through everything.

When I finally got everything back up and running, I noticed I haven’t been having those database errors. I wonder what that’s all about? I’m not sure if it’s just from upgrading or if it was something with the slim-stat plugin that I decided to do away with. Either way I’m happy to see those errors go bye-bye.

This upgrade sure was a pest though. I can’t recall ever having so much difficulty upgrading, ever, as I did today. What a pain in the butt!

I guess I should probably get to bed soon. I’m exhausted and it’s nearly 3:30am. I have too much caffeine (pop) in my system though, something I’ve been trying to kick but have been failing at.. again. We played dice for about 2 hours. Not sure if that’s a “Newfie” thing or what.. but it was (is) fun, even if my mother in law and I didn’t win tonight!

EDIT; Oh my. Sorry for that disappearing act I just pulled. Upgrading didn’t go as planned. Not at all. Anywho, we’re back. There’s likely to be some more minor tweaking.. just FYI.

If you’re seeing a horrible mess on Scribblescratch.com at the moment, please excuse it. I’m in the middle of changing to a new theme, however, somethings could not be tested until I made it live. My apologies. I’m hoping that it isn’t going to take long but in the event that does.. I just thought I’d give you all a little warning.

Alrighty then.

I finally finished up reworking the themes section. Many if that wasn’t exhausting. Not only did I change the descriptions, I also changed the thumbnails and added that long-awaited-for demo site. Now when browsing my themes section, you can choose to view the live demos of each available theme prior to downloading. Hopefully all of my hard work paid off and you’ll enjoy this new way much better than the previous way. I also decided to add a small “introduction” to the themes page because there’d been a lot of confusion about the current theme I’m using. Many were under the assumption that it was available for download in it’s entirety. Not the case. Two of the free themes are very similar to this style but if that isn’t enough, you can certainly use my code - not my images (original stock image of the cherry blossom tree can be downloaded at stockxpert.com).

When I finished up the themes section, I decided to finally put up a section for free background patterns. Many people have asked to use some of the patterns found on my free themes, along with various background patterns I’ve used myself in previous designs. To make it easier on everyone, you can now download some of those from the new background pattern section.

Now that I’m finished with that, I’m taking a break and going to enjoy a snuggle-fest with the hubby and my two brats, aka Jynx and Bella.

Is it just me or are some of the images on this theme not showing up right now? I logged into my photobucket account, where I have them uploaded and they’re all there. I can see them perfectly but for some reason they’re not showing up for me. The images in the sidebar work fine but the header and background images are not displaying. I don’t know why they would show up in my photobucket gallery but not show up on my website. They were working fine earlier today. Can you see them, or is this problem just a “me” problem?

Actually, now that I’m trying to browse other websites, the internet in general is being a pest (aka, lagging and running a bit on the sluggish side).

My gosh I’m exhausted. We decided to celebrate Thanksgiving yesterday instead of Thursday because of Jo’s family (most of them) being unable to be here due to work and school. Jo made dressing by playing the guessing game. Neither of us have ever attempted it and the only person in my family that’s made it in the past is my grandmother and she’s unable to really communicate with anyone or even remember most things. No worries, he did it the way he thought it was supposed to be done and oh my goodness, was it ever delicious! I decided to make macaroni (my way, mm) and a caramel cake. Jo’s mom made the turkey, stuffing, peas pudding (strange but delicious), potatoes and gravy. We didn’t realize until after dinner that we forgot about the cranberry sauce. Whoops! How was yours?

In other news, I “redecorated” things around here. I’m still working on a few things and need to add a few things but overall, I like it. I also started working on a new Wordpress theme and will be announcing a new contest later this week!

I’m still finding a few “issues” with the current theme but I promise you I’m working hard, off and on, to fix some of the minor bugs which you may or may not be noticing. One of the bugs I’m trying to fix, that you might not have noticed, is a small footer image below each entry. For some dern reason the code sends it to the wrong location and gosh-dernit, I’m going to make it work no matter what it stinkin’ takes. I’m sure I’ll get it but it’s just not happening fast enough for me - I’m so impatient lately.

In other news; I got my flat screen monitor. Woohoo! I’m oh-so giddy. I’ve been using bulky, desk hogging monitors for years and I kept promising myself that I would eventually invest in something less desk-hoggy. That day finally arrived yesterday. It was a glorious day. You must love my dramatics here but seriously, it’s so nice to have a sleek flat screen. Of course it’s not a wide screen like my husband’s, which is something he keeps reminding me of but it’s certainly better than what I’ve had. That’s all that matters, honestly. I love it to bits.