The new layout for the site is almost finished – I just need to finish the CSS and mess about with some new plugins.

I realised how rusty my coding is at the moment because a few days ago I tried for about an hour just to change the colour of the links, and the CSS file is pretty big for the new layout (and I’m thinking I might have to have another separate one just for the sidebar) so I was thinking I was changing the wrong line or something. I was going mental wondering what was going on…and then looked at the site when I was at work and noticed the CSS was fine – my cache obviously needs clearing at home. I’m such an idiot.

At the moment I’ve given myself the deadline of 1st March to get everything done. I’ve set aside most of the next two weekends to get on with it. Obviously most pages at this stage will stay the same…but I’ve made new drafts of lots of currently rubbish pages, the menu will be rearranged and with new sections, there’ll be new pages and of course a new layout. There will also be some pages deleted. I’m intending to aim this site more at slightly older people with a focus on creative things like tutorials, articles etc. I am still keeping the ‘younger’ stuff like dollmakers though, and quizzes generally keep a range of people interested. So it’s going to be a mix of creative and learning and general random fun stuff.

I’m also looking for affiliates/link exchanges to be permanently linked on the homepage, so if you’re interested drop me a comment.

As far as personal stuff goes…Valentine’s Day was lovely, we spent it in Bath and there was lots of interesting stuff to see and do and buy there, including lovely handmade fudge and Italian ice cream.

Last night I began watching Gosford Park (does anyone else find keeping track of 30 characters confusing?) and fell asleep at about 7pm. I didn’t wake up until 10:45pm and then couldn’t sleep until 2am. Sigh. So today I’m pretty tired, and I have to wait until Friday to catch up on sleep.

I’m going to buy new clothes after payday as my shoes and coat are falling apart. I’m trying to save money for next month though – it’s Joe’s birthday, a couple of my friends’, my sister’s 18th and Mother’s Day. March and April are always expensive present buying months for me.

I cashed in my review points a couple of days back to get a 500GB hard drive from Amazon. I can transfer all my laptop data to it and hopefully free up space from the almost full drives. I’m also planning to pass my old laptop on to my dad at some point. Though it is incredibly useful having two whilst doing webdesign and video editing because one has Vista and a small screen, and one has XP and a wide screen, so it’s useful to get around XP/Vista restrictions and view things in different sizes.

Right now we’re off to have lunch and then take a walk to the nearby garden centre (I suggested it for a bit of fresh air and exercise, I don’t like being stuck behind my desk all day). Unfortunately it means less time to spend working on the site. I usually do it through lunchtime because FTP refuses to work with my mobile internet, and last night the internet refused to work at all. I hope it’s fine when I get home tonight otherwise I’m going to get really behind…

Well, as you may or may not have heard, depending in what part of the world you live, there is a lot of snow in England at the moment. More than some of us have ever seen! Where I’m living it’s almost up to my knees – yes I am short, but that’s still a lot of snow! There’s a snowman at the end of my road that is literally bigger than I am.

The local schools have been closed all week, there have been tons of road accidents, and depending on how old you are, you’re either gleefully throwing snowballs or freaking out because your car won’t start or has spinning tyres. Funs and games all round then…

The snow has been a big issue at work. There are lots of staff members who, like me, live locally. There are also lots of others that live way out in the countryside or an hour’s drive away. We were told ‘get in if you can’ – our team apart from one member has made it in. The others…not so much. One of the directors, V was pretty mad about this and has been doing a register. One of the other directors, A, has taken the opposite approach and sent every team she came across home. V was furious when she found out, apparently, and A is, shall we say, something of a volatile person, so I’m guessing this isn’t the last of it. The end result was that yesterday I left at half 3, and today at 12. Considering I took Monday and Tuesday off as holiday, I’m not doing too badly this week!

The roads are pretty dangerous as there is a lot of ice under the snow, but I’m okay walking in, and my hamstrings are surprisingly stronger from trudging through all the snow. All the buses have been cancelled, which means I’m pretty much snowed in for the weekend really.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as I had no plans anyway (last month was so busy I wanted a break), and this way I get to catch up on various Internet things, work more on Blossom’s new layout and content, and probably do boring chores like tidying and filing.

Oh, and thanks for the reassurance about IE, perhaps it’s a problem with older versions and Wp..or just Joe’s computer

Side note: My heart just stopped when I couldn’t access Blossom through Internet Explorer. I’m using Joe’s laptop not my own so I have no idea if it’s just a problem this end – is anyone else using IE that can help me out and tell me if they see a problem here??

Anyway, the new content for the site and redesign is coming along well. I’ve finished the layout banner and am most of the way through coding the new theme, so yay! I want to play about more though and customise everything I can think of. I’m feeling downhearted because I’ve been browsing some sites for inspiration and there are some amazing designs out there Oh well…

On a happier note, I’ve saved tons of money over the past few days. It is going a bit extreme now for me though, to the extent where I don’t want to spend money on something unless I’m going to save or get something free somewhere (I’m turning into such a cheapskate!).

Today we went out for lunch at the Slug and Lettuce – lovely food, and Mondays are 50% off day. So 2 big burger meals, tempura vegetables, 2 drinks, a sticky toffee pudding and a chocolate pudding came to only £18. Yay. Yesterday we went to the cinema and thanks to a voucher, got 2 cinemas for 90p to see RockNRolla. It was an okay film, made better by the fact that Matt King was in it. Some of the characters were a little wooden, but it was full of action…and at 45p a ticket I can’t complain.

Today I saved the most money of all – I went to upgrade my phone and walked away with:

A new £300 Samsung that is so shiny and awesome with a touch screen

Samsung speakers

A phone docking speaker system

An 8GB SD micro card

£31.21 in cash (I signed up for the insurance plan and they gave me this money to pay for the first 3 months, but after that I’ll cancel)

100 more minutes per month than I had before and unlimited texts

- all for nothing! A grand total of £391.21 of free stuff, which is so awesome. My contract is still £35/month, but the free stuff alone will pay for the first 12 months. Haha.

In other good news, I’ve also heard a rumour that I may possibly be in line for a promotion/job role change at work, which could work out quite well. So fingers crossed on that one too