Birthday in a Nutshell

My birthday came and went exactly how I wanted it… quietly.  As a result, I was really able to relax and enjoy some time with Stephen.  He was sweet and bought me too many gifts.  I gave him a few hints and he bought them all.  Spoiled much?  He bought me a wall sconce I had my eye on, the PC game Spore (Galactic Edition), and an electric gridle.  Nice.

Stephen and I had dinner with my sister and her husband the next day at a hibachi steakhouse.  Yum!  They gave me a cookbook about how to fix cooking mistakes (or make use of dried out meats and such).  I haven’t gotten a gift from my parents yet… that will come to me at our family dinner at the end of the month.  They did give me a card but I am not sure what to think of it.  You can see for yourself in the pictures below.

Fab Feb!

My birfday (that is- birthday) is next Wednesday (Feb. 11)  and all I want is quiet.  I love having people over and entertaining, but I am getting worn out.  I just need one weekend with Stephen at home… no one going out or coming in… unless we want to eat dinner somewhere!  I thought about having a house warming/birthday party because we have a number of friends who have not seen our home yet.  But I am more in the mood to be entertained, not be the entertainer.

The weather right now is so fantastic, it feels like spring.  I know it won’t last, but I am enjoying it.  So far this month is opposite of winter.  I am seeing Robins everywhere and today I was chased by bee.  On groundhog’s day, I saw a peacock.  Seriously, I did!  I took the dog for a walk in the neighborhood and my parents came along (I have witnesses).  I am used to seeing turkey on my walks and when I saw the peacock, I had to do a double take.  It almost felt normal for some reason, as if peacocks were native Nebraska birds.  We soon realized that it is someone’s pet.  It stayed close to the home and eventually sat down by the front door.  Ok… that is odd.  I had no idea you could domesticate a peacock.  I would have taken a picture with my phone but I was struggling to keep the puppy from charging at it.

In other news, we are still very busy during the week and trying to simplify our lives by getting organized.  We struggle with staying on the same page.  To help us out, we have been looking for online to-do lists that send us reminders.  We are testing out Remember The Milk.  Once we get our priorities straight we will be ready to start more house projects.  I can’t wait to get more paint on the walls!

A Sample

Wow… I typed this post over a week ago and am just now publishing it!

Below are a couple of design concepts I have for my Super Laurie site.  Remember, these are just concepts and the actual design may or may not include elements from the samples.  Feel free to comment about what looks good.

Things I like:

• The tabs.  The shape of them may change and they can be either horizontal or vertical.  I definitely want tabs over a box with links (pardon the lack of design lingo).
• The Super Laurie icons.  Although, they probably won’t be on every button (that’s just overkill).

Things I need or need to change:

• None of the examples are very cartoon-like.  I like very simple designs, but it needs more to feel like SL.
• A universal Super Laurie logo
• A complete icon set: I need icons for my comments, users, next/previous buttons, etc.

I will add more samples to this post as I finish and continue to discover how I want the design.  To view the samples in full scale, you need to click on the image 100 times (give or take) to zoom… and even full sized, the quality is fairly poor… I’ll fix that later.