I haven't been posting as much as I'd like. It's not that I have nothing to talk about -- it's just that I've been busy LIVING my life (instead of writing about it). So this is an attempt to get somewhat caught up:
1. It took me all of last week, but I finished my for-hire website project, and I'm pretty pleased with myself. See it here.
It was a WordPress installation, something I've only done once before. But that time, I was stymied when it came to working with WP templates. This time around, I was fortunate enough to figure out that the Atahualpa theme was highly customizable. I guess that's why it's been downloaded like, a zillion times.
2. Even so, that modest little site kept me busy for the better part of a week, and then I had to go full steam into hosting mode, as my niece was in SoCal for the weekend... which meant her mom and dad - my sister and brother-in-law- also came down. So I had their family of five. Plus Carly's aunts and uncles from her dad's side of the family. And a few of their friends.
And we all know how well that turned out. (Yes, my previous post. About the dog.)
Aside from Sunday night's drama, I think everyone had a pretty good weekend.
3. I may have been mired in an alphabet soup of HTML and CSS -- but I still found time to eat. I returned to the Santa Monica Farmers Market on Wednesday (this time, with THREE friends in tow), and purchased a lot of goodies that were put to good use over the weekend. And I also made time to do a restaurant review.
4. My blog is not the only thing I've been neglecting lately. I have been mostly away from social networking sites - checking in with Facebook and Twitter sporadically (usually when I'm sitting in the car waiting for school to get out. WHATEVER did I do before I had a smartphone?) So when I started seeing a bunch of location tweets posted from foursquare, I didn't know WHAT that was. And when I investigated, I didn't know WHY I'd bother.
But then I saw my friends acquiring "badges" and getting named "Mayor" of places. And being something of a competitive jerk, I thought I'd give foursquare a try. And for the last couple of weeks, checking in has been something of a compulsion.
And I've even been named "Mayor" of a couple of places I frequent. The sad thing is, these are not cool restaurants and nightclubs. No, I'm "Mayor" of Gelson's in Northridge and Ralph's in Porter Ranch, which tells you that the most exciting thing I do most days is go to the supermarket.
I have a feeling that I'll soon add another grocery store to my list of mayorships: Yesterday, I attended the opening of the new Fresh and Easy store in Northridge. I've been waiting for this store to open for MONTHS. Years, really. You see, I'm a big fan of the chain's parent company, the UK grocery giant Tesco. So there's a confession for the books: I even end up hanging out in supermarkets when I visit other countries. In fact, one of the first things my husband and I do whenever we visit his family is head out to our favorite big Tesco Extra in Cardiff. I've even posted pictures of it on this blog. And we used to fantasize about how nice it would be to transplant a Tesco here in the States. | |
So you can imagine how pleased we were to learn that the big grocery chain had decided to gain a foothold here with their concept of fresh and prepared foods. We've been following Fresh and Easy's progress since they broke ground on their first Los Angeles stores... and were downright excited when we noticed that one would finally open in our own part of town.
The Grand Opening was yesterday - and it did not disappoint. As I still have a ton of food left over from all those guests last weekend, I only purchased a few things (mostly fresh fruit). But I love the way the store is laid out and I KNOW I'll be back to pick up some of the prepared meals for those nights I don't have time to cook.
Now... if only we can get Marks and Spencer to open some Simply Food stores here, life might be perfect.
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