R E T R O P H O B I C . N E T

http://melilyn.com

But change is for the better, right? Of course, right.

All you have to do is try the theme on your own site or on some other WordPress install, and tell me if I’m missing anything, if I need to change or fix something, or if it doesn’t even work.

Leave me a comment or contact me, and I’ll get the theme to you. Thanks!

Eight junk drawers over the span of four years can breed some pretty interesting stuff…

1. Cassette tapes. No, seriously! Rebecca St. James and Five Iron Frenzy. I’ve had those since about third grade and I probably wore holes through both of them over the years. I don’t even think I have a tape player in the house anymore. Maybe I’ll go buy the CD’s… for old times sake.
2. Signed postcards from a Jake concert. Well, two of the three anyway. According to Google, I don’t know if these three guys even exist anymore. They probably do, but with a group name as commonplace as “Jake” they’re probably buried somewhere in the internet. They’re kind of cool, though. Maybe I’ll frame them.
3. My script from B’nai Shalom’s production of Star Wars Purim. Remember Darth Haman? Mordecai Skywalker? Jewbacca??
4. My school journal from first grade. Now, I think I found this a couple of years back, thought it was cute, and threw it in there. Looking back, I think it’s pretty darn creative. Most first grade journals say things like “We had brokly for dinerr” or “I lik to coler with craons”… mine’s full of stories about lions, dinosaurs in outer space, and a flying sled. Go figure.
5. An envelope with about nine Israeli stamps on it, another envelope covered in two cent stamps (enough to equal a normal stamp!), and a bunch of letters from Becky that never made it into my letter box. Oh, and I’m tickled that one of the stamps on the Israeli envelope has the name of a Lost episode on it. Can you guess which one?
6. A business card from some obscure Missouri mechanic. We had car trouble when moving here in ‘04, and pulled off the beaten path. Thank goodness we found this guy!
7. A dream journal from 2002. What was I on? Okay, it’s kind of embarrassing. It’s going in the trash.
8. There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom by Louis Sachar. Very much loved, very much dog-eared, and very much written back before he wrote Holes.
9. The third Jake postcard. Hooray!
10. Seven dollars and eighty three cents, two Sacajawea dollars, and a Canadian dollar minted the year I was born.

This is what makes spring cleaning worth it. What’s some odd stuff you’ve found while cleaning?

So I got one of those corner computer desks yesterday. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I have to tear apart this desk and get it out of here before I can even think about getting the new one put together and set up. As a result, I might not be on much for a couple days… if not more. Ah well, my computer needs a break too, right?

I’ll try and be back asap.

Spent a little bit of time tweaking my theme yesterday, but mostly what I did was upgrade to WordPress 2.5. I’m a sucker for new releases. For everyone else waiting to upgrade, the new admin sucks and just completely doesn’t feel right AT ALL, but fluency admin fixes it all. Mostly.

I’m most likely going to a funeral on Tuesday, and interestingly enough, it’s not for my own grandmother. A lady I’ve worked with for the past year and a half had her husband pass away on Friday, so a couple of us are going, mostly to support her. Now here’s my kind of random/shallow question: Do people still wear black to funerals? I’ve only been to two funerals in my life… one was too far back and I was too emotional to remember, and the other was kind of awkward and I wasn’t thinking about clothes at all. Would it be bad to wear like… blue?

Oh, stop laughing at me!

Mom posted a prayer request to some of her friends, some of which she’s never met in person, and two ladies in particular felt led to bless my family financially, so we had gone from “I wish we could get Dad up there at least,” to “Well, let’s tell the kids that at the end of this week we’re going to PA.” I would stay home.  I had work, and a million pets at home to take care of.

Last Monday night, Dad came home from work crying. His sister (who seriously never talks to us) had called him and told him that the only reason his mom was holding on this long was that she wanted to see him again. It was decided that the family was leaving first thing the next morning. We grabbed everything together, packed it, and I shooed the family out at about nine the next morning. They drove straight through and made it to his parents’ house in about twenty-four hours.

She’s been getting steadily worse, and they knew she wasn’t going to make it for more than a couple more days. She was awake for some time to see and talk to the family, but as the days went on, she was only waking up for fifteen minutes or so, and she was in a lot of pain. We knew it wouldn’t be long.

This morning, one of the dogs woke me up at about five thirty. I let him out, and then went back to bed because my alarm wasn’t set to go off until about seven thirty (sleep in day!). During the time that I was asleep, I had a strange dream.

Mom-mom (that’s what we called her growing up) was sitting in an old fashioned horse-drawn carriage, and I was helping her with the blanket on her lap and the pillow behind her, trying to get her comfortable.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t be here,” she said.

“But I am here.”

“It’s okay that you weren’t here before.” She was straightening her blanket, folding her hands on her lap. “I have to go soon, so I’m glad you are here now.” The carriage started to pull away as I stood and watched.

“Goodbye!” I called. She turned slightly in her seat and waved back at me. Shortly after that, I woke up to the sound of my phone making its “you’ve just been texted” noise. I knew, before I even reached for the phone, what had happened.

“Your grandmother passed away this morning.”

I guess there’s not much else to say. I’m glad I got to say goodbye, kind of in my own way. I like to think that she stopped by here before she went to be with God. It’s an oddly comforting thought. I’m sad that she’s gone, happy that she’s no longer in pain, and vaguely disgusted with myself for not caring more than I do. Goodbye, I guess. I’ll see you on the other side.

I’ve been working on it for about a month now. There’s still a few kinks to iron out, some pages to tweak and some content to edit, but honestly, I’m pretty happy with it. Probably more happy with my site layout then I’ve been in a long time.

And for those of you who’ve been wondering, yes, I plan on releasing Paisley to the general public very, very soon.

It’s been a while since I’ve been skating (and it’s something I love to do and could probably do it in my sleep). When I was younger, going out to the local rink was, like, the coolest thing you could do… whether you were a kid, a teenager, or a college kid. The music rocked. Everyone had fun. Now, don’t get me wrong… I had a great time. But I noticed that the only people there were… oh, about three feet high. A couple of parents. A couple of teenagers that work there. The one freaky loner that’s actually a pretty good skater, but you don’t really want to get closed to him because he just kind of radiates weirdness. It surprised me how the skating rink just isn’t as “cool” as it used to me.

Bahh. When have I ever been one for cool? We had a great time. And I’ll try and update more often. New theme is almost ready for release!