After I finished the Parent News webdesign, Leonard asked me to be the editor there! ...So I'm doing that now too. The site is averaging 147 hits daily this week. I'm trying to add one new article each day.

Today my daughter and I went to Yreka - she had a doctor's appointment. It was a great day though I had to pull over and sleep on the way home. Its a two hour drive each way.. and since I got only six hours sleep the night before.. I decided to pull over at Horse Creek, in the big turnout just past the bridge. I've slept there before... don't ask me why, I just feel comfortable there. So my daughter let me sleep for about half an hour. It was sunset when I fell asleep and dark when she woke me up. That really did the trick - I didn't feel sleepy at all the rest of the way home.

I did two more websites this week:

This is Parent News - a publication of the American Family Rights Association. I'm doing a redesign for the owner, Leonard Henderson of Oregon. It isn't finished yet.

The new site for the California Family Rights Association. This one is nearing completion.

I just had to put a picture of my kids on the front of Parent News... not that very many people will recognize them.. they haven't been babies for a long time now!

Sorry I haven't posted here much lately. I've been so busy since mid-January... mostly not stuff I want to mention in this weblog, for the most part. Some things are better when forgotten.

Happy Valentine's Day! As of today Keith and I have been together three years... and we're still hoping for many more.

I was so distressed about everything that's been going on here I haven't been able to continue my normal happy, creative life. During the last three days I made an effort to put aside all other concerns and revive myself creatively and spiritually. It is working. Last night I had a productive webdesign work and writing night again. Also I spent two days working on my coast to coast weblog. Here's the redesign:



I also moved my writing website from happycampnews.com to klamathdesign.com... because I've given the Happy Camp News site to our local writer's club for a club fundraising project. It will be better for everyone, including the readers, when there's more people working on it. My writing website can still be reached at http://www.lindajomartin.com but right now it is terribly out of date due to all the problems I've had in the past couple of weeks. I'll be focusing on updating that soon.

TV = Idiot Box!

"This feels pretty cozy and heartwarming," my son said, 24 hours into a week without the TV.

After months of increasingly distressing fights over the TV, I finally reached the end of my rope last night and even convinced my boyfriend that we should take the damn thing out of the living room and restrict the children from using it for a week.

Let's just say the fights were pretty intense. We already tried setting hours for favorite shows so supposedly everyone's rights were to be respected. It didn't work. The fighting continued.

So anyhow, 24 hours ago the idiot-box went into the master bedroom. Let me tell you what's going on here tonight. The kids are getting along together just fine. My daughter, who as of late keeps telling me how uncool books are, has been sitting here reading her brother's book about yucky stuff (thanks for that Aunt Susan). She reads to herself and to him at times. Meanwhile he's sitting right next to her designing a mechanical dinosaur-shaped weapon. He created one (on paper) last night and is doing another one tonight, trying to figure out how everything could work.

Not one fight tonight. A miracle? Perhaps...

Now my daughter's trying to make a deal with me regarding housework. She wants to cook something for her brother. She wants to help him clean his room!

Down with TV's!!

Digital Camera Binocular, With Night Vision

I'm putting this link here to remind myself to buy one of these when we can afford it.

Digital Camera Binocular - Night Vision

Why would I need this?

Well, I'm looking for visual proof of strange beasts who dwell in the night.

I imagine myself hearing bumps in the night while sleeping in a van in the forest, then grabbing my night vision binoculars to look out the window, to see --

Well, I won't see a thing without the night vision.

Am I a Descendant of Neanderthals?

Am I descended from Neanderthals? I've always wondered where my red hair and freckles came from - I've always felt like such a freak because of the freckles, though my red hair is dark enough to look brown at times.

Red hair a legacy of Neanderthal man

Red hair may be the legacy of Neanderthal man. Oxford University scientists think the ginger gene, which is responsible for red hair, fair skin and freckles, could be up to 100,000 years old. They say their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man, who lived in Europe for 260,000 years before the ancestors of modern man arrived from Africa about 40,000 years ago.

Warm Daughter and Writing

I'm happy to report that my daughter is now wearing warm winter clothing. She decided she likes sweatshirt jackets with the huge pockets in front. She has a gray one she wears almost every day now.

I've been staying out of the chatrooms lately... no time for that anyhow. I joined a writer's community online after finishing NaNoWriMo on November 17 - and went to one of their chatrooms but for only a few minutes - then I had to go get busy on my current writing project. I want to go back to the AOL writers' chats, but just didn't have time this week.

I think my email this week is kinda boring too... I couldn't find even one thing I wanted to share here today. I put a lot of my creative thinking into fiction this week.. not into blogs or emails or anything else. I wrote a children's humor story that I hope to revise and send to a magazine publisher.

Webshots

I just started a new photo album account at Webshots.

Webshots is a great place to get beautiful desktop wallpaper. The photography is amazing!