We've moved!

Yep, it's official now. Not Quite What I Had Planned has jumped ship and gone here.

I hope you'll mosey on over and join me.

PS. And if you've been kind enough to add me to your links over the years, or recently, or at any time in history, please make note of the new address and update your blogroll .... I don't want to lose any of you! www dot notquitewhatihadplanned dot com

Thanks!

*Maybe* Elvis has left the building???

"AGH! Can you post the entire url, I cannot access the link you gave. :( "
>>>>>>>>>>>

Oh, ok.

Try here.

Or just go to www dot notquitewhatihadplanned dot com directly.

And then leave me a message letting me know it worked.

Because I haven't gotten a single comment since I made the switch.

Not one.

Even my most boring posts EVER usually warrant a comment or two, even if its to tell me how boring they are.

So either the new site is de-funct, or everyone hates it --- which would really suck for me.

Or maybe my mic is not working ... hello? Hello?

Is this thing on????

Updated to add:

"the site is working but there is not a comment section.....it says no comment in fact."

Well, what *should* happen is that you can click on "no comment" and then you get the opportunity to leave one. Then once one person does, it should say "1 comment" .... etc. Hopefully someone will leave a comment and we can see if its working properly! :)

Updated again to add:

"I sent you a comment yesterday and it told me that it was awaiting moderation.??????? Love the new site."

Oh. Em. Gee. I. AM. A. MORON!!!! I didn't even KNOW I had to approve the comments!!! Ha!

See, here's where I'll confess: my feelings were a teensy bit hurt that I didn't think anyone was going to the new site, or that no one even noticed I had changed things over. I kept thinking, "I know I've been neglecting the blogger site and not posting as regularly, but wow, people just dropped off like flies! I'm ready to start posting regularly again, and nobody even noticed???"

Now I go over and realize I have 23 comments waiting on me -------- how funny is that? How funny am I? And by "funny", I mean "incredibly stupid" :)

Well, excuse me, I'm off to approve some comments. :)

Ladies and Gentlemen, Elvis has left the building

Well, I've got news. And I've got more news. And I've got hopeful news.

The Not Quite party has moved.

To here.

I sincerely hope you'll join me. And then bookmark the new site, and visit again.

Sacrifice the limb to save the life

I'm going to be MIA around here for the next week or so.

I received a reminder yesterday that due to my old photo storage site shutting down, the first five year's worth of my journal entries will become the internet equivalent of a boat anchor in about four weeks. That's when the storage site (that I have faithfully paid for, every single month, since November of 2003, not that I'm freaking BITTER or anything) is being shut down and all my photos along with it.

I thought I had dodged this bullet by upgrading my storage site, but I found out this week I had not.

The photos have actually been saved, but they will disappear from my blog forever if I don't manually change the url addresses of almost two thousand photos ... one by one .... by hand .... individually .... manually .... yes, I know you know what the word "manually" means, but I feel the need to drive home the point. Do I really want to spend several hundred hours poring through my archives and changing each address? No, no I do not.

So at this point, I feel my options are threefold:

1) Accept that the blog entries themselves aren't going anywhere and learn to live with almost two thousand little red x's, where the photos for the last five years should be.

2) Accept that this blog has run its course, do nothing, and shut down the site. Then spend the time I normally spend writing here doing other things (Blaine: "Kristie, let me introduce you to the vacuum cleaner!" .... and relieving myself of the anxiety I feel when I have nothing to blog about.

3) Accept that I need to be a little more proactive about transferring my content over to a site of my own before it is all deleted. This is the option I am most seriously considering, but I have to get all my ducks in a row, so to speak, before I can move forward with this plan.

So excuse me while I spend the next few days (FINALLY! This is what I get for procrastinating .....) transferring the remainder of my blog archives over from Caringbridge. And hope that the web design team I'm consulted can really and truly save everything as easily (although not cheap ...) as they say they can.

I don't want to quit blogging. I enjoy doing this. I consider it my personal journal and love the fact my children's childhoods are being documented in this way.

But I have to be realistic about the time and money I'm willing to put into this. This is not a business blog or a blog for money or a blog for ads or a blog that really accomplishes anything besides for my own pleasure .... its just my silly little personal blog. For now, I'm sacrificing the limb (updating for the next week or two) in the hopes I can save the life of the blog.

Please excuse the absence.

The Brunch

Who was taking odds? Anyone? Anyone?


Dudes.


I.
Dropped.
A.
Plate.
Of.
Breakfast.
Food.

On.

Her.

LIVING ROOM FLOOR.

Oh, yes. Yes I did.

Luckily, the very nice lady sitting next to me helped me pick up the food before too many people noticed. Of course, everyone probably noticed the cold sweat I broke into when it happened, but I can at least be grateful that I was holding my bowl of Quaker Oatmeal in my hands when it happened so at least **that** didn't spill out everywhere, too.

It was a lovely morning; a lovely brunch. A consummate hostess, and funny, bright, warm, welcoming guests.

Oh, and ... a Channel 4 news crew. I got the heck out of their way in case they tried to interview me and I fell into the camera guy or something. The women around me, however, were cool as cucumbers on camera.

I *think* I was the only Republican there, but no one pointed fingers or made me eat outside. Of course, if Susan had seen what a slob I was, spilling my food all over the place, she might have asked me to.

And whether you like Obama or not, voted for him or not; a presidential inauguration is still a heartwarming and inspiring ceremony, and I'm grateful for the chance to watch it with other women who were also touched and inspired. Even if they were tons smarter than me and were calling out the names of all the cabinet members and members of congress and a bunch of other people who just looked like old people to me.

So, in summation:

1. Good luck, Mr. President. May you prove yourself worthy of the hopes and dreams and ideals so many are pinning on you.

2. Thank you, Quaker Oats, for sponsoring the brunch. Remember, go here to help stamp out hunger in America's youth.

3. Thank you, Susan, for hosting me. I had a very nice time and would love to get together again sometime. I promise if you invite me over again, I'll clean up after myself! Call me! .... {{waving frantically like a 12-yr old girl}}

4. Mini lemon poppyseed muffin rolling across the living room floor? Totally embarrassing.

Sitting at the Popular Table

You know how over there on my sidebar I have a list of blogs that I follow? Well, some of them are people that I know personally, either here in OK, or around the country. Several of them are people I met, either online or in person, back in the Caringbridge days. In fact, I have several more CB links I should add over there, when I'm not so lazy busy. Most of them, however, are people I don't know at all, except through their blogs.

One of the first blogs I ever started following was this one. I've been reading her blog religiously for probably four or five years. We have very little in common as far as our daily lives go, considering she has seven kids and I only have three, and she has the patience to home school and I ..... uh .... do NOT. But, she still cracks me up with pretty much everything she writes.

Through her blog, I found this blog. Oh, probably two years ago or so is when I started following along. And I really don't have much in common with her, either, considering she's a total fashionista and my idea of haute couture are my good jeans from JC Penney. But she's funny, and enjoyable, and bonus points, lives in Oklahoma. So I felt connected and continued to read and now I'm totally hooked on what she has to say.

Through her blog, I recently discovered this blog. And although I've only been reading a short time, so I have no idea if we have anything in common, she already cracks me up. I was actually sad a few weeks ago when she took a brief blogging break to ... oh, I don't know .... do some minor thing like have a baby. Yep, that's how selfish I am .... she was busy birthing a child, and all I could think about was how much I missed her updates and when would she be coming back?

Anyway, these are just three examples of blogs I follow regularly. Blogs of women who are fabulous writers --- who in fact, are paid to write and give advice, and who have advertisers on their site, and who go to blogging conventions, and speak publicly and what have you ... all kinds of cool stuff. And on a regular basis, I sit back and am entertained/touched/prodded/impressed/pickyouradverb by them and their writing. At some point, I've left comments on these three blogs and all three ladies have taken the time to reply, which thrilled me. I realize that probably makes me sound all fan-club-y and pathetic, but it's true. I'm grateful they share their lives with me, even if it's vicariously through the internet and that makes me almost a little stalker-y creepish. Yes, I realize I'm one of hundreds, probably thousands, of people who enjoy these blogs every day .... and that's ok. I'm happy to just follow along.

So imagine my surprise when I got an e-mail from this one a few days ago. An e-mail (are you ready for this?) inviting me TO HER HOME for brunch, and champagne, to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama. I know!!! One of my favorite bloggers, inviting me to her home?? With other bloggery friends of hers??? Can you even imagine how much total AWESOMENESS that would be?!? So I did the only logical thing I could do --- e-mailed her back and said there must have been some mistake. I mean, she doesn't even know me, and not only that, I'm (shhhhhhhhhhh) Republican. So although I certainly had fantasies about meeting them all and becoming BFFs and exchanging texts and hanging out at Starbucks for witty blogging banter on a regular basis, I figured it was a computer glitch and the invitation was sent in error ....

Then! She e-mailed back and said nope, it wasn't an error, and I was really invited. Holy cow, I almost wet myself!!

So I've spent the past few days thinking about what I'm going to wear because dudes, seriously. She, like, gives fashion advice on the internet. I don't think my favorite boots from Goodwill and the sweatshirt I bought in Alaska are going to cut it. And thinking about what I can possibly say to impress these women that I am a rational, intelligent person, and not some bumbling fool who loses her head when nervous or under pressure. (Which, ok, I have been known to do, thank you very much.) And thinking about what intelligent things I can possibly say about our new president. Who I didn't vote for, but she promised she wouldn't hold that against me.**

Basically, I'm nervous as hell I'm going to be out of my league.

Blaine, being the helpful pillar of common sense he always is, told me to pull my head out of my butt and that they'd like me just fine. What could go wrong, after all? What could go wrong? What could go WRONG???? Do you REMEMBER who you're talking to????

So, I've thought about it. And come up with an entire list of things that could possibly go wrong.

1. I get lost on the way to her house and have to call for directions, establishing myself as the biggest moron on the planet -- it's not like Oklahoma City is that hard to navigate.

2. I find her house ok, but hit another car in the driveway. Given my recent driving situation, we all know this is a real possibility.

3. I get out of the car, trip going up her sidewalk, and break my leg. Embarrassing, but totally could happen. If it does, I will crawl into the bushes and lie there until brunch is over rather than risk the humiliation.

4. I knock on the front door, and when Susan opens it to let me in, I trip and fall on her. I've seen pictures of her on her website and guesstimate that I outweigh her by about fifty pounds. If I landed on her, I would snap her like a twig.

5. I will not drink enough mimosas and be thought of as a party-pooper.

6. I will drink too many mimosas and be thought of as an obnoxious lush.

7. I will spill my mimosa in any part of her house. (Note to self: research ingredients in mimosas, and also best home remedy for cleaning. Then carry bottle of cleaning remedy in purse to party.)

8. I will make an ass out of myself by calling all her super-cool blogging friends by the wrong names.

9. I will be the only person there who has never been to a Blogher conference and is therefore officially the lamest blogger-guest ever.

10. I will drop the baby and break it.

11. I will go to the bathroom and come out with my skirt tucked in my pantyhose. (Note to self: do not wear skirt.)

12. I will forget to take my McCain/Palin button off my coat. (Kidding, I never wore the button.)

13. I will have an allergic reaction to some kind of food that is being served, and have to ransack the guest bathroom for children's benedryl to avert breathing crisis.

OK, see? I'm not even allergic to any foods! I'm worried about stuff that cannot possibly happen. (Except for the broken leg or the spilled mimosa. Those things could TOTALLY happen.) Yes, definitely, number seven probably has the highest degree of likelihood.

But you know what? I'm just going to go and have a good time. If these ladies are even half as cool in person as they are online, it will be fabulous. And I'm going to enjoy myself, skirt tucked in my pantyhose and all.

To be specific, however, let me give you a little information off of the blog:

"The very kind people at Quaker Oatmeal are sponsoring 11 house parties across the country, including mine. But they’re doing more than just hosting parties — Quaker is partnering with Share Our Strength, a network of food banks that target children, to help Mr. Obama keep his promise to end childhood hunger in America by 2015. Through February 28, you can go to the Quaker Start With Substance website and enter the UPC from any Quaker hot cereal; for every UPC entered, Quaker will donate one bowl of oatmeal to Share our Strength, up to one million bowls of oatmeal."

So see? That's pretty awesome. A chance for me to rub elbows with the popular people, and help out a worthy cause at the same time. I've already entered the upc code from every box in my pantry .... I hope you'll do the same.

And wish me luck tomorrow that I don't break my leg walking up the sidewalk.

**For the record, I have nothing against Obama personally.*** I just worry in America's zest to elect a black president, we elected the WRONG black president. It is my sincere hope that I am proven as wrong, as wrong can be.

***That is Blaine's job, Mr. "Pessimistic for the Next Four, Good Heavens, Don't Let it be Eight Years".

#37

You know how sometimes in life you hang on to things, or ideas or beliefs, even when you can't remember why? You have no idea how a silly little tradition even started, yet it continues? Like wearing a favorite shirt on Fridays, or eating all your fruit before your meat, or obsessively lining all your canned goods up facing frontwards in your pantry (not that I know anyone who would be **that** anal-retentive ... ahem) or whatever ....

My silly tradition is the number 37. I have said for years that it was my favorite, lucky number, although I have no idea why. In fact, I've said it for so long that even though I no longer believe it to be true, I feel a certain loyalty to good ole' 37, and I notice it all the time now .... on signs, in stories, whatever. I always scroll to number 37 on a list, or select 37 if given a choice, etc. Goofy, I know, but there you go.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I put a widget on this blog for people to sign up as "Followers" of Not Quite. Sort of a neat little tool, over there on the right hand side, showing thumbnail pictures of the people kind enough to let me know they visit here, and also letting the rest of us check out their blogs, as well. I love it, because it's an easy way for me to quickly click on other people's blogs and check up on them (and yep, I do it a lot, although I'm pretty guilty of lurking, if I'm being honest.)

Naturally, I noticed the day my 37th regular follower showed up ... although if I count backwards now she is no longer 37 (does that mean someone already signed up, then dropped off my blog???? Wow, that's humbling) she was definitely the 37th to sign up, so I'd like to introduce all of you to her today:

Lucky #37 was Marci, of The Crazy Connell Family and Our Daily Lives. I've "known" Marci for years now through this insane contraption called the Internet. She and her fellow Prayer Bears followed Kendrie during her Caringbridge days, and were always kind enough to stop by and let us know they were keeping her in their thoughts and prayers during her leukemia treatment. Marci was kind enough to follow me over here to this blog, and let me peek in on her life -- and her beautiful daughters -- through a blog of her own. I *think* you have to have a Blogger ID to view her site, but I hope if you do, that you will. (huh? did that even make sense?) I'm also glad she's so laid back, since I totally just posted the link to her site without asking her first.

\\waves to Marci: hi! total internet transgression! hope you'll forgive me and look the other way!/>

So Marci, thanks for being such a great support to our family through the years. And thanks to the rest of you, #1 - 45, who signed up here as well. Your happy smiling faces on the sidebar of my site give me a happy, smiling face as well. :) (See? There it is!)

Quick Question

OK, as you probably noticed (or not) I changed the layout/background on this blog a few weeks ago. To be honest, I can't even remember why I did it .... I know there was a reason ... something to do with Blogger .... holy cow, I'm pre-senile-dementia.

Anyway, who cares why? Not me.

My quick question is this: when I selected the new layout, I chose a green-ish color template. Not quite olive-y, but one which I found not-terribly-jarring to the eyes, and thankfully *didn't* look like a graphics program had thrown up on my screen. (Much like Kendrie's little boyfriend threw up in my car on the way home from the amusement park yesterday ... but, that's another story for another day.)

But when I brought up Not Quite on my laptop yesterday, the template was as wedgewood-y blue as I've ever seen.

So let me ask you: When you bring up this site, is the background green or blue? Or otherwise?

Don't Ask

I clicked on "Upgrade" and all this new stuff popped up.

I think I might have done permanent damage.

Working on it .............