Sorry for not being around or keeping up with my email (as usual)  :-D  I have a couple of big projects on the go, and am also trying to take a bit of "me" time each day too.  One of these sites has to do with Covenspace, but it's a secret for now (ha ha). So please forgive my absense.

Argh. Just got my school package for Em (starting kindergarden in September) and i'm all annoyed and frustrated now.

First of all, the "alternate fridays" are totally jumbled up. She goes to her fathers every other weekend for 4 days, which has been our arrangement for the past 3 years. But now the school schedule has the fridays all mixed up, so she has school on fridays for 2 weeks in a row nearly every other month, making my life very awkward. Obviously, school comes first, but it would be MUCH easier to just have every other friday instead of this mixed up mess. So now some months, she'll be gone for 2 weekends in a row and sometimes she'll be with me for 2 weekends in a row.

The school makes it very clear that you should teach your child their bus number, and also provides a big coloured tag to go on backpacks that we are supposed to write the bus number on. So when I get my bus info sheet today, what do I get? A route number. So is that the same thing or what? I called and yes that's the right number. How stupid is that, to refer to it as the bus number about a dozen times and then provide people with it as a route number.

And on the bus info sheet there are 2 times given. 8:18am and 4:49pm. Though they are not marked, I am assuming that's pick up and drop off here at my house. FOUR FIFTY NINE PM. Are you kidding me? My little 4-year old won't be getting off the bus until nearly 5 in the evening? School gets out later than it did when I was a kid, at 3:45pm. School starts at 9:15am. So that's a total of two hours on the bus every day, and she gets home basically at supper time. I admit that this is my first exposure to this, but that doesn't seem too reasonable to me. The school is 10 minutes away.

Unless someone convinces me that this kind of bus trip is normal, I am likely going to take her off the list and just drive her to school instead. I was looking forward to not having to worry about getting my very long driveway plowed at the crack of dawn every day, but it looks like the ease of bus transit is not to be. Gaddammit.

edited to add: I do live in a rural area, so this bus likely has to cover quite a distance to pick up all the farm kids. I guess we are just on the wrong end of the route. First to be picked up and last to be dropped off.

I have no idea why she says "vanilla" of all things......

The other "em" videos that show up after this are just random ones, and NOT my Em.

As of today, Em goes to daycare full-time for the rest of the summer. Having her go only 3 days a week was too infrequent to really establish a routine with her, and she got upset when she had to go. I had tried to keep my drives to a minimum because her daycare is half an hour away and gas is going through the roof.

It didn't work very well, so I will have to suck up the extra expense. Thankfully, its just until school starts in september. Then she will be taking the bus to the school which is just 10 minutes away.

So starting today, I will be able to work 5 days a week, all day. Just like a normal employed person. Though I'm thrilled to bits about it, I am sad too. Em is growing up. School in just 2 months....!

I feel like I am neglecting her by relying so heavily on outside childcare, but the bills have to be paid and trying to work around her is worse. She gets put out of sorts when mommy has to sit at her desk when she wants to play. I know this is better for her but after 4 years, it's also hard to give up that time with her. She's a fun little thing and I will miss having her around so much. It will be evenings and weekends from now on. Her "time at home" phase is over and she is growing up.

And much to my surprise, I'm crying. So I guess I've said enough.

I don't even know how to explain what i need. I want to write a "text generator" thing, where a person can fill in a few fields, and it spits out a chunk of CSS code that can be cut and pasted. This needs to be a web-based tool that can be addedd to a webpage. Sort of like the profile tool we have here at covenspace, except that it gives the user back a piece of code that incorporates the information provided (background, colours, whatever).

All my google searches for code to do this, results in just pages that have these generators on them (like myspace code generators). I don't want to find someone elses generator, I want to find out how to MAKE my own.

If you have any clue how to do this, or just point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.