darn take three, random walks, hanging with newbies

Hanging with blogger newbies tonight/ having fun and enjoying playful banter full of learning, along with frustration, questions, and some anger..... some stepping away and heavy sighs.  Lotas learning. Excellentexplorations into uncharted territory. piture resizing,new programs, patience, waiting, multiple posts, dummy drafts, new starts, and finally....relief. And finally a @#$% posting after many tries. Using my android and mini keyboard that is maddening, lame keyboard and foul .          s 

Random Walk, Mazda Miata MX-5

Today's random walk, 1992 Mazda Miata, 5 speed manual transmission, 1.6 cubic engine.

Mazda Miata MX-5 (photo: blogs.autonet.ca)

My friend Cheryl is selling her 1992 Mazda Miata, a car that she's had for about 9 years. Unfortunately or fortunately for me (depending on how you look at it), she was unable to drive this car due to a medical problem, as it  doesn't have power steering and is a manual transmission. As a result she has only put about 100 miles on the car. She let me drive it once and I immediately fell in love with it. I used to have a Datsun 300ZX and her Mazda Miata reminded me of it very much, even the red color was is the same as my Datsun. I had casually mentioned that I would love to buy it, but she wasn't ready to give it up and mentioned giving it to a relative. This car has been sitting in her garage or shed for the entire time and is now not running. She believes it is just due to sitting and bad gas, filters, etc..

Recently, however, she mentioned that she wanted to sell it, and I told her that I could help her by posting it on Craigslist as I had helped my husband sell a car on their site just months ago. She was excited about this and said we would talk about the details soon and I could help her post it.

About 4 weeks have gone by and she isn't in a rush to sell or post the car. I was recently visiting her and mentioned that I was still interested in buying this car, to my delight she said that would be great and that she would after all, prefer to sell it to someone she knows, keep it in the family if you will.

Yeah for me...so today I decided to do some research on the car to see what I was getting myself into.
I was perusing a couple of websites like this The Kelly Blue Book Website and found amazing information in regards to this model car 1992 Mazda Miata. The amount she wants for is seems fair even though it's not currently running, the price for the miles on it (68,000) is about right.
Also all the review were really positive and it gets really good gas mileage for a gas powered car (28-30 mpg). This is really important to me that it gets good mileage. Some of the reviews even mentioned better gas mileage than that (30-38 mpg). This is really great news to me!

On this website msn Autos, has been one of my all time favorites for any car research I've ever done, again I was able to look over about 75 reviews and get a good idea of how real owners of this car felt about it, and I have to say that the reviews were really positive and exciting for a new purchase. The overall response is that it is a really great vehicle and a lot of fun to drive. Low maintenance and well built.

Exciting....I can't wait to buy this car, I will be making payments on it. Cheryl is excited to have her garage space back as she wants to use it for her landscape business. Win, Win.

Random walks...regaining intamacy.

Passion.....intimacy

 Lately (for the last 1+ years) I have been dissatisfied with the direction my marriage has taken. Let me back track, I have been in a magnanimous relationship for the last 13 years and married for nearly 7 years and for the most part very happily.  I love my husband very much, he's cute, he is a great guy, smart, talented, funny, and an overall nice human. We generally see eye to eye or at least have similar views of the world and how it should work. We have differences in our schedules, I work days, he works nights (which can be very hard), and are not clones of each other.


We have successfully worked out all the differences in our relationship to the satisfaction of both parties, these differences include, kids/parents, schedules, habits, my husbands sleeping disorder, my periodic bitchiness, food, who gets the bathroom when, etc...  but a little less than two years ago we hit a bump. A big bump. He started getting heavily into his work as a web designer and I started to feel neglected. Our sex life also took a back seat, seems that since my husband is a analytical worker, when he works he doesn't think about sex, apparently those two things don't mesh. When he is in his analytical brain (the brain he uses for work), he is not in his animal brain (the brain he uses for sex). His sleep issues also played a part in the mix, as his lack of sleep left him exhausted and if your exhausted you have little reserves for sex. He let me know that he felt his work was a "now or never" rush for success and that all other actives (including our marriage) would be taking a back seat to these efforts, that this was his main focus for now, for better or worse. I felt like I was socked in the gut and wanted to run away, far, far, away. I was wondering why things couldn't be a bit more balanced.

To compensate for these issues we decided to take separate sleeping quarters with the theory that he wouldn't be waking me up all night and I could have solace away from him while he is working out the issues surrounding his sleeping disorder. We happily agreed that we would come together on weekends when I didn't need to wake up early and could handle wake ups from him much easier. Sex too, we were to work on and agreed that we would up the frequency with key words that indicated the need of the partner, such as "I really "need" you" for well, a quickie, and " let's hook up" for a more casual date and potential sexual exploits at the end of the evening. "Let's mess around" for a" how 'bout now" session, etc....
These tag phrases worked pretty well but of course not perfect, but it felt like we were at least working on it together with the potential for improvement of our sex life, which I'd like to add was always very fulfilling prior to this "bump".

As time progressed I felt things were slowly taking a back seat again in a way similar to his initial announcement that work would be the greatest focus of his life, this was coupled with the fact that his testosterone level was also taking a serious plunge.
I started to write on the calendar the frequency of our love making, just so I could see for myself how things looked. I want to say that the love making we were having was very good when it happened.
Turns out we were having sex about 4x a month. Which I equated to once a week, this was something i could live with, however, after months of tracking this, the numbers have been going down, but who's counting right?

I have always been one to take the initiative to fix things or be proactive if I can. so I got online to see if there was any information on "regaining intimacy" and so beings my Random walk..... 
I have been all over the internet looking for information about this subject. I found a number of sites that deal with these types of problems and their root causes such as pregnancy and post pregnancy, physical challenges such as arthritis, low hormone levels, separation, etc...

 I always take  a little away from all the information I gather on these random walks.
So here is a wonderful little site that deals with arthritis pain and how it can affect a sexual life. 5-ways-to-regain-your-intimacy-when-you-have-arthritis. This can be a valuable resource when the physical limitations of your body become a barrier for you and your partner.
Another site suggests you abstain from sex for a period of time (approximately 2 weeks, something that we were already doing) and slowly re-introduce intimacy into your life but doing little things such as kissing, complimenting each other, and trying to reconnect with why you got together in the first place. experience project, stories of life in a sexless marriage
Some of the suggestions for me and other commenters was similar, in that, what if the other partner doesn't want to do the suggested things, like kissing, telling a stoies of how and why they got together, etc...
Like many of them, I wasn't sure my husband would go for it.
Some sites I encountered tried to explain the difference between passion (something alot of couples feel is missing in the relationship) and intimacy, which are completely different things. This site did a good job of explaining the differences, seems that when you know the difference you can fix it or at least know what it is that you need to work on. How-to-increase-passion-and-intimacy-between-couples
The last site I encountered on this random walk was the one I think I took the most away from. Marriage intimacy.com/emotional-conflict-intimacy  This is a christian site and though I myself am not christian (I am spiritual) I was able to really relate to this site and it's information the most. It provided interesting scenarios about why intimacy is lost, what happens when it's lost and what to do to get it back, ie: "When a  husband seems to reserve all his attention on his work and shows no attention to his wife, she feels unloved". My scenario in a nut shell. It talked about the walls that can develop between couples and the retreating and isolation that can follow. All things I am guilty of. The surprising thing that happened after reading and gleaning information form these wonderful sites is that, even though I understood what happened to my husband and I, and was offered loads of ways to help mend the loss, I still felt lost. :(
As I was doing this research I received a call from my hubby letting me know that he would be working all night on these very important web sites that had to be done ASAP, well, because they just had too.
This was possibly poor timing for me as that just really took the wind out of my sails, as to a fix for the loss of intimacy in our relationship. My hubby could feel the "chill" from me last evening as I had put another brick in the wall I am building to protect myself from hurt, and then never saw me again as I isolated myself in my little room and fell into a depressed sleep of disrepair, wondering if we will ever really work this out.

us on our 6th anniversary 2012

Sometimes a random walk comes up flat....enlightening at times and at other times, stuff you already knew and a endless path with no real solutions. Tomorrow is a new day and a new path with exciting possibilities to learn and heal. You gotta try right.?   

I love you flowers from the hubby....

****Addendum (Next Day): My hubby bought me flowers and champagne, when I asked "Why?", "What are we celebrating?" He said "You and the fact that you're under appreciated". He also had romance on his mind. I, however, was still angry in my heart about things. He was so sweet and persistent that his charms won over, and we had a wonderful night....let's just say one for the calendar!  He still seems to know when I need something and he somehow convinces me that he has the something I need. Married life goes on, fixed it is not.. work in progress, I think so.
 

Today's random walk...
Some days I just surf the net checking out some of my favorite blogs like:
Tiny House Blog

This is Ella's Tiny Yellow House

 I really like this blog because I'm a fan of simple living and minimalism. I wish I could have a tiny house like the one's featured on this blog some day. If you enjoy simple living in small spaces.
The littlest Polly

This is Polly Bland of My Littlest Polly

I like her blog because she is a student costumer and is really talented and there is something nostalgic about her blog. She has deep family roost and sometimes wears some of her grandmothers things. This appeals to me on so many levels. She seems so sweet and sincere and I love her vintage appeal. I know that she will go far in her career and enjoy checking out her journey. Thanks Polly
Howling for Justice

Beautiful Gray Wolf Couple

This is a fairly new blog for me, but I love Gray wolfs (all Wolves) so much, it's natural I would find and now follow this blog. This one is particular hard for me to follow because, though this is a fantastic blog about the Gray Wolf this blog also follows the hunting and decimation of this wonderful creature. I have a hard time with those parts of this blog, but I find it important all the same.

Sometimes my random walks take me on a path of wonderful retail sites or just researching things I need.
I went on a wild ride researching diapers for my son and his upcoming child. Still the verdict is out on what to buy.
 A great fair trade and organic clothing site where I recently purchased my other son's birthday present from is Soul Flower, I love their clothing, designs, and pretty much everything about them. Check out this cute outfit from them.

I call this look cute pixie girl, not sure what they call it. 

Anyway, just a few stops on my random walk for today....more later. Have a lovely whatever!

I've been fortunate enough to take what I learned yesterday in my free HTML learning and apply it today to a website I'm working on with my hubby. Temple Massager. This has been a really good experience today and I even get paid to learn. I'm working in word press, which is a bloging tool, a content manager. I don't really have to know HTML because word press does that for you. I did change links and fix links relative.
Did some content formatting using tools such as bullets. Though these items aren't really hard or unusual the HTML stuff I learned yesterday made me feel as if I knew what I was doing. My hubby said he wouldn't let me work on the web pages unless I had taken the time to learn yesterday. I love the idea that what I learned I can instantly apply.
Yeah. Fun random walk today, but much sitting has occurred and no actual walking. I enjoy computer work and enjoy working with the hubster, but I realize that web work takes lots of time and sitting. If I get really good at this I'll have to figure out how to get some exercise and walks in.

Wishing I could have jumped on this baby....but learning and working on the computer takes time. Time from your life and potential fun stuff.

Kitty's first web page

Hello World!

This is my first web page.

8:47am
Today's first random walk..... Learning HTML for free. Already I've gone to the "nofollow" information as I post my link. Can't say I totally understand the information but I get the idea behind it. Well here I go. I'll be back to shortly to post my gleaned knowledge from today random walk.

First stop: What can you do with HTML? Ok so I've learned that HTML is a special language that can create a web page. This is a special language that helps direct humans and computers to your content. If you learn HTML you can use it in your job, you can also use web editors that show the HTML code or not, apparently this helps you troubleshoot problems that can occur if you can understand how they occur by knowing the special language.

Next up: What is a HTML tag or element HTML? The terms “tag” and “element” are used to mean the same thing—an HTML item that will define something on your web page. From what i understand when you write HTML you use these tags that are made up of specific stuff, ie:

• A less-than sign <
• A word or character
• Optional space followed by:
• Any number of optional HTML attributes in the form of a name="value" pair
• And finally a greater-than sign >

example:
<p>
<html>
<small> 

When arranged properly in specific order these signs and symbol will layout your web page in a very specific way according to your tags or elements. These tags/elements can also have attributes assigned to them which will be contained in the tag lines, these attributes have specific things they do, like assigning where a picture will go, what color or size the font will be, where page breaks will occur, etc. They suggest you simply memorize all the different tags so that you can use them to create the pages you want. I'm going to check out the list next.


HTML Tags Just by perusing these pages I can tell you that simply memorizing the tags is an impossible feat. There are many tags for HTML and XHTML so memorizing them simply is probably pretty impossible at least for a rookie. I'm sure that as you work with HTML the common tags will be easy to memorize and after many years of use you could probably memorize many of them. I probably, however, will use a cheat sheet of the HTML tags available. I'll save this link on my desktop to refer to. Here is a example, check out this link to see what I'm talking about. HTML 5 tags

Basic (X)HTML Tags for a Web Site

Ok here's is the last stop on my random walk for Learning HTML for Free. These are all the basic HTML tags that are needed on a basic web page. These are pretty awesome, creating something form nothing. I'm looking forward to trying to set up a basic web page. I'm not really sure where to do that, but since this is my first of probably many looks at learning HTML I will up date you with additional information. For now check out what a basic web page will look like with the HTML tags.
A sample Web page would look like this:

 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
 <html>
 <head>
 <title>
 This is the title of the page.
 </title>
 </head>
 <body>
 The body text goes here.
 </body>
 </html>

_______
Ok I've tried it out after finding a really simple link for the real HTML rookie Building a web page for the totally lost. This was awesome because the result of doing this one is your first web page. See mine here: Kitty's first web page yours will look exactly the same but oh wow, the satisfaction of just getting this up. Makes me feel as if the last hour of learning wasn't in vain. Good luck with yours, k