The lost weekend

One stupid move – accidentally deleting every single entry on my blog – and the weekend was a haze of recovery, web page tweaking, and trouble-shooting.

Reminder to self: be more careful. Read the manual. Back everything up. Test out the web page in different browsers.

And pay more attention to
Timethief. She knows what she’s talking about.

Next week: more recipe development for
Vegetarian Times.
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Um, Hello?

Hi there.

Welcome to my not-quite-fully-baked web page.

I've spent the last 24 hours trying to recreate my deleted blog entries. Got most of them, though the early stuff is missing. Just figured out that I can't get a working redirect from blogger (that darn 'www' in my web address makes that difficult, apparently), so I am starting from scratch.

I still have lots of content to create. Not sure if I'm happy with my descriptions (too melodramatic? not enough information? do I want to be a melodramatic woman of mystery? does my profile picture negate the idea that I am a melodramatic woman of mystery?). I also have to enter what I've written so far of "A Prolonged Illness" and "A Shifting Scar." I don't think they worked well in the blog format.

I'm curious how the look of the page will affect the feel of the words. Even typing into the little box I now have for blog entries feels completely different. Funny how a change in layout or type alters the whole experience.

Anyway, hope you like it.
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Watch this space

A long time ago -- well, not so long ago, but it feels like a lifetime -- I had a "real" job. It wasn't so bad, being a reference librarian in the U.S. Senate Library. The questions were usually interesting and many of my colleagues supportive and funny. The library was a relatively safe vantage point to observe the political wranglings and posturings of the Senators. Even when we were there at ridiculous times of night, it was a cool place to be. (My old co-workers who read this blog may think that my mind has been clouded over with nostalgia. Yeah. It was all filibuster threats and judge battles mixed with impossibleCongressional Record searches, tossed with more than a smidgen of office tension.)

The hours were long and being exposed to the inner workings of the legislative branch got old. The head of our department liked her iron grip and crushed what little joy we had in our dark basement space. I quit and went to
cooking school. Finished cooking school and had a baby. And when part of me slowly reawakened, I began writing.

One of the things I miss about the working world is creating things for the Web (another thing that might have my old colleagues scratching their heads). Although I'm not sure how many people read or use the
Virtual Reference Desk, I am still proud of it. I'm also proud of helping to develop and maintain the Active Legislation list, which is a truly useful online document for those who are keeping up with federal bills that are in the news.

I'm in the middle of redesigning this blog and putting together an Internet site using Rapidweaver. It's kind of like the old days, except I have more control and no technical support. I'm limping my way through and it's slow going. Hopefully it will be up in a week or so, but until it is I may not be posting as much or checking in with my friends.

See you soon.
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