Cold Enough Fer Ya?

I know folks in the north and east will find it tiresome, but it's been cold here in Southern California this week: dipping to the mid-30s at night and not getting out of the 50s during the day. Yeah, I know: Boo-hoo. But the mountains are covered in snow and it does make it feel a bit more like the holiday season. And so I have decided to include some seasonal video on the blog for your amusement. The first one is below. I waded through YouTube and found this and the upcoming entries:



You've seen a shot of our Christmas tree in the last entry. The next few will include close-ups of some of my favorite ornaments on the tree, like this one. I bought it in Monterey on a trip with Cousin Pat and her husband Billy on her last visit to the coast. She knew her cancer was terminal, and I wanted to share this last special time with her. We drove up the coast highway, overnighted in Big Sur and spent a few days in Monterey on Cannery Row; it was very special for us all.

I like having ornaments that bring back memories of years past and people no longer with us. I suppose that's part of getting older: Holding on to memories becomes almost as important as making new ones.

I'm finally getting into the swing of school this month, especially since I'm starting to take classes in the programs that I'm not so familiar with, like Dreamweaver. I'm also concentrating on learning XHTML coding, which is the basis for all Web pages and the language of Internet browsers.

Being a designer and inherently right-brained, it's maddening to have to switch over to the left side to work out all this rather abstract code. Add to that the fact that HTML, which I used back in 1998 to write my Web site, is now sliding out of date, and much of the coding I learned for that site (and have since forgotten) is now what they charmingly call "deprecated," meaning your browser will read it, but don't expect that to last forever.

Come next month, I'll be starting classes in Flash (Web interactive animation) and its program language, ActionScript 3.0, and the left side of my brain will be pumping even more mental iron as I attempt to master this far more complex language. Luckily, both Dreamweaver and Flash do a lot of scripting for you as you work, so I won't have to be an absolute coding wiz, I'll just have to know how to read it and fix it if it screws up.

On the home front, I've been cooking and baking more since brother-in-law David installed the flue for the stove fan. Here's a shot of my first attempt at cheese danish. They were actually pretty good, and with a little practice and jiggering of the recipe, they might turn out even better next time.

Steve is still on his three-day-a-week schedule at work (Monday, Wednesday and Friday), still being supplemented by unemployment benefits. As for me, I have been without unemployment benefits since I started school back in November. When you start school or training, you check a little box on your EDD benefits form, and once you do, the payments stop until they can verify that you qualify for CTB (California Training Benefits) which will continue throughout your training period.

I just received the letter today informing me of my phone interview with EDD on Dec. 22. Hopefully, it will only take a week or so to get the benefits flowing again. I will be receiving retroactive payments, and a tidy sum will come my way sometime in the near future, but it does look like I'll be dipping into the savings (something we have avoided doing all year) to pay some bills in the upcoming weeks. Still, I feel very fortunate that we haven't had to resort to credit cards to make purchases or payments. Unemployment (and underemployment) is really rough, but I have to remind myself that, still, we are among the lucky ones going through this.

So this year is going to be tiny Christmas with small meaningful gifts. And the further I get into my studies, the more I realize that getting a new computer and upgrading my software are both going to be high priorities in the early months next year: we're talking a total of around three grand all tolled. Now if that will only get me to the point where a new job is in my future, I'll be glad. And, of course, it would be nice if companies would start hiring folks back again, since the economy is doing so well, I'm told.

Tomorrow is a day off for me, so I plan on going out and doing some Christmas shopping. I can't share my gift ideas here, since Steve reads this blog and the only presents I'm buying this year will be for him. (A few well-chosen and thoughtfully selected items, with the emphasis on few. He's doing the same for me, as well). The real gift this year will be getting together with the family again in the New Year, sharing Mom's memorial on Jan. 2, and regrouping and moving on.

I'm planning three more blog entries between now and Christmas (since I have three great videos I want to share), so look for them. They may not be much more than an the video and a little blathering, but sometimes that can be enough. And, after all, it's tiny Christmas.