Doctor Korin Chiropractor and more!  With a visible play area for the kids.  How cool is that?

Raising My Boychick Feminist parenting blog.  I was already a reader before I helped her re-design, and honestly kept getting distracted by all the great content while working on this project.

Fourth Circle Doula I hear she’s AMAZING, and she makes a great friend, too!

Integrative Body Ricardo Saldia is one of the most professional and dedicated body-workers I’ve ever met.  This is a site from several years back, and soon will incorporate his wife’s work.

True Brew Coffeehouse This place has gotten a complete makeover since I worked on the site, and soon the site will get a makeover to match.

1.  It uses Brevé.  I love using Brevé!  Basically, it lets me write HTML in Python syntax, and while I’m not programmer, this makes my life much easier.  HTML markup, while easy to understand, is not very elegant.  And it’s an awful lot of typing.  Because it’s written in Python, it is much more powerful than HTML, and with a little help I can do some pretty cool things using the Python powered features, like includes, imports, and overrides.

People familiar with PHP might say that PHP driven blogs have all the same features, but I see the difference in my ability to understand just what is happening when I open a Brevé file.  Lines are so short, concise, to the point.  No scrolling, scrolling, scrolling to find that elusive tag that might mean something.  I don’t fully understand PHP or Python, but as it turns out I can work with Python better, at least in this context.

2.  Streamlined process.  Cliff has spent many years contemplating the ranging abilities of users, the top complaints of users, and the features that people want.  Cliff is the best complainer of all, by which I mean he will find the faults in anything instantly and recognize it as a fault because he knows how it can be improved.  Where many people just ignore that squeaky sound that a piece of the car interior makes while driving, Cliff will spend a whole afternoon shoving the parts around, squirting silicon spray in there, making sure it doesn’t happen again.  If I were to go completely metaphorical, I could say that he would rip out all the interior pieces and use them as a template to make something better, but he has a practical side as well.

What this means for the blog software is that unlike, say, WordPress, there will be only one way to do anything.  Themes will be written in code. Content will be managed in an administrative interface.   Plugins will be called on and manipulated  in snippets in the template and do not have an installation process beyond placing the plugin file in the plugin folder.  There won’t be some mysterious settings somewhere overriding a template file that you are frustrated trying to edit.

3.  I get to be one of the first people to use it!  I also get to be the most un-nerdy guinea pig, and will represent an average HTML-and-CSS-knowing user.  I have already given input on what are the most important features to include right now, and will continue to sway the process.  This is not really for people who don’t know how to write any kind of markup.  But it will be perfect for me, a designer of websites that are for people who don’t know markup.  Now they never have to see it.  Just content; the important stuff.

Most of all, I can’t wait to write in Brevé again!  I used it when he wrote it to make a few sites, and then just wanted to start doing sites without his help, but with all the features.  At that point, I turned to WordPress, which has served me well.  I have to admit I was sad to go back to regular ol’ HTML markup with PHP scattered liberally throughout.   The bulk of errors I make are due to mixing up just where a PHP section ends and another begins. And what if I want to put something in the middle, in HTML?  The main goal of Brevé is the inspiration for the name, brevity.  I look forward to working with it again, and perhaps learning a little more about the features this time.

I love to get to know individuals and the businesses they are passionate about, in order to find what kind of design will give the right first impression on the web.

I work fast once I have the images and content needed, completing websites in as little as one week. I love to provide small businesses with room for growth by giving my clients the ability to edit their own content. Contact me to find out what I can do for your business!

Just as I wrapped up a large project, the power supply for my laptop died and I directed my efforts to taking care of the neglected areas of the house (all of it) that had gotten worse during the project.  Then my power supply came and I fixed some details on the large project.  Then my ferret (who recently had surgery removing 2 mast cell tumors) took a turn for the worse and I’ve spent the last couple of days tending to him on top of my parenting duties.  He’s going to be taking a good amount of my time for the next two weeks at least.  My house mess is back again.

Why is it then whenever you decide to start in on something new, obstacles instantly start cropping up?  I must say that this has happened enough times that it’s par for the course and doesn’t put me off of my goal.  I need to focus on just one of my businesses at a time.   My website designing has generally been just one website every couple of months and then long periods between them when I’m not working on anything but minor updates to my clients’ websites.  I’d like to use those lull periods to produce ShotSlings, and produce enough to carry me over the times when I am working on a website design.  If I can save up some up-front investment money, I may hire someone to sew for me, especially if that means I can get my product placed in retail venues.   Life also happens, and both business models need to account for that.

There are different ways of dealing with this.  I have developed the talent for holding a thought if I get pulled away, even if I can’t get back for an hour or two, or a day.  I can dive right back in where I left off.  Then there are more useful things such as childcare or structured activities to engage the kids while I work.  De-cluttering gives me less stuff to deal with when cleaning the house.

I don’t know fully why I must work alongside my job of raising the kids and keeping a house.  Maybe it’s the mental stimulation, feeling part of something outside my household, or the fact that I have control when I’m working on jobs.  Parenting is not about control, it’s about guidance.  I don’t have a goal, just hopes.  There is no wrap-up on parenting, it’s continuous.  Taking care of the house is much the same.  I can complete tasks, but only fleetingly until they need to be done again.  It’s continuous.  With a website, though there are always minor bits and pieces to work on or update, the overall design is completed on a deadline, and I can feel good about it.  When I mail out a ShotSling and I get feedback about how helpful and wonderful it is, my work is done on that particular ShotSling.  It feels good.  I can improve upon my product and see instant improvement.  When I make improvements to my parenting, and the effect is subtle, complex, gradual, and sometimes mysterious.

It’s certainly not about the money!  Not currently, anyway.