i have a lot i should have gotten done this evening, but all i could bring myself to do was update my whysper layout like i do every year. just this took me longer than it should have. i revised the layout a little from when i showed it to my readers (who always get to see my new layout early - if you want to, you need to sign up for the elist) and needed to recode accordingly. but i kept making stupid mistakes, even with the includes, which i should be an old hand at. as a result, instead of getting this up quickly, it took me a good 3 hours.

welcome to whysper 2005 featuring my baby boy, vagner.

at least it got done. nothing else is. once i'm done here, i'll probably go play ffx-2. hubby and i didn't even celebrate our anniversary in our usual fashion . . . at all.

kitten went home today. well, late last night now, i guess. before the new year stuff got started. she's on her plane now and won't land for another 2 hours. i seemed to handle it well enough when we hugged and she climbed into the car and they drove off. but i've been "off" all night - cranky, withdrawn, distracted. the kids all had mixed reactions - jewel seemed to take it all in stride (perhaps she was glad the bossy older sister stayed only for a few days); taz gave everyone a hug, but what he really wanted to do was go in his room and spin a toy; and froggy fell apart as soon as she hugged her sis.

froggy is my sensitive baby (and i don't mean baby in a derogatory way). she's the one who's had to sit on an adult's lap when seeing the hp films in the theater. she's the one who has taken the longest to adjust to being here in georgia. she's the one who cried more than enough tears for all of us tonight, taking a couple of hours to cry herself to sleep.

what's worse is today wasn't the best day for a last day with kitten. we got off to a late start and needed breakfast, which made us even later; we didn't get to everything we wanted to see; we lost her father somewhere along the way and didn't find him until just before we went to meet mcat and family for a late lunch kind of thing. she didn't get to see emory. we didn't have the time to get as many pictures as we had hoped. even the weather turned gray and miserable for us - though it didn't start sprinkling until after the late lunch. by evening, tempers were starting to fray and bickering had ensued, and not just between the kids. even saxy and i were being real bitchy.

it didn't help much that kitten is considering not coming out here to live after she graduates because of a boy. don't get me wrong - the boy seems okay. but boy + no job doesn't sound very good to me. she's going to try to convince said boy to move out here, but there's the issue of where would he stay. there just isn't room with us for anything long term. heck, there were grouchy problems starting after only 4 days with kitten!

to top it all off, i've spent most of the evening dealing with gypsy who is terrified of things that go bang. fireworks have been going off all over town and this dog is trying to climb the railing under my desk so she can crawl into my lap. i'm not in the mood for her.

so, yea, i have other things that i should get done before i go to bed but won't. i'm going to play ffx-2 (no, i haven't finished ffx for my 4th or 5th time, but i'm getting bored with it and am feeling very moody and don't really want to fall asleep yet) while i wait for the email that tells me they got home safe.

maybe tomorrow i can write an entry on the fullness of last year and my hopes for the new (i don't do resolutions). maybe tomorrow i can work on my 2 overdue fl's. maybe tomorrow i can setup the dii scavenger hunt for our 2005 kickoff. maybe tomorrow i can do the work i need to do on novel #3, or the revisions for novel #1. or maybe tomorrow i can work some more on getting whyspers archives back up in full (right now you can only reach individual pages from the past moments archive page).

but, then again, maybe tomorrow i can finally cry.