RTT - You want pictures of WHAT?

Check ME out, with my fancy two weeks in a row!



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I have been having a Major Problem for a few months now, involving the spacing of my paragraphs and photos whenever I publish a new post. It nearly drove me to the brink of blog deletion on more than one occasion, and I offer a sincere, heartfelt apology to those who subscribe to my blog with Google Reader and got a "new post" update 37 times in 30 minutes. Every week. Sometimes twice a week.

But I am overjoyed to announce that on Wednesday, July 8, 2009, at approximately 12:40 a.m., I figured out how to fix it. And I am beaming with pride to announce that I figured out how to fix it by MESSING AROUND WITH THE HTML CODE.

I know. It's like I don't even know myself anymore.

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Day 78 on my pregnancy ticker (<---): "Thumb-sucking may begin." This brings me back to the day when Nolan, two months old and an obstinate pacifer-hater, finally found his thumb and mastered the art of the self-soothe. I was at Port Discovery with a friend and her kids, pushing a very sleepy, very fussy baby around in his stroller and praying for sleep to overtake him.

His little hand came up to his face, as it had so many times before...he stuck out his tiny thumb, as he had so many times before...his tiny rosebud mouth, trying to get ahold of that little thumb, as it had so many times before...me, holding my breath and praying for a thumb-sucking miracle...and finally, SWEET SUCCESS. Our sleeping life was forever changed, for the better, that day.

And now he is three-and-a-half and still sucking his thumb and his teeth are starting to stick out and we can't get him to stop and the dentist gives us a holy ol' gult trip every time we see her. So please pardon me if I'm not so enthusiastic about "Day 78" this time around.

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A brief Beelzebug update. (Because who could stand a long one?)

My sister-in-law Stephanie, who recently moved to Hawaii and is now surrounded by all manner of horrendous insects (namely, poisonous centipedes), took a moment to research this creature online for me. I know you're all just dying to know, but I'm looking at it as one of those "keep your enemies closer" sort of situations...

It is a Reddish-brown stag beetle, 22-35 mm in length (ok, FINE, so it was an-inch-and-a-half long and not two full inches, as I previously exaggerated). They are attracted to light and live in deciduous forests in the Eastern US and Canada. Males have those giant mandibles (please see nightmarish picture, above), which are used for fighting at breeding sites as well as eating the flesh of human children.

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It turns out I couldn't save him.

My husband is now on Facebook. And I'm discovering that once it infiltrates your own home, it becomes much harder to resist. If the Twilight series is the literary version of heroin, then Facebook is definitely the Internet's own variety. I'm checking his profile regularly; I don't even want to think about how I'd behave with my own.

Dammit all. I swore I wouldn't let this happen to me.

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Search terms again? So soon? YES.

1.) OK, so remember the last time I did this and I mentioned how disconcerting it was that people continually arrived at my blog via search terms like "still poops his pants," or some variation thereof? And remember how I said that it would make more sense if the "poops his pants" searches were at least more specific?

Well here ya go:

"husband poops his pants" - Oh, boy. I am sorry to hear that. Very glad I am not you, and very sorry to hear that.

And then there was this gem, also rather specific:

"pictures of people pooping there pants" - Eyes closed, shaking head. What, exactly, did I do to deserve THIS? Certainly there has been some pants-pooping discussion here at piecemeal people, but not pictures. NEVER pictures. So go somewhere else, freak. And while you're there, learn the difference between "there," "their" and "they're." M'kay?

("Still poops" was another search term that landed someone here, but I refuse to dignify it with any commentary because I'm convinced one of you is just messing with me.)

2.) "piecemeal people framed" - Sorry, folks, but I don't frame. Some people have said I should offer framing but it would drive prices up quite a bit, as well as shipping costs, plus I make a lot of trips to Michaels as it is and have no room for frame inventory. It's something I might add in the future, but for now I encourage you to choose any frame that lights your little world on fire.

Wait. Do you think this means there's another me out there? A more motivated, organized me, who DOES have room for frame inventory and DOESN'T mind multiple trips to Michaels every week and DOES offer framing? And so someone was Googling her, looking for an upscale, more convenient version of me?!?

Well if she is out there, she probably doesn't have any kids.

3.) "piecemeal in a sentence," "put piecemeal in a sentence," "piecemeal used in a sentence," and "use piecemeal in a sentence" - Seriously. I have been over this already, but apparently not to a satisfactory degree. At this point, I think I might be doing the Internet a service by answering this question once and for all.

Here is "how to use or put the word piecemeal is used in a sentence" (trying to hit all the search terms there, thus driving my blog to the top of the page and stopping this nonsense):

First, from a site I use all the time: As an adverb, "piecemeal" means either a. piece by piece; one piece at a time; gradually or b. into pieces or fragments. As an adjective, "piecemeal" means done piece by piece; done one piece at at time; done gradually.

Next, examples:

"Because she did not have time to finish the quilt in one sitting, she worked on it piecemeal, completing a small section each day."

or

"My collage-style portraits, pictures and initials - which are both adorable and affordable - are often done with small squares of paper that are glued to one another - you could say I assemble my orders in a piecemeal fashion."

OK, so are we done here? Sheesh.

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And finally, is my blog font too small? Is this size better? Opinions, please.