It's about 11:00 on Sunday morning. I've got a load of laundry drying in the dryer, and one in the washer waiting to be dried; Bob's gone out to return something I bought him for Christmas (a folding camping rocking chair--he thinks he'd rather not have the rocking part--I wasn't sure about it, either) and spend a gift certificate. As soon as this load of laundry is finished, I'll go get dressed and head out, too, to the grocery store for New Year's Eve treats and, if I have time, to spend a gift certificate of my own.

On Friday night, after I complained again about being cold, Bob asked me if I knew where the electric blanket was. We'd stopped using it a couple of years ago, but I don't really remember why--it seems there was some concern expressed in the media about them being bad for you--radiation or something--and I thought maybe we shouldn't use it anymore.

But in this case, I decided I didn't care, that I just wanted to be warm.

So we got it out and hooked it up, and turned it on, and I got under the covers, and it felt so nice that I fell asleep for a couple of hours. When I woke up, I saw that both of the cats were with me, too, and they've been very appreciative--more often than not, if they're not with us, they're up on the bed--we've been leaving the electric blanket turned on at the lowest setting.

We're always saying to them, "Look how lucky you are that you don't have to live outside," and "I bet there aren't many kitties getting roast beef for their dinner." Now we can say, "I bet there aren't many kitties that have an electric blanket left on for them!"

Later:

I went out and spent the gift certificate that Dennis and Pam gave me for my birthday, buying a pair of wool clogs that I've been wanting, and a pair of earrings with a Chinese character on them that I haven't been able to identify. Bob hasn't seen them yet; he'll ask me, if I don't know what they say, how do I know they don't say something bad, or insulting? And I don't. I have to take them on faith. Maybe they say faith!

Barb was in town this week and we got together yesterday afternoon. She gave me a set of Chinese character rubberstamps, along with a bunch of other stuff. I've actually been collecting Chinese rubberstamps, and I have an idea for a project using them. It's fun to have creative ideas again--about creating things offline as well as on.

And I bought some yarn and started knitting a winter scarf for myself. I'm just making it up as I go along--it's just a plain scarf--I just wanted to have something to knit and I figured that was about as easy as I could get.

From last year:

Goals/Resolutions/Ideas for 2000:

• Learn how to make fonts, and make one of my own handwriting
• Take my vitamins every day, and stop eating so much junk
• Read at least fifty books
• Get a job

I didn't do too bad, of course, that was only four things. I started learning how to make fonts, but I found out I wasn't crazy about the process, and that it wasn't as easy as it appeared from the (admittedly cheap) software that I bought. But I did make a font--a horrible one, but a font nonetheless.

I did better at taking my vitamins, and I think I ate somewhat healthier--not as much as I should have, and I'll continue to work on that one.

I read 55 books--made my goal and went five better.

And I got a job.

This year's goals:

• Learn Flash
• Read at least fifty books, more if possible
• Knit something for myself (scarf or mittens, probably) and something for a gift for someone
• Make some rubberstamp art--make something creative and tangible
• Write some fiction. I enjoy doing it, but it's hard for me. I need to work on it.
• This one Bob requested: get a physical. I'll at least get an ob/gyn check-up, which I've been neglecting for a couple of years.
• Remember the things that make me happy, and remember to do those things--I get a lot of enjoyment and feelings of accomplishment out of writing fiction and out of working with my hands--knitting, crocheting, working with paper and stamps. I also get a lot of enjoyment out of working at the computer, but I need to do other things, too.

That looks like a pretty good list. I think I'll leave it right there.

I got a few unfavorable comments about the new, smaller font size for Mac IE, some with accompanying screenshots. I spent a few hours figuring out how to detect things like platform, browser version, screen resolution, etc., and have them mailed back to be in a form that would also have a field for entering whether or not the type was in an acceptable size for the visitor to read, but it's all just so subjective that I kind of gave up on that.

There are a lot of ways to customize a browser, and while I think most people tend to use them as-is, "right out of the box," so to speak, there are some people who tweak and change things to suit them perfectly, and there's just no way to account for every possible condition.

I had reduced the font size two points; this morning I took it back up a point. It still looks acceptable to me, but I wasn't able to reproduce the unreadable experience anyway, so I asked a couple of the people who had had a problem with it to look at it, and they say it's better, so unless I get a bunch of new complaints/comments, I'll probably leave it the way it is for now.

I don't know if it's worth worrying about any more or not, but at least I did learn something--I learned how to do browser detection and give a different experience (albeit an unhappy one) to people using different browsers, and that will undoubtedly come in handy some time in the future.