The white blooms on these trees are absolutely beautiful. When you drive around town, you can see them everywhere and they are stunning.

The blooms are short lived. It’s so windy in Oklahoma that as soon as a strong spring wind storm or thunderstorm blows through, you’ll find the ground covered in white flowers. The trees eventually sprout very beautiful, big green leaves.

Can you believe such beauty can really cause such misery? I just LOVE these trees. The white blooms, the vibrant green leaves in the summer time and most of all, the absolutely beautiful, almost perfect pear shape they maintain. I’ll keep my allergy & asthma medication and tissues close by and admire these beautiful trees while they still have white blooms on them because these things do not last long at all.

Zoey absolutely LOVES her “owww-errrs” (Flowers) :-)

And yes, I totally just wasted your time by posting on my blog about a new category that I added. Like anyone gives a you-know-what.

Oh I also wanted to say that if you don’t hear from me in a while, please come looking for me. I know Oklahoma is all about Wind and Sweeping Down The Planes and all but SERIOUSLY? The cover on my grill has blown off twice. Like, completely UP and OVER the grill! Oh and they said the winds will be WORSE tomorrow. Not gonna hang my panties on the clothesline tomorrow, that’s for damn sure!

And I upgraded my WordPress. Yes, I did it within’ only weeks of the new version coming out. I am that awesome! I mean, I usually wait a good month or two before it’s released. Deactivating all of your plug-ins and backing up your data base is probably one of the most daunting tasks known to man. So can you really blame me for being such a slacker?

Well, the hubby is outside taking pictures with MY new camera. Yes, it is mine. I’m reverting back to my 6 year old non-sharing mentality here. But it is mine. Because I wanted it first!

But I’m also absolutely exhausted. That was the most time consuming overhaul I’ve done in a while. And I didn’t even create the thing from scratch. I need a drink!

So starting tomorrow we will be in the SINGLE DIGIT count down to the Big Day. Craziness, I tell ya! That means that starting sometime VERY soon (before Wednesday) we need to start cleaning our house. We’re going to be having a lot of guests over and I’m still almost in shock. I don’t even believe that I’m going to get to meet up with 3 AWESOME friends which I’ve never actually met face to face before. Is this really happening to me??? I’m getting married to my all time best friend and also getting to meet up with some seriously meaningful people in my life!? I seriously feel like I am on top of the world.

Ok, I’ll shut up and get to work on this stupid blog. Sorrrryyyyyy.

Reading WordPress Upgrade Instructions. It keeps saying to backup your files but we all know what a pain in the butt that is.. So I think I’ll skip that step. Everything will be ok. It’ll never happen to me.

Uploading. Uploading. Uploading. It never ends! Why are there so many darn files? Done! YAY!

Run Upgrade PHP file. Everything appears to have gone smoothely… or so it says.

Reload page, getting the error: Sorry, no posts match your criteria. Um, excuse me?

Oh, I never deactivated my plugins before upgrading. Another step that it stressed I should do that I totally skipped because I think I’m special and nothing bad will happen to me. Deactivate plugins one by one until my entries reappear.

Start upgrading all plugins that are out of date. Get rid of a few that are taking up server space that I never use. I have my entries back and now I’m happy! Oh and now my e-mail works for getting comments.. so now I can actually reply to people who comment on here. Yay!

Lesson Learned? ALWAYS follow their instructions, even if it is something tedious like deactivating plugins or backing up databases. I did notice they have a”deactivate all plugins” link at the bottom of the Plugins page and I can’t really express how helpful that is! WordPress (or maybe my server?) is a little laggy when activating and deactivating plugins, so wow.. huge time saver there, people!

I’m done with WordPress tonight. I’m gonna go drag Gene to bed with me to cuddle. Haven’t had a lot of that over the last several nights because, well, let’s just say that I am pretty much gone as soon as my head hits the pillow at night. Sooo glad tomorrow is finally Friday!

I’m up now. I’m ready to go. My back does hurt. Pretty bad. But I’m going to go anyway. I want to have fun, I want to be with my family. I want to make Christmas cookies! It’s a tradition!

And girls.. I am so sorry I haven’t replied to your comments below. I WANT to but I’m trying to figure out why WordPress decides NOT to e-mail me any comments. It only emails me comments that are awaiting approval, but not the ones that are already automatically approved. I even checked the settings and it is set to e-mail ALL comments that are posted. Piece of crap!

I’m thinking of doing an entire re-install of WordPress. Which requires a LOT of patience and time. But I installed it on my “Flog” (which I haven’t been using, ugh) and there is a “tag” feature where you can put tags on each entry. My current installation doesn’t have that and I’m wondering if it is just out of date. We’ll see.. When I have more time after Christmas I will probably mess with it then.

The pups have been sniffing their presents under the tree.. I keep telling them they have to wait until Christmas to open their presents. But me, being the dork I am, secretly wants to give them to them now ;) I hope you all have a wonderful holiday filled with the people you love and lots of laughter.

So I’m freezing my buns off. I’ve been sitting here at my computer, which is by an incredibly drafty window.. My toes and fingers are numb. I’ve pretty much told myself that tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow my diet will begin hardcore. Tomorrow I will resist temptation. Tomorrow is a day to start over and feel free and happy.

Replying to comments.

What in the world do you do???

Do you reply to the persons comment via e-mail or do you just comment on your own page and reply that way, forum-style? I need to know!! I seriously hate that I never know what to do when I receive a comment on my blog and not sure how to respond to it. I know the choice is ultimately mine to make but I want to know what the general consensus is. What does everyone else do?

So last night when Gene and I got back from Grandma’s house, we hooked up the Karaoke machine and sang songs for about an hour or so. After that I was exhausted so I got on the computer for a little while and then went to bed. This morning we got up LATE! I think it was 10:30 before I dragged myself out of bed. Shame, shame. The Mysterious Red M came over and we took the mattress sitting in our garage to the dumpster with her good ol’ pickup truck. See, the previous owners left a cat-piss-covered mattress in our garage, promising to dispose of it for us and well, a promise is a promise so naturally it never actually happened. So we ate egg sandwiches afterwards and then went bridal gown shopping!

I just want to say that we picked out the bridesmaid dresses, ordered my sister’s and need to give Gene’s little sis the information so she can go get sized and order hers and the biggest news of all? I picked out my bridal gown and ORDERED IT! And it is in queue for alterations! And oh my gosh I can’t even believe I am typing this right now! I am seriously still in shock.  It’s so pretty and makes all of this getting married nonsense that much more real. So I printed most of my “Save The Date” cards. My plan is to buy one more pack of cards tomorrow evening and get the rest printed and then it’s off to the post office they go! I’ll have them all mailed out by Tuesday, I’m hoping.

Well time for beddybye. I am so sleepy right now and tomorrow it is back to work. I’ve got to be more productive this week because last week was a total blur. It was seriously one of the most stressful weeks I’ve had in a long time. Here is to a better week for all!