Okay, I’ll stop! I just thought it would be fun to link to tons of people who also did this meme, I am easily amused okay? Anyway for this meme all you have to do is write a little about each of the following topics – books, television, and music. Here I go!

Books – I like to read but often have trouble finding a book that can keep my interest. I loved reading books by p.j. tracy, I just couldn’t put those books down! P. J Tracy is actually a mother & daughter author combo, they both write the books and they were great.

Right now I am reading Firestorm it is okay but doesn’t totally captivate me. What? I have a short attention span or something!

Oh and just last weekend I was reading a few chapters on the way to one of my students competitions and this smutty sex scene chapter snuck up out of the blue. I was very weired out by it and didn’t expect the action/ mystery book to have a cheap sex scene chaper in it… I mean if an image of a loving couple is on the cover I know it is a cheap sex novel but I just didn’t expect Firestorm to be like that.

I just got a book from Collins publishing that I am in the process of reviewing right now. It is called Party Basics for New Nester’s and it has lots of recipes and party ideas!

Television – I like TV but am not super pleased with the limited number of new episodes of my favorite shows. I watch Army Wives, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, The Riches and during the day I watch Bad Girls Club and Sex in The City reruns for background music.

My man is a broadcast journalist so I watch him on the news but generally I don’t watch the whole news cast (I’ll watch his story and then turn the news off) because it is just so depressing and negative. It is unfortunate that our society thrives on the bad, gross or startling news stories… When the news station airs some awful news story about the people in your neighborhood you watch it right? So, then you are fueling the stations to air more heartbreaking news next time because they know you will be drawn to it and that you will watch. So, that is why I don’t watch the news.

Music – I am a fan of all types of music and I have a wide variety of favorites. I try to stay on top of the newest music since I am a choreographer and winterguard instructor. I use my IPOD to transport all my music but my cigarette charger is dead in the car so I can’t use my AM/ FM transmitter to play my IPOD tunes while I am driving. I have to listen to CD’s and the radio instead. I love songs by Tori Amos, I have a Fallout Boy CD playing in the car and I also enjoy my Timbaland CD in the car.

I have designed shows to songs by The Fray, Something Corporate, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Maroon 5, Enya and more. Oh, I love the sounds of Tibetan Singing Bowls they are so relaxing and I am also enjoying listening to Linkin Park and Graham Colton!

Guess I kind of turned this meme in to a list of info huh? I just don’t have the brain power to do much more right now… I need to take a nap!

The post Entertainment/ Media Meme appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

So, bear with me some things may display wacky while I am working but once I get my Preview Theme Plugin working you wont have to see the strange looking changes till they are ready to go live! (Preview Theme never did work for me so I moved on.)

I got theme test drive working beautifully so you probaly wont see any strange glitches or funky stuff now. The theme test drive plugin rocks! I am having all kinds of fun testing out possible themes and getting stuff the way I want it now.. FUN!

It is however keeping me from finishing my taxes… Ugh, I will do them before April 15th!

The post Brace yourselves, a new look is on the way. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Essentially she can upload images via the “add media” button but this error displays:

When she goes to view the “gallery” that clearly shows that is has photos in it this is what happens:

Here is what the “media library” look like:

Here is what blows my mind: When I sign in to her self hosted WordPress blog to test out adding an image I also get the exact same issues! This kind of rules out a browser or flash player issue cause on my own blog I can do these things fine but on her blog (from the exact same computer) I can’t. Seems to me like a database or compatibility issue with the host.

She is on Apache version2.2.8 (Unix), PHP version5.2.5, MySQL version5.0.45-community and Operating system– Linux.

I am on Apache version1.3.39 (Unix), PHP version5.2.5, MySQL version5.0.45-community and Operating system- Linux.

I guess maybe it could be the apache version causing the problem.?.?. I have no clue! I am interested in any readers input/ experiences with this. Maybe we can brainstorm the issue here and rule out some stuff.

In the meantime there is a workaround for those experiencing the same issue with getting an image to show up in the blog post:

• Simply upload your image using the add media button
• In a new window or tab go to your image directory. It will be something like: http://www.yourdoamin.comwp-content/uploads
• Find the file that you just uploaded. You may need to select the year folder, then the month folder to see all the uploads for that time frame depending on your directory structure.
• When you find the photo you just uploaded copy the file location (the URL) and then head back to your blog post that you are working on
• In the add image window paste the URL you just copied, add your description, select your alignment and select “insert into post”.

You can also click on the image icon and put your image URL in there.

The post Unable to insert an image after your WordPress 2.5 upgrade? appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Things are crazy right now (that is quite the understatement)… Our living situation saga just keeps getting more and more interesting as the days pass.

Back on January 15th 2008 I wrote “You broke your toe? Want to buy a house?” where I shared with my readers the interesting letter we received from the owners of the home we are renting. They were expressing their “urgency” and wanted to work with us to make our ownership of their house possible. Back in August when we agreed to rent this house on a month to month basis my man was negotiating his contract at work. His contract stipulates pay over an agreed amount of time and a bunch of other legalities. We were considering refusing the contract and possibly moving to a higher paying area, possibly out of state. We want to buy a home and start a family… All of this depends on his contract.

Anyway we had expressed an interest in buying the home as we were signing the rental agreement… Come January when the economy is verging recession and we are locked into another 1 year contract the home owners contact us and ask us to make an offer on the house… We offered what we believed the house was worth taking our own financial situation into account and also the state of the economy.. No response from the owners.

Two weeks later on January 31st the stove catches fire (we don’t own it, the home owners do) and we are notified that the house has a contract on it and is in the process of selling. N thinks the owners only wanted us to make an offer on the house so they could be sure they were getting the most they could for it. Greed!

So, (I am getting to the “when life gives you lemons part, don’t worry) we come to terms with the fact the we have to move in 30 days and we begin lining everything up. Found a new house to rent, will sign the 6 month lease tomorrow.. Got a replacement stove delivered, the home owners bought a used one and have been working to bust out my bulk purse order (only 16 left to make).

Last night N and I were home together and I had planned to make my favorite Moist roasted chicken recipe, I get the chicken all ready and I go to turn the oven on… Recipe calls for baking at 450 degrees, I hit the bake button and NOTHING happens!

N tries to turn the oven on, pressed various buttons, reset/ off, cook time, bake etc and the oven wont turn on… It gives us an F 13 error code. What the f? He pulls the oven away from the wall to unplug and re-plug it in, maybe it needs a “reboot” or something. No dice.. oven will not turn on, it’s about 9pm now we are snowed in and can’t cook our food.

I was planning to roast the chicken and to bake some brownies, both are not possible without an oven but we are resourceful (here is the lemons part)… N goes out to the shed to grab this old rotisserie thingy he purchased before we first got together. We wiped all the salt off the chicken shoved it in the rotisserie for cooking. Then we grabbed this old toaster oven thingy from the shed turned the temperature to 300 and cooked the brownies.

It was a frustrating night of cooking but what can you do? I considered throwing the defrosted chicken out into the snow out of anger but that would have just wasted a perfectly good chicken..

I just can’t wait to move out of this house now.. The stove/ oven replacement is used/ not fully functional and I just feel like the owners half-assed that whole thing. Seems like they just want to make a quick buck off the house and that they have no regard for anything else. They supposedly remodeled the place and did all this wonderful work on it but so much was just sloppily thrown together (this may just be my anger about having to move talking so you be the judge and view the photo slide show of the house). I just feel sorry for the poor soul that bought this little place.

By the way… you can click on the photos to get a better/ closer look at them….

The post When life gives you lemons… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

However, their is still one egg in the nest that looks as though it has developed and we are expecting it to hatch this week. You can see darkness through the egg shell! I visually check the nest each day to see the progress of the finches. Yesterday I peeked into the nest and saw that more eggs had been laid! Today she laid another egg so now we are back to 3 eggs in the nest! One should hatch this week and the other two have from 2-3 weeks before they will hatch.

I am also working on another clients website this week, I am building a simple e commerce site for her. I am moving my own blog to a separate domain this week. Oh, we are expected to get our first snow for this winter (flagstaff, az 2007) over the thanksgiving holiday.. It’s been a warm and dry winter so far. We were expected to get snow earlier in the month but it only sprinkled instead. This time we have a 10% chance over 3 days, please let it snow!

Think snow for us okay? Nathan even went out and chopped some firewood this morning with his free fire wood permit, We are so ready for snow! So, what has everyone else been up to? Are you ready for thanksgiving? Nathan and I are having differing opinions about what the best thanksgiving dessert is… What will you be having for dessert on thanksgiving?

The post Updates on our mating finches, websites and more… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.