I think I’m mostly done with the basics of this redesign. What I really want is to to get the blue sidebar to look like it’s tucked under the main column, but the z-index isn’t doing quite what I wanted. 🙁 Plus there’s lots of fiddly bits I could fiddle with if I felt like it. Among other things, I’m futzing around with Typekit. (The goal, btw, is to make the writing the focal point.) But the general feel of it is there.
I also have a redesign mostly ready for the ENA site. I’m excited: it’s not often that I get truly inspired with a design, and this one has come together quite nicely. With both my personal site and the ENA, I’m trying to expand my skillset some: more experimentation with design plus some new techniques. (Rounded corners and box-shadows and fonts, oh my!)
In other nerdiness, Tech Tuesday is ON! I haven’t figured out a program or anything yet, but I have a date and a location. I’m considering adding some content to the site: recruiting a local blogger or two to write about tech (if you’re interested just holler) and/or trying to do some tech writing of my own. There may be something hiding out in my archives that I can rework. The big Drupal post or “ampersands f*ck up everything” seem like the most likely candidates.
I’m finding myself happily (!) in the thick of a bunch of civic involvement stuff — the last ENA general meeting was fantastic, really inspiring; I’m continuing along with the Friends of the Library, and I’ve applied for a spot on the city’s Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee. There’s some other stuff that I’m mulling around in the back of my mind that hasn’t quite gelled yet, too.
At the same time, I’m almost done with my second read-through/revision of my NaNoWriMo project. The first time I was looking for big stuff; this time I’m being more focused: some copy-editing, some marking big passages as “wtf” or “meh” or “awk”, picking up more inconsistencies, and so on. In general, the first few paragraphs of almost every scene are pretty weak. It just takes me a bit to find my groove, I guess. So there’ll be lots of cutting or expanding. Also, I can definitely spot places where I was padding for word count. 🙂 Plenty of strikethroughs in those sections!
Maybe it’s the impending spring, but right this moment I’m finding myself in a pretty good mood, and I hope everybody out there in the internets is getting a chance to be creative and engaged too!