I’ve been working on something that I like a lot. It’s a redesign of this of this blog and I’m hoping to have it done by Easter. I am coding the thing in HTML5 and throwing in a bunch of CSS3 styling and effects. So far the buildout has been going pretty well. I am learning a lot, using a bunch of new WordPress 2.9 functions, getting into HTML5 and unlearning old XHTML habits. Or at least trying to.

The new design will have a lot more focus on my portfolio, pushing toward getting some freelance projects moving. Not that I really have time right now with the new job and grad school – but I will need something at some point.

So anyway. Here’s a sneak peek.

The movers are here, packing up our stuff. We’re supposed to finalize a lease tonight or tomorrow. The first place we wanted fell through. We are hoping beyond hope and praying hard that this one will work out. We need it to.

Puppy is going to stay with Audra for a few days while we take care of things. I can’t wait to be in our warm hotel room in Bannockburn tonight. Watching LOST. And relaxing a little. There have been a few hitches with this moving process, but I’m trying not to worry about stuff too much.

Tomorrow we’re doing stuff at Trinity; Thursday we’ll be moving in (as long as things go well); Friday we’ll be driving to Champaign to pick up Cors; Saturday we’ll have Jessica’s parents visiting.

It’s been a long couple of weeks.

This week is the week. Well, I hope it’s the week. We’ve run into a few snags in this moving process. We did find a place that we’re okay with living in for the next year. It’s only a 15 minute commute to school, pretty up-to-date, has a fireplace and a garage.

The only problem is that we are still waiting to hear if the lease has gone through. We are supposed to have the movers here on Tuesday, but without a confirmation from the landlords, we don’t know if there’s a place to have our things delivered to. Hopefully we will hear tomorrow.

I’ve got a few things to take care of beyond the normal changing of address. For one, we’re in a Dish Network contract and I need to know if we’ll be able to have a dish installed at our new place. We’ll have to see what Dish will do for us if we have to terminate early. Hopefully it won’t be too bad.

Sounds like Jessica’s parents may come up on Saturday to help us unpack. I’m thinking IKEA for bookcases and Giordano’s for some pizza (they’ve never experienced Chicago-style stuffed pizza). In any case, there is a lot to do this week with finishing up work, meeting movers, moving, going to an inauguration, and getting all settled. I start my new job at Trinity a week from Monday.

Well, my friends. Something I have vaguely alluded to on several different occasions has finally come to pass. As of yesterday I have accepted a position at Trinity International University starting later this month. The official title is Web Marketing Manager, and the work is much more along the lines of what I want to do than my current job.

Jess and I have been praying hard for things to work out (as many of our friends and family members have been) and it has been pretty incredible to see how God’s timing has played out. In about two weeks we will be moving our things from the St Louis Metro-East to the North Chicago area — assuming everything goes to plan.

As you can imagine there is a lot to be done before that move, so things might be a bit quiet around here, though I am going to try and keep up with the writing so I have a record of this move.

It’s a little bit sad to be leaving so many great people here in Greenville, but Jessica and I have, for a long time actually, felt stagnant here. This move is something that is invigorating and hopeful for us. Expect great things! We both are.

Those of you that knew about this, thank you for your prayers, thoughts and support while we were going through this. It means the world to us.

I am traveling. Big day coming up and hopefully some news to come in a few days.

I registered for classes last night. And it feeeeeeels good.

I’m taking two required seminar courses and a design course that I am excited about. Color theory, typography, layout… it’s going to be great.

Can’t wait to start! Apparently orientation videos will be online on Monday and the processes to add me to Blackboard will also run. And allegedly I have no textbooks? That can’t be right.

I’ll have to check that out again later…

…was just accepted into the Master of Arts in Media Studies program at The New School!

I’m pretty freaking excited about it.

I start the program in January and it’s all online–unless we move to New York, but I don’t see a ton of chance in that happening unless I get a new, well-paying job there.

Super excited!!! I am possibly co-teaching a New Media marketing online class next May term.

Busy times.

Wow.

After releasing Modern Linguist on Friday, Chris Coyier gave me a shout out on Digging Into WordPress. I got a ton of traffic from that, and I owe him some thanks. It seems like those who have taken a look at the theme really enjoy it. I had to make a few modifications after my word counts got entered into the NaNoWriMo site, but it’s working. I did find out that their API is a little slower than I had anticipated. Maybe that a future project to donate to the Office of Letters and Light.

I’m well on my way to the 10,000 words I need by the end of the week. Jessica and I attended the Southern Illinois regional kick-off write-in and I was able to get 3700-something words packed in in the first four hours of noveling. Not too shabby. I’m planning to write another couple of thousand tonight and pull ahead of where I need to be.

I am also considering prepping some of my past WordPress templates for mass release. Some of them need rewrites and I’m thinking that might be a good beginning of 2010 project. Releasing one has got me all into it.

In other news, one major project down, one to finish up. Two of my big day job projects are winding down too, which means I can devote attention to a couple of other major ones that have been waiting in the wings.

We’ve got plane tickets booked for Christmas, plans set for Thanksgiving. It just might be a good end to 2009.

Fiat 500 Abarth

Can I tell you how freaking excited I am about Fiat-Chrysler bringing the Cinquecento Abarth edition to the US? SO EXCITED. I’m already trying to save my few pennies.