Many of you were lucky enough to watch the chaos unfold this weekend as I upgraded to MT 3.2. Behind the scenes, the database and the blog are all in tact. I don’t have all of the photoblogs up and running yet, but for the most part, everything is working. However, I have had to do SO much cleaning in the process, that I’ve decided to start over with a new, simple design. When I first set up skins, I didn’t know a lot about what I was doing, and its has been irritating since I’ve learned more, to still see the old code and the old way I did things. Trying to get everything working this weekend forced me to go and clean up some of the code. I started over with a simpler design.

My goal? Is to slowly but surely implement all of the skins back in, but it will take awhile since I have changed the code so much with the new design.

For most of you? This won’t matter a bit. You probably could care less about the code and the interworkings of this site. However, if I don’t go on the record explaining my actions NOW, I’ll wake up to 50 million emails tomorrow asking me where the [BLANK] skin is.

And for the record? The new default templates on the new MT? Are not at ALL simple in code. They may be simple in design, but the .css is chaotic to say the least. I was not impressed. But that’s just me. I like it clean and simple.

First off, I had many goals for this weekend, one of them? To frame all the art that is going in our “Fun Art Hall” so that we can hang it up before the baby shower. And this? Is Now Done. Check it out (click to enlarge). Most of the stuff here was done by lilZ. However, some were gifts to each other (gotta love Art Paws) and some are just things people have made that we believe belong on the wall. Kitty made us the picture of me holding LilGirl which I LOVE. See? We do cherish homemade gifts - we are already shopping for racks to hang the blanket Beth made us. You can get YOUR crafts/art displayed in our home too! It’s like a blogger gallery here, people!

We also bought BEDDING! Again! This is the THIRD bedding set we’ve picked out. We’re SO DECISIVE it’s intimidating, isn’t it?

No, but really…We realized we had been SETTLING on bedding when we had picked out the other two sets, because at Burlington Coat Factory (who knew they sold baby stuff? Not Us.) They had some of the most BEAUTIFUL and PERFECT bedding sets ever in the history of bedding sets. We had to rule some stuff out (400 dollars for a four piece set didn’t seem right) and then we actually had to DECIDE because we liked so many!

(click to enlarge) do you like it? And it was on sale from the sticker price, TWENTY PERCENT OFF. And those pictures on the side? I just found those at Target and they just seemed to match perfectly. I’ve also found gobs and gobs of other stuff that matches (light plate covers! lamps! shelves! towels for her bathroom which she doesn’t have!) but I restrained myself. For now.

We also? Filled up our garage so we can’t park in there anymore! What did we fill it up with? Baby Furniture! And tools! And paint! See?

We ended up buying cheaper furniture at Burlington coat factory for NikkiZ’s nursery. It is there, in the boxes by the bed that USED to be in the nursery which we are giving to some friends (Bye Bye guestroom. Hello company can now sleep on the floor!). As you see, MrZ got everything he could possible need to make NikkiZ’s room beautiful. Lets just hope he doesn’t run into any more complications. Want to see so far?

Remember, he has decided to strip the popcorn off the ceiling and repaint it so we can put crown moulding up. It will be beautiful, I’m sure. But right now? It makes him say a LOT of dirty words. Which, I don’t mind so much when he’s wearing his toolbelt because - YUMMY. (click to enlarge)

MrZ also decided to install a ceiling fan in LilZ’s room because it gets TOO DAMN HOT IN THERE, which is probably something I shouldn’t be judging right now since I’m always hot, but I don’t care. Unfortunately - the contractors who built this house rigged everything up to HOLD a ceiling fan, but didn’t use the right type of box to attach it to, so MrZ has been spending a lot of time in the attic trying to figure out the best solution that requires the least amount of destruction.

But since he started late (thinking it wouldn’t be such a project, little did he know…) he didn’t get to finish before it was time for bed, so LilZ camped out on our bedroom floor. Hopefully he’ll get his room back today.

Meanwhile? I’m working on framing photos for the photo hall today! Notice how I mentioned NOTHING about getting all my stuff running on my site. That is because after the day I had yesterday? I’m so freakin’ sick of working on my computer, I could cry. Maybe tonight. Or not. Who cares, it’s working (for the most part) right now and I’m not going to VOLUNTEER the information about what’s not working. If it looks good to you? It looks good to me.

Okay - so things are FINALLY looking normal around here. But - dont get TOO excited. Things are STILL very wonky and will be for the weekend if not longer. Please don’t email me with everything that’s not working, I know it’s not working, I’ve CRIED and CURSED and BEAT MR.Z about it not working. I am still trying to get things up and running, but I must take breaks in order to TRY to maintain a healthy level of sanity. But, thanks for sticking with me. We’re gonna make it after all!

I need a new category called “Suicidal.”

Okay. So we’ve already discussed the “Big Stupid Dumbass Mistake” that I made a year and a half ago that came back to haunt me today, right? Well, so I pretty much had to delete my entire site and start over (well, the MT Blog part) but first, I exported entries and copied about 50 templates into text files. After ALL of that, I reinstalled MT (the RIGHT way, isn’t it funny how that works), reimported all my old entries and was JUST ABOUT to start prettying things up again when BAM. Can’t access my site.

So I killed someone.

And then, I got even more frustrated because you people KEPT COMMENTING and I just kept crying to my computer saying “Why? Why? Why? Why are they able to get to my site and not me? How do they keep DOING that?” I harassed my support guy (who I’ve already been harassing about bandwidth issues) I cried, and I finally gave up and went to Hobby Lobby to get some of LilZ’s artwork framed. SCREW THE BLOG, I yelled while blazing down the road.

Now I’m back, and all is up and running. Turns out they locked me out of my own site due to some login difficulties I had while trying to reinstall. BAH. It’s technological mutiny today folks. So, I am going to do some non-computer related crafts because if anything goes wrong again I’m totally beating all four computers to a pulp with my bare hands, and I can’t handle that today. So, Glue! Construction paper! Shapes! Fun, mindless tasks to make me feel a little less like a moron.

Once upon a time, I installed Movable Type for the first time EVER. It was on my own site and it was a LONG LONG time ago. I have upgraded a million times and done a million things with that install, and I have NEVER had a problem.

Until Today.

It turns out, on that day, many moons ago - I made a BIG FAT SCREW UP that I just saw this morning. And somehow? Some way? Movable Type has functioned this WHOLE TIME without ANY problems, which is impressive considering, the DATABASE WAS EMPTY. BAH!

So, long story short? (Yet, oh so painful). I have had to reinstall and overwrite EVERYTHING. I was able to export my entires (How? We’ll never know) and reimport them, so the WORDS are there. But my designs? ALL GONE. I have to reimplement them all (I backed them up, so it won’t be TOO bad, just a pain in th ass). So, for today? Things are REALLY not pretty. Please don’t judge me. Be patient, things will get back to normal soon.

Oh - the tears I’ve cried.