The business of life has been keeping me on my toes lately. There have been some exciting changes in my life and I just wanted to get them written down for the record. Enjoy!
Doctor’s Visit Update
As of today, I am still waiting to receive the results from the doctor visit that made me feel horrible; explained in the blog entry The Annual – Releasing The Anger. However, I did get the prescription cream that he recommended that I try to clear up the irritation. I started using the cream as directed right away, and so far, it has relieved a lot of the pain. I do not want to scratch my flesh off so much anymore. One of the ingredients in the cream is a strong numbing agent. This makes me think that the doctor was hoping to clear the irritation by getting me to stop scratching it all the time. I hope he is right, but regardless, I will not be going back to his practice ever again. The cream does more of course, and I can already see that it is healing whatever was going on.
Truck Maintenance
Aside from my own doctoring, I have had to take care of my truck lately too. The right headlight burnt out one day as I was driving home from a friend’s house. The next day I went to Advance Auto Parts where they helped me get the correct bulb to replace it, but they do not do the actual replacing. When a turning light went out, I went to Auto Zone and they took care of everything! Ultimately, I was able to replace the headlight myself… it was very easy to do and all was well. Unfortunately, a few days later we had a snowstorm and on my way home from work on Friday I turned my headlights to ON instead of AUTO. When I got home I jumped out of my truck, assumed my lights would turn off as they usually do when set to AUTO, and then did not return to my truck until Monday morning. The battery was completely dead at that point. On Justin’s lunch break, he came home with jumper cables and got it to crank up for me. A few hours later, I went out to the truck to go to Auto Zone and again it would not start. Finally, when Justin got home from work, he started my truck again with jumper cables and we went to Auto Zone. There they tested my battery, found it would not hold a charge again, and had to order a replacement, because the model I need is a special insulated battery. In the mean time, they gave me a loaner battery that sat in the back seat of my truck so that I could get to work and back the next day.
RSS Feeds and Google Reader
Before I go any further on this subject, let me correct a huge error on my part. In my previous blog, New Blog Features, I talked about the changes, but I failed to give credit to whom made this possible. When these changes were only an idea that I had, I talked to Justin (my great and wonderful husband) about them. In the end, I felt like they would take too much writing of code and too much hunting in the WordPress code. Justin, the master programmer, decided to help me and do almost all of the code that made the changes possible. Because of him, readers can request email notifications by completing a form and then remove themselves from the subscription by clicking a link at the bottom of the emails. He has since received a mountain of praises and apologies for helping me and then not mentioning it in the blog post that announced the changes.
In New Blog Features, I mentioned that I preferred subscribing to newsletters and blogs via email notifications. Knowing that others preferred to follow RSS feeds I decided to make this option available for my blog. The RSS link comes on the standard layout of WordPress, but I have never displayed it… silly, I know. I blame that on my basic ignorance to following RSS feeds. Now that it is available for my blog, I decided to start learning more about them. I have created XML documents for RSS feeds in the past, but never really explored the subscribing options. I have now discovered Google Reader! A wonderful tool that brings all your RSS feeds together. I have been going to more and more sites now that I have email subscriptions for and adding their RSS updates to my Google Reader. Also, I tested some RSS feeds in the Microsoft Outlook environment. I thought it was nice, but not as good as Google Reader is because I can access it from anywhere with an internet connection. Subscribing to RSS feeds is also a nice way of remaining anonymous. If you do not wish for me to know that you stalk me so thoroughly as to receive an email notification for every blog posted, then feel free to stalk in private and follow the RSS feed.
Hall County Government
I realize that I have not posted anything about my new job. I work for Hall County Government now in the Management Information Systems (MIS) Department. I serve all of Hall County’s employees over the phone with computer or technology related issues that they are having. I truly enjoy what I do! I go to work every morning and I am excited to be there! I have never worked anywhere else in my entire life that made me feel this way. I have been there for about three months now, and every day is something new. Every day presents a task that I can help others to solve. One of my greatest joys in life is helping others, and I feel like I achieve that joy every day. On top of loving to help others, I usually get a bonus in that the people I help let me know how appreciated I am; although, I am satisfied and it is enough for me just knowing that I helped. When I get feedback from a person that I think that I helped and they let me know that I did well, then I am ecstatic! In the office, I try to help my co-workers in any way that I can. For my users that I support, I strive to treat you all with the highest respect, because I am there for you.
Two of my favorite praises that I can recall were, “I love you!” and “I’ve been bragging about you.” Remembering the “I love you!” guy always makes me smile. 
Hey D,
Just saying hi and I hope things are well. Sorry bout your truck and about the other thing.