It's time to get back to the mosaics

I've not been doing much work on the mosaic this month. I needed to redesign my website montagaelmay.com  and apply the design elements to this blog. It still surprises me some when I come back to the blog and see the new design - I sort of forget that I did the update already.

I also just now - like 10 minutes ago - uploaded the newly redesigned Winona Arts Center website - winonaarts.org. Hopefully I've found all the issues with it. I'm using JotForms for the forms as an experiment. I've beefed up the member-artist pages and added a gallery feature. Hopefully more member who are artists will take advantage of this benefit.

Now I get to do the proofreading and the fretting... I know there's got to be some overlooked placeholder text in there somewhere... or some links on some child page. 

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Temptation

The smalti (glass) order arrived today. Gorgeous glass, absolutely gorgeous.

So much for wrapping up all the website/portfolio tasks before it arrived... I wanted to use the weekend to get all the web stuff I need to do for my own website and for all the sites I do (free... unfortunately) for other people/organizations before the temptation of getting back to the dragon mosaic...

Now, I'll have to be ultra-disciplined... damn.

New Blog Design

I just did a major redesign of this blog. I wanted it to more closely match my website. The redesign involved hacking the Blogger template.

I need to be able to do this for the various blogs that my co-workers create for the university. I had tried before but was not too successful at actually modifying the template (instead of just changing colors and fonts) until I found some excellent guidelines provided by Amanda Fazani of BloggerBuster. Now I need to take a look at all the blogs I manage and assist with for the university.

This is the fun part of my job.

Over my lunch hour I might play with different colors for borders and text. Or maybe not...

Making Decisions

Today I am making decisions - all sorts of decisions.

1. Whether or not to move some websites to SiteGround so that I can use Drupal for CMS
   
   • Magnetic Aesthetic
   • Winona DFL
   • Sustain Winona
     
     
2. What changes need made to payroll items
   
   • deductions & exemptions
   • payroll automatic deposit: how much to which account
   • how long to keep kids on insurance
     
     
3. Priority of house repair tasks
   • ROOF - 1st week in August - $6,500.00 (hired Zane's Roofing)
     
   • Front porch - priority moved from after back porch to before, in order to get it done before roof in August - Some decking, posts, railings, roof joists and decking - $800.00 (us doing labor)
     
   • Back porch - remove screen, replace with lattice, level and paint decking - $125.00
     
   • Side porch - replace screens, add door(s), paint deck and posts & railings
     
   • Finish fence - 5 panels, 6 posts - $180.00
     
   • Landscaping (Mike & Nova for front yard, Mike, Nova, Abelisto & I for back)
   • Cracked plaster (6 spots on 1st floor, 3 on 2nd) - $125.00
     
   • Paint walls - $200.00
     
   • Stain woodwork - $100.00
     
   • Downstairs bathroom - yuk
   • Upstairs bathroom - more yuk
     
     
4. New car or no new car or new-used car - leaning towards putting off this decision until I hear back from EC
   
   
5. Tapestry, or Armor, or Quilt project next

I think that's all that I need to decide on today.

New site published

I uploaded the new www.854w5th.com website. The home page for the site has not been changed, but the sites for Abelisto (Wes) and myself (Monta) are totally redesigned. These redesigns are totally my work, and are not based on templates. The home page for 854w5th.com is still template based. Wes' pages reflect his current Beekeeping research and project. Mine are primarily an updated portfolio website.

I will be redesigning that page soon. I may need to do the Winona DFL site first.

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Doing another redesign

I must be a bit crazy.
I am right in the middle of a nearly overwhelming web redesign at work - a huge project with the herculean task of condensing and redesigning a website that now has over 3000 pages.

I just redesigned the Sustain Winona website, and I am still playing with that a bit.

I am on the technology committee (chair no less!?!) for the Winona County DFL and have undertaken the redesign of that website.

I have promised to look at the Dakota Homecoming site and see about redesigning it.

And I have decided that I need to redo Abelisto & my website.

Last night I worked on Abelisto's part of our website.

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Ah, a new blog... oh, the possibilities!

Okay, here I go again, starting a blog once more.

There are a whole lot of things going on in my world right now. So why I want to start another blog at this time baffles me. It just feels like the right thing to do right now.

I am working on art for an upcoming show. We are gearing up for a major overhaul of the university's websites (oh, yeah, I am a web designer at a small, private, liberal arts university). I am teaching an arts appreciation course in three weeks (egads) - the first full-semester course I have ever taught. I am bidding for a prepress course in the spring (a topic that I am not the most well-versed in).

It is blazing hot for Minnesota, and particularly humid (and our old house does not have air conditioning).

And my father is dying. Or at least that is what all the doctors are saying.

So I have a lot of very intense thoughts right now.

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