Joey's website is on the move!

A few weeks ago, I got an email from my Internet provider that I had to "migrate" (move to a new server and web address) the website that I've maintained for Joey for almost 8 years. The email made this sound like a quick and easy process, of course. I tried to do it last week, received a cheerful email that I had "successfully migrated" my website...but when I went to check on it at the new address- no website. Today I spoke for an eternity with a half dozen tech support folks at my Internet provider, finally the 6th one was able to sort it all out and at least tell me the new URL for the site. However, he also told me that I had to move all of my files to their server, then go in and manually recode the HTML on every page of my site to reflect over 120 changes in the links, photos and web storage addresses. Oy! Several hours later, I'm not done, but I have successfully moved and recoded a majority of the site. My internet service provider says that the "old" web address won't be active past this Tuesday, and that's the one that my family and friends all have. The new address is active, but not all the links are fixed yet. The new address is: http://home.roadrunner.com/~sherrie/ That funny thing before my name is called a tilde, it's usually on the upper left hand key on a keyboard, shift on the accent key to get it. I spent hours working on moving the site today, but it's worth it when I get emails from parents whose children are having the same heart surgery as Joey and they tell me that they found the site very reassuring- I get a couple emails every few months, it's really satisfying to me that by telling about Joey's medical journey I can help other parents facing the same thing.

And- one last thing, I have to brag about Joey's report card that came home yesterday- he got seven A's and one B! The B was in math, and his final grade was .45 of one point away from an A! He works really hard, his school is very competitive so those grades are well earned, for sure. (I'm really sweating over his math....I try to check his homework every night, but it's quickly getting beyond my math skills! His school goes up to calculus and trig in high school, but my math ability maxed out at Algebra II...any math whizzes out there to help me in a couple years?) :)

Hey la, hey la, my boyfriend's back

I'd like to balance some of the badness of today with the profoundly good karma that is generated by the return of the actor simply known as "My Boyfriend, George Clooney" to ER. My husband doesn't seem to mind that Mr. Clooney's name has been amended each time I say or type it to include his status as my official boyfriend, he's good that way. I read in the paper yesterday that he will be appearing in the final three episodes of ER, starting tonight. I have been known to bring my whole family running in fear that I have injured myself in response to the high pitched squeal that I let loose at the mere mention of his name, so I'll try to keep it down when I see him on the show tonight. :)

a quiet week on the blog

This has been a very “heavy” week emotionally, that is the reason that I haven’t been blogging- on one hand I don’t want to diminish what has been happening by not blogging, but on the other hand I tend to seek to escape it by dwelling on shallow things and that’s the direction most blog entries I could write this week would go- that’s just how I deal with things, I use shallowness/humor as a defense mechanism. I won’t share their stories in detail here, out of respect for their privacy, but suffice to say that my best friend of 31 years is facing losing her mother in the next few days and my parents are dealing with the serious, likely fatal, health problems of their beloved dog of 10 years. I most assuredly lack the skills to say the right things to comfort either my friend or my parents (I envy those people that seem to know the right thing to say and do in these situations) but I sort of want to acknowledge them here and explain why the blog had been quiet. I’ll most likely be back later to blog something totally vapid and shallow, but it has it’s purpose.

a quick coupon update...

Today I did my grocery shopping for the first time using an organized system for gathering and using coupons, and it worked out pretty well. My final out of pocket cost was only $32.20 for a weeks worth of groceries, and between coupons, clearance items and BOGO's I saved $51.66- so my total before those things would have been over $83 and essentially I got my groceries for just over 60% off! After a few weeks of gathering coupons, I should be able to save even more. I'm also getting hyped up about getting the CVS and Walgreens ads in the Sunday paper, I had a lot of fun last week matching up coupons to sales to get great deals on those last week. (Yes, I'm a bit of a dork...but that's ok, saving money is a really good thing!)

Joey has been volunteering at church in the "High Definition" (contemporary) service for several months. He's part of the production team, running cameras for the live webcast of the service and the in-church big screens that show the band and drama team. (The church membership is 6000, so big screens are quite neccessary!) I've been meaning to write about it here for friends and family who read this blog but I was waiting until I could give you a good link in case you'd like to view the service. I tried to find the recently archived services, and instead I found a Public Enemy live show! (They're my favorite old school rap group, but not what I was looking for!) I'm told that the show is run live on the church website every Sunday at 9AM, here is the link for the service: http://www.indianrocks.org/HighDef/index.htm Click on "HD Live" on Sunday between 9 and 10:30 AM if you'd like to take a look. There are four cameras, Joey usually runs either the big TV studio style camera or the mobile camera that he can run all around and get cool shots of the band from all angles. The service is great- they have a full rock style band and it's LOUD- it's like going to a concert every Sunday. Joey is learning quite a bit about running the cameras and the actual production of the show, with the video switchers and effects and everything. Hopefully, he will also take a video production class at school next year, it usually starts in 9th grade but the teacher has said that he may let Joey in as a 7th grader next year due to his experience with the HD production. Check out the HD service if you have a chance, we really enjoy it.

Coupon queen

I've always been unreasonably proud of just how much I can save at the grocery store with coupons and paying attention to sales (most weeks, it's around $50 in savings), but I recently ran across a blog by a woman who makes me look like quite the amateur when it comes to saving money. Her blog is http://www.sherrimccann.com/ and she offers coupon classes. She lives nearby, but not near enough for me to make the trek to the next county for her class. So, I got her class in booklet form through the mail last week and I put it into action this week. Today, I spent just over $10 at Walgreens (I went twice) and actually got almost $40 in groceries. In fact, after work I got Dawn dishwashing soap, 2 bars of Yardley oatmeal/honey soap (my favorite!), Colgate toothpaste, 24 cans of Pepsi (my poor misguided son has been led astray into the land of Pepsi by his Grandma! Other than them, we are totally a Coke family!) and 24 bottles of Zephryhills spring water...for $1.32! AND I got $3.00 in "Register Rewards" back on the Pepsi to spend on my next visit there, so it's sort of like they paid me $1.68 to get the groceries. John thought it was so cool that I got all that stuff for close to nothing. I'm also shopping at CVS (saved $12 there today, everything I bought came with "bonus bucks" equal to what I spent that can be used like cash in the store on anything so I essentially got double product for my $) and my usual Publix. Now I'm really hyped up about saving money at the grocery store, I can't wait until the sale ads come out on Wednesday. I know it's not the most exciting thing in the world, but it thrills me to find the good sales and save money (or even get things for close to nothing.) :)

Concert review: Kasim Sulton

A great time was had by all at the Kasim Sulton DVD release party/dinner/concert last night. We arrived about an hour before the show started and met up with several friends that we know from previous Meat Loaf concerts who had travelled in for the show. We had a good dinner, then around 8ish the concert started. Kasim sang a nice mix of his original music, Todd Rundgren songs, Utopia songs and a few covers. Our seats were the closest ones to the stage, about six feet from Kasim. He did all of our favorite songs, with John's very favorite "Don't Hold Me Back" making it in as the very last encore. John and I were singing it in the parking lot at Target the night before (much to the dismay of other shoppers) so he was thrilled to hear Kasim do it. After the last song, much to my surprise Kasim climbed off the stage and made a beeline straight for me! He gave me a hug and said "Sherrie, sweetheart, it is so good to see you!". What a doll he is! He stayed around for over an hour, signing autographs and taking photos and chatting with everyone. John was helping load up his merchandise (tshirts, CDs, DVDs) to go to the next show, so we were there a good while after the show. As we left, Kasim squeezed my arm and said that he'd see me in a month as he's coming to Clearwater to play with Todd Rundgren at a show I'm going to. John took several videos, once I figure out how to post them on YouTube I'll add a link here. For now, enjoy the pics of John and I with Kasim, and if you haven't heard his music go to http://www.kasimsulton.com/ and check it out- you won't be disappointed!