I’ve spent my time online searching on how to uninstall/install a new dishwasher.  Yes, I did it myself.  How’s that for girl power?

My blood sugar levels are through the roof, I haven’t felt well in a while and I spend a lot of time sleeping. (36 out of 52 hours this last weekend alone.)

When I’m not sleeping, I am working.  Did you see the new getpaul web site launch? (It launched quietly at 4am one very early morning this last week.)  We are also working approximately 17 real estate transactions at the moment… plus all the property management and office staffing drama.  However, the staffing problem has been solved and I’m looking forward to announcing the Hoots we hired, once it’s official!

It’s stifling hot.  Yes, temperature-wise, but our A/C went out for 4 days and holding a hot computer on my lap wasn’t any fun.

It’s summer time. I am spending a lot of time with my adorable children. ‘Nuff said.

I’ve been working on a few different web sites for work the last 30 days and I’ve been doing a lot of the development in WordPress using the Thesis 1.7 theme.  I hit full on panic mode tonight when I was trying to tweak a custom function and added some bad pieces of code unknowingly to the theme footer.  I clicked on my “Big Ass Save Button” (of which I have renamed to a little bit classier version) and went to check on my site and poof! EVERYTHING on the site went blank.  I started breathing into a paper bag as I could not even login to the WordPress backend, like I said EVERYTHING was blank and nothing would load.  O….M….G….

So, if this happens to you, here is how you fix it:

1) Login to your host (cPanel) backend and re-name your Thesis file.  You can find it in your File Manager by clicking on Public HTML > wp-content > themes.

2) Select “Thesis_17″ and rename the file.  I just added four random numbers behind the 17.  This will cause WordPress to reset your site to the default theme allowing you to be able to log back in and getting rid of the kiss of death blank site screens.

3) Once you are logged into the WordPress backend.  Click on “Appearance” > “Editor” on the left hand side of the admin screen.

4) In the top right hand corner, select “Thesis” from the drop down box under “select theme to edit”

5) Click on “custom_functions php” in the right hand column.

6) Find the botched/bad code in the editor window and delete it.

7) Click “Update File” at the bottom.

Repeat step 1 above, except this time change your Thesis file name back to the original “Thesis_17″.  Meaning, erase the random numbers you added.

9) You’re almost done… Now go back to “Appearance” > “Themes” and activate your Thesis 1.7 Theme.

10) And now you’re done. Yay!!

I must tell you though, I had help getting to this point by perusing the WordPress support forums on this issue and also by reading this site.

</panic!>

As Smokey The Bear would say, “Only you can prevent forrest fires.”  Uhh, no I can’t because I have tried.  I am speaking of the figurative forrest fire, not the literal ones.  I’ve been known to have too many irons in the fire at one time, but my irons have caught fire and now I’m right in the middle of a huge forrest fire and trying to put it out.  But it’s what I love to do, so here’s the 911, I mean 411 of what’s up.

First, Springfield’s 2nd annual Walk To Cure Diabetes was this past Saturday, May 22, 2010 at Jordan Valley Park.  It was a fantastic day for it and you can see all of the pictures here.  We had just over 500 people there and raised $75,000 for type 1 research.  It was great to have close friends and family come in town for it.  There was even a post on it, written by Scott Strange (who drove down from KC) over at Strangely Diabetic.  Not to mention, Sarah Blacksher wrote about it too.  It was a huge event and I will post on it and my thoughts about it later.

Next on my radar is RE BarCamp St. Louis. June 14th at the Stegton Regency Banquet Center in St. Charles/St. Louis, MO. All my REALTOR® friends getting together to talk tech.  I’m so thankful for outstanding friends like Chris Drayer and Karen Goodman (just to name a few) for their help in getting this off the ground.  You guys surely rock!!

And of course, there are all of the continuing education courses.  It’s a renewal year for Missouri real estate agents and The Donald and I have been teaching classes like crazy. There’s one going on tomorrow.

My new company web site should launch this week (or next).  And who knows whatever happened to that getpaul iPhone app.

Following that is the Dexcom/Omnipod event in Springfield.  This is scheduled for June 24th and was technically supposed to happen this year, but it was put on hold.  Now it’s back and in full force.

And uh, there’s that personal blogging thing.  As usual, the ball gets dropped here too.  It’s dying of smoke inhalation.

I’m fighting with gravity and it’s winning.

Power 96.5 Jams radio station gets on my nerves.

I bent down to pick something up off the floor this morning. I got stuck and hurt myself getting back up.

Getting old sucks.

That is all.

I like to pride myself on having a sense of direction. I have a good idea on which way is North, East, South and West just like I know you should Never Eat Soggy Waffles.  Last week I traveled to Nashville, TN for a two day conference for Real Estate Barcamp Nashville (#REBCNASH) and Wordcamp Nashville. (#WCNASH).  Nashville is approximately an 8 hour drive almost directly east of Springfield, MO.  So if you travel on Highway 60 east of Springfield, you cross the great state of Missouri, go through a hodge-podge of small Kentucky towns, you’ll end up in the beautiful city dubbed the country music capitol of the world.  Not too hard, three states and just a couple of highway changes.

On a side note, the “camps” were amazing and worth the trip.  As expected out of an REBarcamp, I gained lots of knowledge and new ideas from my fellow colleagues in the real estate field.  And Wordcamp was a whole new thing for me where I could camp out (in a wi-fi enabled, air conditioned room) with fellow tech nerds who love the WordPress platform.  Holla!

I was lucky to have a friend come with me and we chose to the make the long trek back to Springfield after the closing sessions.  We left Nashville at approximately 5:00pm which put us crossing the Missouri State border and the dead simple, westward 4 lane highway back to Springfield around 9:00 pm.  It was dark and quiet highway and that is where I lost my beloved sense of direction (I can only guess).

Somewhere I decided to take an exit and drove 26 miles out of my way.  I didn’t realize it until I saw a sign that said “Welcome to Arkansas!” I yelped (not socially as in “Yelp!ed”, but as if I had been a kitty with my tail stepped on).  I looked at my friend and we both gasped “how the heck did we end up in Arkansas?!”  I guess I got sidetracked and lost my sense of direction.  The only way back to the right highway was to go back the 26 miles.  I think I made that 26 mile trek back in about 12 minutes because I was so mad at myself.

Go ahead and laugh.  But you can’t say that you’ve been in four states within 8 hours.  I’m now registering for Wordcamp Fayetteville.

Yeah...I'm not supposed to be here.

That is all.

My issue started with my darling youngest one turning on the dome lights in the backseat and leaving them on overnight.  I leave for work the next morning, late as usual, only to find a dead battery on my beloved Pilot.  No worries though, hubby came to the rescue as he and my darling oldest one push the car out of the garage and jump start the car and we are off.  Frustrated and on edge, I furiously re-program the radio anti-theft code to stop the deafening silence. (the code is cleverly hidden on a sticker inside the glove box in case you need to know).

Later that day I stop by the bank and to add to my lingering irritation over the dead battery, my auto button on my power windows wouldn’t work.  *Gasp!* I had to actually hold my finger on the button to have the window go all the way down! It wouldn’t do it on its own!!  Oh my gosh, my blood is boiling now.  Despite my rage, I snap back to reality and then begin to wonder if I am really that lazy.  And to answer that question, yes, I am.

That brings me to today when I call the local dealership and ask how to solve this problem.  The service tech starts to tell me that I’m “in trouble big time” and proceeds to tell me that I am going to have to get a new motor for the window and take the whole door apart to fix the problem.  I start to panic big time about the costs to do this and I have the nerve to ask him how much it is going to cost, to which he chuckles and says “the laughter you gave me is payment enough for me!”  My jaw hit the floor.  I have now felt every range of emotion possible over this silly window button.  I am ready to call it a day.

Now, if you need to fix the auto-power window button on the driver’s side of your Honda Pilot, here is how you really do it:

*  Push the button down past the second click and hold it for 3 seconds.

*  Repeat the motion for pulling the window button up.

This re-sets the button after a dead battery issue and all works fine again.  It literally is a six second fix.  *deep sigh*  Now, if only I could re-set my day so easily.

So here I am adding to my to-do list.  I’ve got web site overhauls to do to avoid future situations of awkwardness with not only other REALTORS® but clients as well.  Any suggestions?

When we met with you in your office back in August, I had forgotten to e-mail you a photo of the group when you so graciously posed outside in the stifling heat with all of us from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation here in the Ozarks. Please find the photo attached.

When we met on that grueling hot day, the Special Diabetes Program (SDP) hadn’t been introduced yet. But alas, it is upon us again as the legislation was introduced on September 29, 2009 to renew the SDP.

Although you are familiar with the bill H.R. 3668, I just want to bring to your attention that it currently has 75 co-sponsors and yet none of them are from our great state of Missouri.

You had told me last August, in your office, that you would vote to renew the SDP for five more years so that it will include $200 million per year in federal funding for type 1 diabetes research at the National Institutes of Health.

Congressman Blunt, I am counting on you to co-sponsor this bill and renew the Special Diabetes Program to help find a cure for juvenile diabetics like myself and that precious 3 year-old named Hayden that you held on your lap that day that we met in your office. You were there for me during my freshman year at Southwest Baptist University in 1995 when I was so sick with diabetes, and I’m hoping that you will be there for me again by co-sponsoring this bill.

Thank you for helping us find a cure.

Sincerely,

Jessica Hickok

Anyway, my husband and I live on six acres of land just along the James River in Springfield. It’s a pretty piece of land (in my opinion) and it’s also very private. Therefore we also get our fair share of trespassers looking to get to the river or just for a quiet place to make out. This doesn’t scare us as it is usually just kids.

But it is annoying.

We’ve posted “no trespassing” signs. We’ve pulled up behind them in the car and put our brights on until they drove off. We’ve called the county Sheriff. And we’ve clenched our teeth.

But we may have now come up with a solution to get the trespassers off our land. Considering most of them are kids and most kids have an iPhone these days, we just changed the name of our wi-fi network.

Because when you use your device, the wi-fi networks automatically pop up asking if you want to join the wi-fi network nearest to you.  Now when you’re on our land, and you go to check your e-mail on your iPhone (or laptop or other wi-fi device) then you’re yelled at wirelessly and thru clenched teeth obviously.

Take it seriously kids, us older folks aren’t messing around.