“Resolved that the best way to feel independent is to have a bank account.  Then you’ll never need to ask anybody for favors, but will be able to help yourself.  Let us keep your money safe for you.”

(via Mint.com Blog)

��It’s funny because it’s true.

Dahliaspeak Over Breakfast from Ken Walker on Vimeo.

I just got my bill for Flickr.  $25 for the next year of use.  $50 for the next two.  Staring down the barrel of a holiday season in the biggest economic SNAFU since the 20’s, I’m wondering what $50 for the next two years gets me.

Do you know what features they came out with in the time since I last paid them $50?  Let’s review:

• A redesigned homepage (October 2008)
• Video (April 2008)
• Stats (December 2007)
• Place Pages (November 2007)
• New Slideshow, a Way to Filter Awfulness (May 2007)
• Collections (March 2007)
• Group Improvements (February 2007)
• Crappy mobile site (November 2006)
• Geotagging (August 2006)

Some of that stuff is great (geotagging was fun but tiresome, video was pretty cool but uploader could be better).  Some of it was garbage (mobile THIS).  And a lot of it I just don’t use (looking at you, place pages and stats).  The least inspiring of these was the redesigned homepage which I don’t think works that much better than the original.

My biggest gripe, though?  I can’t customize how I want my photos displayed.  Meaning my most interesting photos seem to fall off the homepage, and my wife’s eBay product photos are right up front.  Lame.

Turns out, WordPress launched this thing called the Media Library which I just realized isn’t half bad.  They also let me password protect my posts so I can hide photos that I don’t want so public outside of friends and family. Their momentum is awesome, and there’s this plugin that’s not half bad, too.  And, besides, we’re already paying $100/year for our web hosting — why not make good use of it?

So, we’re going a different direction and posting our photos here.  Contents may shift as we move them out from Flickr.  Most of our stuff will be public, but I’ll be posting some family shots that we’ll want to keep more private.  Just email me if you’d like the password for the photos.

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Password:

I love the way you…

• Ribbit like a frog every time we pass a Geico billboard
• Give hugs and kisses
• Shrug
• Run across the apartment, yelling “Blueberry!” in Dahlia language whenever I open the freezer
• Like trucks and trains
• Read books to yourself
• Dance
• Adore your Da-Da
• Are comfortable spending time alone with other people
• Bring me pieces of “yucky” (lint, paper, etc.) that you find so we can throw them out together
• Eat my chapstick
• Roll around on the floor, squealing and screaming with one of your large stuffed animals
• Carefully hand me any food that does not belong on your tray, since you are not planning on eating it!
• Imitate us when we blow on your food to cool it
• Put your books or stuffed animals “night-night” by gently stroking or patting them
• Make that adorable sign for squirrel
• Sleep through the night
• Are so brave at the playground
• Tell me when you have finished going potty in your diaper
• Say “boom!” when you fall
• Call any child under 15 yrs. old a “bebe”
• Are eager to help me
• Model for me a much needed, refreshingly innocent view of the world

I love all of these things, and more, but most of all, I just love YOU!

Your Mama

Dahlia just used the toilet!! She has been telling me lately when she has to go to the bathroom (by signing “dirty diaper”) or when she has just gone. So the past few times she told me, I took her and held her on the toilet. This time she actually went. Wow.

This started just since we switched to cloth, so perhaps our time diapering is nearing an end. And just when I was getting a good cloth diaper stash going on!

And then again, maybe this won’t happen again for months. We shall see!

TEASER TUESDAYS ask you to:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.

Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

Please avoid spoilers!

My own 2 “Teaser” sentences for today:

“My view of Chrsitianity is such, ” he added, “that I think no man can consistently profess it without throwing the whole weight of his being against the monstrous system of injustice that lies at the foundation of all our society; and, if need be, sacrificing himself in the battle. That is,  I mean that I could not be a Christian otherwise, though I have certainly had intercourse with a great many enlightened and Christian poeple who did no such thing, and I confess that the apathy of religious people on this subject, their want of perception of wrongs that filed me with horror, have engendered in me more scepticism thatn any other thing.”

– pg. 289 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stove