The arrival of Kruise Cupra

I did what I really didn’t want to do – stop blogging. I have a great excuse, though – I had a baby boy. He’s my third child, and I have a boy toddler and a school-aged girl as well. Having a baby and a boy toddler at the same time is much more challenging than I’d imagined.

And with the last months of pregnancy and the sleep deprivation of having a newborn turning me into a zombie, the Web Design Watchdog blog got sadly neglected.

Funnily enough, I managed to get addicted to Facebook in the meantime, and lately have been keeping up with Twitter. But stringing together enough sane thoughts to write a proper article has just been too hard.

But I’ve been itching to get back into it, and with my newborn now 9 weeks old, I think I have a good chance. Fingers crossed.

My writing isn’t up to my normal standard, but to heck with it. It’ll come back with practice and as the baby learns to sleep more at night. So please stick with me.

A lady from my church sent me this funny email (getting into Facebook seems to have gotten me added onto those inevitable ‘Funny Email’ carbon-copied lists). It’s off-topic but it is relevant to this ‘Silly Season’. By the way, even though this is a letter to Santa, I don’t actually celebrate Christmas. Our family has adopted Festivus (the holiday for the rest of us) instead.

Festivus via Seinfeld

Dear Santa,

I’ve been a good mother all year. I’ve fed, cleaned and cuddled my children on demand, visited the doctor’s office more than my doctor, and sold sixty-two cases of choc bars to raise money to plant a shade tree on the school playground. I was hoping you could spread my list out over several Christmases, since I had to write this letter with my son’s red crayon, on the back of a receipt in the laundry between cycles, and who knows when I’ll find anymore free time in the next 18 years.

Here are my Christmas wishes:

I’d like a pair of legs that don’t ache (in any colour, except purple, which I already have) and arms that don’t hurt or flap in the breeze; but are strong enough to pull my screaming child out of the candy aisle in the grocery store.

I’d also like a waist, since I lost mine somewhere in the seventh month of my last pregnancy.

If you’re hauling big ticket items this year I’d like fingerprint resistant windows and a radio that only plays adult music; a television that doesn’t broadcast any programs containing talking animals; and a refrigerator with a secret compartment behind the crisper where I can hide to talk on the phone.

On the practical side, I could use a talking doll that says, “Yes, Mommy” to boost my parental confidence, along with two kids who don’t fight and three pairs of jeans that will zip all the way up without the use of power tools.

I could also use a recording of Tibetan monks chanting “Don’t eat in the living room” and “Take your hands off your brother,” because my voice seems to be just out of my children’s hearing range and can only be heard by the dog.

If it’s too late to find any of these products, I’d settle for enough time to brush my teeth and comb my hair in the same morning, or the luxury of eating food warmer than room temperature without it being served in a Styrofoam container.

If you don’t mind, I could also use a few Christmas miracles to brighten the holiday season. Would it be too much trouble to declare tomato sauce a vegetable? It will clear my conscience immensely. It would be helpful if you could coerce my children to help around the house without demanding payment as if they were the bosses of an organized crime family.

Well, Santa, the buzzer on the dryer is ringing and my son saw my feet under the laundry door. I think he wants his crayon back. Have a safe trip and remember to leave your wet boots by the door and come in and dry off so you don’t catch cold.

Help yourself to cookies on the table but don’t eat too many or leave crumbs on the carpet.

P.S. One more thing… you can cancel all my requests if you can keep my children happy, healthy and always believing.

Author Unknown

Here are a few items from the list:

• Keep background colors and images at a minimum. Backgrounds are often less than visually appealing and can make your site load slowly.
• Reduce choices. Avoid overwhelming your visitor with lots of different options.
• Stay consistent. Check to make sure that colors and design are in the same general scheme so that visitors know they’re still on your site.
• Validate design in alternative browsers. See how your design renders in browsers like Safari, Opera and Firefox to make sure that it looks right no matter who is viewing it.

101 Five-Minute Fixes to Incrementally Improve Your Website

photo credit: booleansplit