Tag Archives: time

Reflecting on the Rebuild

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I have to say that having a few days to tinker and rebuild fritzwinkle.com has been a bit of a joy. It has been something that I have been wanting to do for sometime.

Over the summer, I conceived of making a big switch and redoing the whole thing, but it didn’t happen. Instead, I got busy doing other things and, for the first time in awhile, just trying to enjoy some of the summer free from work. Of course, I did get myself involved in somethings that took up some time too.

Unfortunately, I had made some miscalculations with the domain name, which rendered everything offline for a bit. That forced me to have to go into a waiting mode, until that got itself worked out. I also have a tendency to get myself quite wrapped up in various projects and classes while teaching full time, as well. This has always made maintaining the site a challenge.

On the plus side, I have been riding a little bit of a website development wave. From tuning things with the various sites I have been using with students, as well as developing the new sites for both the Massachusetts Writing Project and Boston Writing Project. These autumn activities made for a quicker transition once I had everything ready. Plus, I had a lot more knowledge and understanding at the forefront of my mind since I was using it more regularly. This made it kind of fun and it didn’t take forever, which best of all.

Photo: Fall Kids

Fall Kids at Play

Now, as always, I just hope I can keep things updated and fresh, which has always been a challenge.

Fritzwinkle Reborn

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It is hard to believe that it has been a whole year since the last post on ye old fritzwinkle. Well, having two kids to chase around definitely creates some challenges. Plus, for awhile it seemed like everything I did involved a website. So I guess I simply needed a break.

Then again, I ran into some serious technical problems that seriously hampered efforts to make the necessary improvements needed to reduce the time needed to maintain the site. Considering how long the site had been online, it is amazing that it worked as long as it did. To think I hand-coded the thing from scratch in the beginning. This time around, I have systematized things a whole lot more and hopefully that will make all of the difference. So, I am back again with a brand new look and feel and future improvements on the horizon.

Thanksgiving Spread

It seems almost fitting that it has been a year since the last post. It was last year when we had our first Thanksgiving in our own home. This year was no different and equally wonderful. Ali, with a little help from Keri, whipped up a feast for all of us. The Patriots played and won. The kids enjoyed the spread.

Family Thanksgiving

They were both ready, adorned with headdress. Now that Hadley has begun school, she is returning home with holiday crafts. She is a particular lover of pumpkin pie. Even little Fritz could partake in some of the grub. He seems to like turkey quite a bit, in spite of this fantastic look.

Turkeyhead One Turkeyhead Two Mmmm, Turkey

The Big Fall Wrap-up

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Fred has set another personal record! His last Fritzwinkle posting was almost three months ago. The man has been busy. But when he’s not busy, or avoiding other work, he’s unwinding with some Playstation soccer. Our daughter knows the sight so well that she tells me, “Daddy watching soccer game.” She’s kind of a narc about Fred slacking.

Snowman Hat
Little toy

Lovin' the Leaves

A lot has happened since the end of September. For one thing our son is now five months old! He’s rolling over, eating rice cereal and jars of vegetables. Squash and green beans seem to be his favorites so far. He’s a big chunk of a boy, weighing over 18 pounds. He’s pretty solidly wearing nine-month sized clothes. It’s fun to remember what our girl was like at this age…and size, which are very different.

Puppygirl
Checking the Candy

Our daughter has really been getting into the Christmas season. She is starting to enjoy all of the holidays, like her mother. Hmmmm…is there a connection? She started off by dressing up as the cutest witch in the world for Halloween. She walked from house to house trick-or-treating on our cul du sac. Then she really enjoyed getting to eat the candy she was given in her plastic pumpkin. As soon as she learned how to say, “Happy Halloween,” it was time to learn how to say “Happy Thanksgiving.” She picked this up much quicker. In the blink of an eye, we were packing up all signs of the fall holidays in order to make room for Christmas.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Letter to Santa

First Snowman

Our little girl got to mail a letter to Santa this year. She had watched some Christmas specials on TV, so she understood the concept. So after I went to vote in the primaries for our new Senator, we walked across to the big red mailbox that had the word “Santa” painted on the side. She posed for a few photos, and then gleefully dropped her letter into the box. Yesterday we actually got a letter back! She loves the Christmas tree, but has a really hard time not touching the ornaments. That’s understandable since she’s two years old. She’s enjoying eggnog – “This is really, really good!” – and opening a door on her Advent calendar every day after lunch. Her absolute favorite thing about Christmas so far is the music. She wants to listen to Christmas music all the time. Then she walks around singing Deck the Halls, Jingle Bells, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and Up on the Rooftop. We have several books with the words, so I can sing along correctly. I don’t know what she’s going to do in a few weeks. I’ll probably be listening to Christmas music for months.

All Dressed Up

I will take this opportunity to wish you all Happy Holidays. Check back in early 2010 to see if Fred has made a New Year’s resolution to keep up with his fritzwinkle posts.