Notes To My Sister

That’s my word-of-the-day. Did you see the cute pink little flower next to the web address in your browser window? That, my dear sisters, is a “favicon.” It was surprisingly easy to create. Here’s how I did it:

1. Find a simple photo or graphic that represents you and/or your blog/website. Search through your photos, you may find some interesting pixels to crop out of a picture.
2. Reduce your image size to no more than 32 x 32 pixels in your photo processing program of choice, I’m using F-Spot photo manager available for free. It seems that 16 x 16 or 32 x 32 are the standard sizes. Then save your image.
3. Next, open your image in your favorite graphics editor in order to change the photo type to a *.ico image type. For this I  used the GIMP Image Editor, also free, and save your new icon image with the name “favicon.ico”. OK, the name is rather generic, but it worked!
4. Now’s the hard part…access your website’s file system (such as through your ftp tool or through cpanel). It could be free too, depending on where and how your website is hosted. This one is hosted by Sustainable Websites, not free but very reasonably priced.
5. Upload your new favicon.ico file to the public_html folder where your blog’s files are kept. I’m using WordPress, so I put my favicon.ico file directly in the “public_html” folder since that’s where my “wp-*” folders are kept.
6. That’s it, log out of your site’s file manager, clear the cache in your browser*, “close all the windows, open all the windows” and voila! You’ve got a cute little icon next your website’s address. At least that’s how it worked for me. How about you?

It’s Monday and “being in a fog” seems to be reaching the pandemic stages around here! I wonder if there is a vaccine for it yet? Probably not a good idea anyway.

So here I am, beginning to think there is something to the “mid-life crisis” thing. No, that would never happen to me! And since I don’t own a convertible (at least not until they make them electric), I can’t be in crisis mode…period, full stop.

But, I did call this post, “Dreams”, patience, I’m getting to that part…I was just thinking, when I was little, the question was, “Hey, little girl, what do you want to be when you grow up?”. Now that I’m grown up, however, the question is, “Hey, what do you want to DO with your life?” The first question was easier to answer.

Is what we do to bring home a paycheck the definition of who we are? I like what I do, but I’d also like to think I’m more than what my day job says I am. But, what exactly would I like that to be?

What is the problem with the fog? Well, from the perspective of sitting on a nice porch over looking a green valley, the fog is quite nice. But, from the perspective of a high-speed freeway, the reduced visibility is rather treacherous. So, to get out of the fog we need to be able to see over it and maybe even park the car to do so!

This past week, I took the “park the car” approach and climbed a little hill (figuratively speaking) to get some perspective and spend time dreaming of answers to that second question. I hope to spend the next few posts explaining. It’s probably mostly therapy for me, but feel free to chime in too.

Happy Monday!