A little pizazz

Well, as y'all can see, I've begun to add a few "bells and whistles" to the blog design. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I can't seem to update to Blogger Beta just yet. In the meantime, I thought I'd take some time to fiddle around with the HTML code itself, which doesn't scare me, but is always a bit of a hassle, and not nearly as much fun as playing around with a WYSIWYG editor.

The first thing you've probably noticed are the pictures at the top, both taken by me. The picture on the left shows just a few of the cacti that we have on our porch. My husband is a serious collector of cacti, and we've got more than 100 different types! We've probably got the only two year-old kid who can count the word "cacti" as being among his first words, and we taught him early on that "cacti=ouch", so he stays away (most of the time!). I took this picture Friday morning, as the threatening clouds were rolling in. The second picture is, of course, the little one, and it was taken several months ago in the US, during a visit to a county fair while visiting some of our closest friends. The little guy was absolutely pooped after running, jumping, and sliding around in the multitude of inflatable castle-type things, and almost fell asleep on the fair's train ride, while our friends' six year-old son kept him from nodding off. He ended up sleeping for the next several hours while we hung out a bit more at the fair, said our goodbyes, and headed for home, waking up just before the final rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike (or was it the Garden State Parkway? I can't remember...).

Enough about the pictures...

I've also added a little feature in the right column, to let everyone know what book I'm presently reading. I'm having a fantastic time with the current selection, The Road to McCarthy, by Pete McCarthy. Several years ago, I read Mr McCarthy's other book, McCarthy's Bar, and loved it. When I came across The Road to McCarthy in the American Book Center in Amsterdam, I didn't even hesitate, pulling it from the shelf straight away and adding it to the other books I'd found. Needless to say, I haven't been disappointed, as this book is just as hilarious as the first one (I'm sure people are looking at me on the train as I suddenly start shaking with silent laughter over and over again, with each turn of the page). I was terribly saddened, however, to discover while reading this book (Via Mr McCarthy's website), that Pete McCarthy had tragically passed away from cancer back in 2004, and that this event had somehow gotten past me. In any event, I can't recommend these books enough.

Anyway, the jazzing up process has begun, so tell me what you think so far! I know it's not much yet, but I reckon it's not a bad start.