well, crazy july is behind us, all the pinkness of building a website for young teenage girls fading with it. i css’d while listening to hannah montana, the jonas brothers and taylor swift, corrupting whatever poor sense of musical taste i had before (and dragging down those around me too!). i saw twilight, and then read (practically devoured) the 4 books and a half that stephenie meyer wrote on the series – all in the same week. i’m up to speed on all the cute idols for <16, their schedules and mischiefs. for a whole month, i was a giddy teenager all over again, but i actually had a lot of fun doing the site, and the last 2 weeks were pretty intense. i wish i could slip into this sort of focused working mode more often.

the website is a sort of portal, so it required a big infrastructure: drupal was our “community plumbing” system of choice. drupal can be quite messy and scary, with its panoply of modules, options and versions and it took me some time (months, actually) to get used to it, to motivate myself to learn it. right now, i can say i got over most of my grudges with it… and i even like it, a little. that stuff might not be straightforward, but sure as hell is powerful and i will probably use it again someday, if another big project comes along. for the small stuff, wordpress has my undying loyalty.

on other news, our dealer found us a nice focus station wagon that we’ll officially purchase soon, as soon as we figure out insurances and other details. it’s pretty, and i’m already used to it since my family currently owns 2 of these. we weren’t pushing for a third one, but i think i’m secretly happy it turned out that way :)

it’s a nice car and though it is a little big for us, the size of the trunk comforts me, and i find myself making mental lists of the things we’ll be able to fit there. things like foldable bikes to use in the cities we’ll see, and ski/snowboard equipment. i’ve tried snowboarding once before, in a indoors place in shanghai and loved the feeling of it, so i’m looking forward for new tries (and falls). i think we’ll pick a nice country for that. :)