So I lied.

First of all, turns out I'm not going to Lancaster until today. Which means I spent last night working on the website while I watched Fullmetal Alchemist.

Second of all, looks like the minor behind the scenes, only really affects the code update I was talking about, yeah, that's not happening.

I don't know if it was because I was tired enough to be irritable but not tired enough to sleep or what, but I had a spicy chicken sandwich for dinner and then decided to fix everything about the website that aggravates me, such as:

1) With the Tripod ads at the top, like half of the important stuff on the homepage is past the page break.
2) The Pattern pages scroll on forever without giving you any indication what's next. Likewise with the Links page.
3) I would like to take pattern submission, but I have no policies posted about how it works.
4) Jess has Age's Crochet Pages on her resume and I have little to no indication to show that she works on the website.
5) I want to have a picture of my cat for everyone to see. (ok, I'll admit this one's silly.
6) I have a link to the stitch along taking up space, but no stitch along anymore. (Still thinking of bringing it back, not sure where I'll put it.)
7) I want to announce new patterns, but there's no where to put it in the first screen on the Homepage, you always have to scroll.

and so on.

So, the next site update with be a huge change visibly, but, the basic navigation stays the same. The navigation bar's only change is that the Stitch Along Link is gone. I'm in the process of adding anchors and "link within this page" links to help get through the patterns and links. I'm putting the sidebar back up to get some of the announcements closer to the top and I'm adding some graphics to make the site prettier.

The individual pattern pages will stay the basically the same, but with some contact info and stuff added at the bottom. I would really like to standardize them in with the rest of my site, but I'm not an HTML whiz, so when the sidebar changes, I'll have to change it on EVERY PAGE, until I figure out how to do it another way. Also, I like the printer-friendliness of them the way they are now.

I've played with the idea of making a separate, "printer friendly" version of the patterns before, but I keep coming back to "Why should I make other people click an extra link, when that aggravates me?"

Like I said, the basic feel of the site will remain unchanged, but the look will be noticeably different. I think everyone will like it. I asked Carl last night, "Which page would you rather look at?" and he loves the new one. And seeings as he's an internet junkie, I think I'll value that opinion.

Hope everyone's looking forward to the new stuff as much as I am, I think you'll like it. It should be up in the next week or so. I may post some more new patterns first. We'll have to see how things play out. I still need to get Lyam his Easter basket and we apparently have a double date with Dave and Sheila on Sunday.