I’ll be working on a redesign of this site over the next few days, but I’ve got some posts up elsewhere you might want to check out:

• Gifts for Teachers: A teacher can only have so many shower gels, desk calendars and coffee mugs. And any teacher will tell you that apple-shaped gifts should be outlawed.
• Zip It, Lock It, Put It In Your Pocket: My daughter has picked up a couple interesting behaviors since starting preschool.

Amber over at New Jersey Moms Blog talks about her battle with the NJ unemployment system. Seems the Department of Labor in our state is so understaffed (due to budget cuts) that they are not able to process claims or even answer the phones.

Now if only the Division of Taxation could suffer such a problem… Sorry, we can’t process your taxes, so none of you have to pay.

Now, settle down. If you arrived here after Googling some porn-related connotation of “back-end,” you can go back to Google now. I am referring the back-end of a blog. The programming. The graphics. The SEO. The marketing.

A few months ago I embarked on a project with my husband’s cousin, The Present Professor. She’s been cranking out the posts, offering up her unique finds in the world of gift-giving. And I’m happier than happy that I DON’T have to write. I’m thrilled to log in to the Wordpress dashboard and see 5 drafts that I can add images to, set keywords for, and then hit the publish button. I love tinkering around with the theme, making sure the right posts are highlighted on the home page, and thinking of new ways to promote the site. This is my calling, people.

Me and The Professor, we make a great team. Check us out.

In about four months I will be 40 years old. Nothing about that bothers me — I’m all about how I look and feel and not the number of candles on my cake.

But I do like to play little games with myself for motivation, and this is a “milestone” birthday. So I came up with four goals I will be working toward over the next four months:

1. Lose 40 pounds.
2. Complete 40 scrapbook pages.
3. Workout 40 times.
4. Run for 40 minutes non-stop.

#2 is simple. I’m going to a weekend scrapbooking crop in January and I could probably finish 40 pages that weekend alone. But I’m going to try to include some digital layouts, too, because I’m just getting into digi-scrapping and really loving it.

#4 is do-able. I’m training to run a half marathon in May and I have friends to train with. I’m pretty confident I can accomplish this goal.

#3 is challenging. That means an average of 2.5 workouts per week. I’ve been averaging one per week. Gotta step it up.

#1 feels like climbing Mt. Everest. I love food. I’ve wanted to lose this weight for about 2 years and so far I haven’t found the discipline. All I can do is try. Harder.

If you haven’t been over to The Present Professor lately, you’ve got one more day to enter to win a Zune. Just blog about the best/worst gift you’ve received and then leave a comment over at The Present Professor to be entered to win.