Spreadsheets, HTML, Sun, and Other Lovely Things

This week's focus has been the IEW website. This might be my favorite part of the job so far! I had started teaching myself HTML, and I love working with it to get it to do what I want (I admit sometimes it misbehaves more than I'd like), so being able to use that has been really enjoyable. (I knew it would come in handy at some point!) I've been teaching Rebekah a little too, and she's been learning on her own, and she's catching on quickly.

We were given a spreadsheet of product pages to duplicate, which we did (Rebekah from the top and me from the bottom). Now we're working on creating new landing pages for various parts of the site. When we're done things should be organized very well . . . and it's exciting to see what we've been able to create already.

This was a short week, with our last day of work on Wednesday. Thursday until Tuesday we have off for the 4th. Since we were both still in the area on Thursday, Rebekah and I, along with Julie's son and a friend of his, went innertubing down the Illinois river.

That was quite an adventure. The water ranged from completely motionless (where we had to move ourselves or we'd end up never moving) to rapids with strong currents leading up to fallen trees (which, by the way, are painful and should be avoided). A few times the currents pulled our tubes away from us, and my shoes didn't fare so well--though at this point they're still wearable; a couple of the others got bruises and nasty looking scratches, and I got an unintentional lungful of water at one point, but we reached the end all in one piece. :)

One red and sore piece, but still. Since we thought the river would only last a couple hours, we figured one coat of sunscreen was enough . . . we were on the water about eight hours. I am now qualified to compare Oklahoma sunburns with Minnesotan ones, and my well-informed conclusion is that they hurt just as much. ;)

Yesterday I drove for three hours to visit some friends, who I'll be staying with until the 5th (the 6th is when work starts again). It's great to be able to spend time with them. Last night we took their dog on a walk in a nearby (lovely) park--and I got to see the sunset for the first time since I've been here (where I'm staying the trees block my view of it), and today we went to see a movie (the air-conditioned theater and my pink skin got along very well). Mostly we've been relaxing, reading, and talking.

Though I'm sore and I'm reconsidering spending time with Rebekah since it seems to be dangerous to my health (kidding!), I'm still really enjoying my stay here. Hard to believe I have less than a month left!