Okay this is it. I have definitely found THE house. I have never been surer of moving into somewhere, not even the lovely house in Norman Street in York which I still think back on quite fondly, or my dinky little studio in Stockwell. I swung by this evening for what was meant to be a brief second viewing and meeting with the other housemate, and we talked for such a long time we all totally lost track of time and the next person came to view the house while I was still there, which made it all quite awkward (and funny, on hindsight). I was then solemnly told that the two of them would confer about who they’d like to offer the room to, and that I would be contacted by tomorrow evening one way or another.

Feeling hopeful, and probably smiling quite stupidly to myself, I made my way back to the tube station, and hadn’t been gone for 5 minutes when I got a call to say that it had taken them all of a few seconds to decide and I would have to get packing because they’d really like me to come stay. It took me, similarly, all of a few seconds to accept. Having been told independently by both people currently living there (while the other wasn’t around) that the other person was lovely, that they’d had no problems at all, and having been there again just to be sure of my first impressions, I felt absolutely certain. Sitting in the kitchen with them over drinks felt like hanging out with old friends. It felt right. And aforementioned stupid-smile-to-myself is still on my face; there’s this deep, satisfying sense of being really, truly happy with this decision. That house felt like a home to me. And I guess at the end of the day, that’s really all there is to it.

Surefire antidote for a mild case of blueness: singing out loud and semi-dancing round the kitchen to the Hairspray soundtrack while mixing mascarpone, cream and Disaronno for tiramisu, and sneakily snacking on a couple of coffee-dipped sponge fingers along the way :)

i see all those party lights shining ahead
so someone invite me before i drop dead!

And the cherry on top: an xkcd book is being published!!! omgomg ♥

New layout! Yay! (Look at it, if you are using Google Reader or somesuch!)

Wow, only redesigning (and Blogathon. and essays, now a thing of the past) can keep me up till… 2:24am? and still leave me unaware of the time. Although now that I realise how late it is my eyelids suddenly feel very heavy.

I’m really, really happy with this layout because with it, I’ve finally managed to implement a lot of things that I’ve been wanting to for ages, but just never got round to doing. Most of the nifty changes are under the hood and you probably won’t notice them, but trust me, they made me a very excitable little puppy. Things I’m particularly proud of are:

• COMMENT THREADING. Which was a pain. Actually, to be specific, the comment threading itself wasn’t a pain (though it was very finicky work)… but the new PHP function that Wordpress 2.7+ uses to output comments is a huge pain! There’s almost no documentation for it because it’s so new, it’s completely inflexible, and hellishly difficult to customise. I can’t figure out how to style author comments differently. It ought to be very easy, but it isn’t.

• Comment notifications – i.e., if I (or anyone) replies to your comment, you get an email – should be enabled. I say should be because I’ve installed a plugin for that purpose but I haven’t tested it. I suspect I will run into glitches because I’ve never had one of these plugins work for me before. This one has a good track record though.
• The sidebar is now fully widget-ised! For the first time ever! Where it used to be fully hand-coded. This is an upgrade that means a LOT to me (and surely other Wordpress users will grasp its monumental significance) but almost nothing to almost everyone else I bet :P It’s much, much easier to maintain and update now though. I went a little widget-happy, as you might be able to see. It could have been worse.
• Little bits of CSS that I think make the placement of items very much more aesthetically pleasing. It’s not much, but it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. I’m really happy with the styling of the post titles and dates. I mocked it up in Photoshop and then decided there was no way I would ever be able to style it that way, but CSS is more flexible than I realised!
• The colour scheme ♥ A while ago, a desperate urge to do something with grey-white-purple came over me. It didn’t go away. For months.

By the way, if anyone still has no idea how to get an avatar to show up when you comment, you can do so at Gravatar which is very handy and allows you to use that avatar on a whole bunch of other websites as well.

The flower brush in the header graphic is a Photoshop default. Bet you didn’t know that.

Other highlights of my day include this conversation with my brother, the purchase of a very charming blue dress I’ve had my eye on for ages and ages (on Steffy’s advice – thanks!), snapping up two cropped jackets on sale from New Look, finally getting a bunch of errands done, excellent afternoon weather, and most of all feeling better :) (though a tickly cough which is turning chesty still stubbornly persists)

I’ve consciously taken the four days of Easter holiday off from job applications and the like – so it does feel to me like I’m going back to work tomorrow, though I’m technically going to be lounging around at home same as always. It’s been a really good break. And I’m hopeful, starting anew, when I wake in the morning.