overwhelming

today is one of those days where i am feeling overwhelmed. i am into this project at work which is requiring a ton of focus and quiet uninterupted time to take apart some CSS code and rework it. it's a long boring technical story, but the gist of it is that i inherited a giantic website which the person created 3 years ago (and it still has not been launched!) in dreamweaver using fireworks rollover buttons which no longer work today if viewed on a mac in safari. so i have to recreate the whole nav structure and since my boss liked the look of the old one, i'm trying to keep it the same color, font, style, etc. and also make sure it's compatible in all browsers. it's a huge site with hundreds of files--granted, some of them are image files and web photo albums, etc., but still it's a lot to keep track of and a lot of places where weird little errors crop up. so there you have it, folks, that's my day job. or should i say, my middle of the night or whenever i can squeeze in time, job.

and you know, working at home to answer emails, work with a database and coordinate events (the other former part of my job until it went to just the technical stuff) was a breeze, fairly easy to do in between baby things and dog walking and all of the rest. but i cannot seem to get into this stuff. i walk around all the time with that feeling like when you have to write a term paper in 2 hours. and there is no one at work that can help me, no one knows how to do these things, and in fact the person who created the web site was unaware of things like browser compatibility and the need to minimize image files for ADA compliance. There are tons of huge sized images that need to be optimized, and bad file naming structures, etc. my friend H. is going to help me with some of it this weekend but he is doing it to be nice, he doesn't work with me or get paid to do it.

Anyway, it's overwhelming and it makes my head hurt and the worst part is that my inability to finish this stuff is my own fault. i have a wonderful supportive boss who will give me whatever software, hardware, etc. that i need. i have figured out more complicated things on my own before, i can teachd myself this CSS stuff if given enough time. what i lack is the mental focus, the alert state of mind and the distraction-free place to do everything.

Technical note; read this guy's blog entry for the Fireworks rollover buttons problem i was talking about. he used to work for Macromedia and he's the guy who created the program's feature and he recommends against using it!