Changing my header is like spraying my blog with Febreze

I’m ushering in June at The Creative Junkie with a new header.

When I launched my redesign this past April, I was excited to swap out my headers every month. You know, an attempt to keep things fresh and colorful with good smellies around here? Kind of like switching out the comforter and pillows on your bed at the change of seasons, right?

Right?

I’m asking, because I have no idea. The last time I had a new comforter and pillows on my bed was in 1999, right after I married Nate, because the thought of continuing to use the pathetic excuse of a comforter Nate had been using for twenty years prior made my skin crawl right off my body and scamper out the door to greener, better smelling pastures.

I liked that comforter set we used right after we were first married well enough, but when we moved to our new house, I intended to buy a new comforter and sheets and throw pillows and shams to celebrate our newly remodeled master bedroom with its brand, spanking new mattress atop our new bed.

Five years have since passed and my bedroom walls still look like a seasick cookie monster threw up all over them. I’m not even going to mention our mattress which has become so concave that I must equip Helena with a GPS before she bounces on it and winds up spelunking in China.

So, no changing of bed linens to herald a new season in our house. I do, however, have 462 Bed, Bath & Beyond 20% coupons saved up when and if cookie monster ever leaves the building.

My blog is a different story entirely. No barfing muppets allowed. A new header every month, even if it sucks every ounce of thought and creativity from my dehydrated brain, leaving it gasping for air in a vacuum. Which it does.

Creating once a month would be so much easier to accomplish if months were sixty or ninety days instead of thirty.

Come to think of it, so would menstruating.

*WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH*  <—————— the mad rush of XY chromosomes screaming and running from my blog right now.

I create all my headers in Photoshop and there’s no rhyme or reason as to how I do it. I never have any pre-conceived notions as to how a header will look because I’ve learned the excruciatingly hard way that the design I start out with in no way, shape or form resembles the design I end up with.

And yes, I know I ended that sentence with a preposition. Would you rather I end it with a proposition?

*WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH*  <—————— the mad rush of desperate and hard up XY chromosomes running back to my blog right now.

Photoshop and I get along much better when I just go with the flow rather than yelling at it because then, it doesn’t spit at me and then I don’t pitch a hissy and stomp downstairs and shriek I HATE EVERYTHING ON THIS PLANET and hide in the pantry, stuffing my face with Cocoa Pebbles.

.

This was my very first header, way back in May of 2008 when I first started blogging on wordpress.com. I was exhausted from having spent thirty hours just giving birth to my blog so I didn’t have much energy left over to spend on the actual design. I simply used one of my existing designs – the Blah Blah Blah – slapped my name next to it, threw in a few curly whirlies on the bottom and tried to color coordinate my header to the color scheme of the theme.

Scheme of the theme … I guess there was a little rhyme involved with this one after all!

Scheme of the theme.

I had time for a rhyme!

Curly whirly.

I had time for another rhyme!

Where’s the crime?

It’s so sublime!

*GASP*

Oh, for God’s sake. Stop it.

.

I created this header when I moved my blog over to its own server. I’ve always been one with the earth, water, fire and sky. I’m very zen that way.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

OK. I can’t even type that with a straight face since I’m allergic to dirt and most other natural elements. I found these graphics on a stock site and just thought they were uber cool.

As for feeling zen like? The last time I felt anything akin to zen was when I became one with Jolly Ranchers and overdosed on the little suckers, lapsing into a wonderful albeit short-lived sugar-induced coma.

I think Jolly Ranchers are kisses from God right after He chugs a virgin strawberry margarita and applies some cherry chapstick.

.

I was going for a minimalist look here. I wanted something in my life other than Nate’s and my conversations to be simple and minimalistic and since my thighs and fanny and boobs wouldn’t cooperate any longer, why not my header?

They look like a happy little lollipop family, don’t they?

Lollipop lollipop,

oh lolli lolli lolli

Lollipop, Lollipop

Try getting that one out of your head!

And if you do, let me know how.

Please.

.

Continuing with the minimalist theme but very festive. I tried several times to create a minimalistic flying Santa but I wound up with a chubby blob wearing what appeared to be a red diaper perched precariously above some patent leather hooker boots and I wound up scaring myself.

There’s nothing festive about being scared of Santa. Unless you’re two and wearing footie jammies and someone plunks you in his lap and snaps off a picture and charges you $15.50 for a 5 x 7. Then it’s a festive right of passage.

But I’m not two and the only lap I want to sit in is the lap of luxury. Or the lap of Anderson Cooper.

And if anyone dared to take a photo of me in my footie jammies, they’d be peeing pixels for a week.

.

This header lasted me all through winter, right up until I launched my re-design. I loved this header. It made me want to run outside in the snow and make a snowman.

Except that I hate snow. Unless it’s 32° at 7:00 p.m., on Christmas Eve and there’s barely a whisper of a breeze and the snow is falling ever so gently in big, fat flakes, resulting in three inches of light, fluffy accumulation which glistens in the moonlight and looks like white diamonds on Christmas morning and then melts immediately after Christmas dinner, never to be seen again until the same time, next year.

Not that I’ve thought about it much.

.

This was my header for my re-design launch this past April. I loved this design. I found it very calm and serene and … round.

Just like me!

Except for the calm and serene part.

.

This was the header that adorned my blog up until yesterday. I think this has been my favorite so far. I love the colors. Makes me think of spring and gives me that fresh, happy feeling, like I took a couple of hits off Grandma’s oxygen tank.

Don’t tell Grandma.

I think we should all strap on a tank and take a few tokes of pure oxygen every now and again. The world would be a much happier place, don’t you think?

Not to mention much more alert. No more inhaling your dinner and jumping in the car and driving speedy quick to Fashion Bug because the top you’ve had your eye on for three months now is only on sale for another twenty minutes, only to find out that the sale ended yesterday, your coupon expired last week and you’re not wearing any shoes.

Or how about a helium tank? I think a chorus of:

• I DID NOT!
• DID TOO!
• DID NOT!
• DID TOO!
• YOU’RE A FREAK!
• YOU’RE A LOSER!
• YOU’RE A GOOB!
• I’M TELLING MOM!
• MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

spoken in Chipmunk might actually make me laugh out loud instead of run away from home.

I’m going to have to start thinking about July’s header soon because June only has thirty days in it and that one lost day is tantamount to two weeks in perimenopausal mom terms.

I think I’m going to keep the photo and my title the same on all my headers from now on so that there is some sense of continuity because, looking back on my previous headers, my designs seem to suffer from a slight case of schizophrenic ADHD.

And isn’t it enough that my writing suffers from this condition?

.

.