Hover functon grows slooow

Hover functon grows slooow

Hello,

I've written a simple hover function that changes a list item's border color. When there are only a few list items, it works fine. However, with 10 or more <li>s, it grows extremely slow. Strangely, it is not slow directly after page load. It actually gets slower the longer the page sits.

I can't figure out what's causing it, but it's bad.

Here's the code
function thumb_rollover(){
   $(".thumb_li").hover( function(){
      $(this).stop().animate({
                  "borderTopColor" : "#8EA6CF",
                  "borderRightColor" : "#8EA6CF",
                  "borderBottomColor" : "#8EA6CF",
                  "borderLeftColor" : "#8EA6CF"
                  }, 500);
   
   }, function(){
      $(this).stop().animate({
                  "borderTopColor" : "#444444",
                  "borderRightColor" : "#444444",
                  "borderBottomColor" : "#444444",
                  "borderLeftColor" : "#444444"
                  }, 500);
   });
   
}


Removing this function speeds everything up, so I know this is the problem.

The function is usually run after the list items are loaded through this script:
function thumb_load() {
   $(".thumb_li").css({ "display" : "none" });
   $(".thumb_img").css({ "opacity" : "0" });
   
   $(".thumb_li").show("slide", {}, 1000, function(){
      $(".thumb_img").animate( {"opacity" : "1" }, 2000, function(){
         //thumb_rollover();
      })
   
   });
   
}



Here's an example of the code in action:
http://www.stephenshaheen.com/piece.php?piece_id=28


Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.