A Pleasant day of rest

A pleasant day outside not really sunny, but pleasant. Nice temperature, slight breeze, just feels nice. Slept in this morning and when I got up and looked out my kitchen window; my backyard was alive with movement there was all these little birds in the grass eating away. They were well hidden so mostly all I could see was movement and an occasional bird; it was kind of magical to watch them appear and disappear. A pleasant way to start the day.
I've brushed the big dog and with enough Milk Bones (what dog won't behave for a Milk Bone) and a leash and good brush; it can be very relaxing.
Now I've just doing what I want on my computer watching an old Disney movie on the Hallmark channel. I haven't seen the Gnome Mobile since I was a kid and am quite enjoying it.
My little dog, Rascal, is on medication that makes him have to go outside about every 2 hours or so, so I'm real glad it's nice out plus it keeps me from getting stiff. I've kind of overdone the last couple of days trying to make up for the time in the hospital and moving slowly cause I didn't feel good so I pushed too hard and really needed to rest up in preparation for the next couple of days.
I'm feeling better now and I'm grateful to be feeling well enough to enjoy it. I wish you, my friends, a Happy Holiday this year. ENJOY!!!!!

Home before Christmas

Back from the hospital again. This time I was put in semi-isolation. You know there is a reason they put prisoners in isolation for punishment. It is not fun at all. At least I had things to do. I edited photos and did some drawing, read part of a novel, learned from the computer and drawing books I brought with me. I knew I might go into the hospital and even if I didn't; I needed to rest so I stopped at the library on the way to the doctor and stocked up. While out I saw these beautiful flowers which I just had to take a picture of.

My wife, Johnina, is in the hospital again. Apparently the same problem as last time. She asked me to tell you all.

Tom

Mirage- moon though pine trees

Tom gave me the idea of making a copy of the moon, I liked it but decided that duplicating it again might look better. I did indeed like it better. However in the 8x10 format the copy was too far away so I went back and cropped it so that the copies would be evenly spaced. I really liked that a whole lot better. I experimented with the border and found out how to round the corners to echo the shape of the moons. I had found on Amazon.com a Dummies book for my editing program MGI PhotoSuite where I found how to duplicate the moon. I am working on my goal for Dec and learning and finessing my photos even if it's only one or two photos a day.

View from my hospital window

A friend of mine said this was sad but lovely. A lovely photo capture, but sad because I was in the hospital. This was taken on Thanksgiving Day.

Christmas in Georgia

Christmas in Georgia- fall colors and Christmas wreaths.

Art edits

I LOVE doing art edits and this one was particularly fun. I also learned a new technique.

Surgery and simple edits

Today I had surgery, so this is going to be short a sweet. It is also the reason why I didn't do a post yesterday; I decided that going to bed early was better for me than putting up a post. A friend of mine Nicu Liuta said this about being on the website MyShutterSpace "I can't live without this...it's my phototherapy!..." I agree with him whole-heartedly and couldn't have put it better. I just have to add photo taking,photo editing and my blog. I am trying to integrate my goals as I add them and taking care of myself is #1 goal. I must admit that going to bed early and putting up a new post was something of a toss-up; they both do me good. Anyway the surgery was to replace a mal-functioning port. The surgeon took out the bad port from my left side just below my collar bone and put a brand new power port on my right side just below my collar bone. Now both my arms are not working so well and I have to be careful of what I do till it heals. It hurts, too.
I decided instead of doing a complicated edit I would spend more time with a simple edit but spend more time looking at it so I could really finesse it. The results are shown here. The top picture was redone several times before I got a picture I really liked; I didn't settle on the first edit. The bottom picture was also redo several times as I learned how to change the color of the sky. They don't fit in the wow category, but I'm also learning that editing a pretty picture is alright , too.

Tom's dinner

I have not been feeling well for a couple of days, in fact I've been pretty miserable and I've been sleeping lots. Tom quite often makes dinner for us, but tonight he went the extra mile and made homemade chicken soup and homemade rolls from scratch. Yummy. He figured I needed a nice flavorful nutritious meal. He went into the freezer and found all kinds of veggies which he added, to boost the nutrition. Tom is a meat and potatoes kind of guy so adding the veggies was a real treat for me and a nice gift from Tom. His rolls tonight were the best I've had in a long time. His thoughtful gift was wonderful and just what I needed.
For the last two days I've been working on this edit of this pink zinnia. I've reworked it three times and though it's still not exactly what I had in mind; I do like it.

Old House -Locust Grove

These are photos of the same house taken from different directions. One thing I am finding out is that some pictures even of the same subject just seem to want different edits. The same edit just doesn't seem right somehow. I edit by instinct and intuition and not by rules I don't even know if there are rules for editing, composition yes, editing ?.

Out on a limb

I have lots of Hawks and birds of prey in my area and I have tried and tried to get a picture of one. Ta-Da. This is an unedited version and I am sure He will be seen again in edited form. He is worth taking that extra time I was talking about in my December goals.

December Goals

I have been blessed with the ability to learn fairly quickly, however I also have a short attention span. Consequently I have a real problem getting really good at things. This December I am going to work on this problem of mine. I've learned a lot about editing pictures in the last couple of months and am getting better, but I find myself just doing quick edits and not stretching to really learn more like I was. So for this month I am going to concentrate on taking my photos further in my editing and maybe not do as many. The photos on today's blog are ones that I spent a lot of time on. They may not be perfect, but I really like them. We'll see how this goal goes. I think I have have done better on my goals since I have put them in my blog. I've always heard that to get the best results from one's goals is to make them specific, write them down and let others know so one feels accountable for one's goals. This blog takes care of all those suggestions quite nicely, even the last one is taken care of because I know my husband, most of the rest of my family and plenty of friends, both long time and brand new, read my blog. I hope you enjoy the photos.
Please notice on the bottom of the page a request for your quotes, jokes or inspirational thoughts, things that help you though the day. Join me on my blog. :^D

Home again, Home again

I'm home again, actually I've been home a couple of days, I just have not been up to my normal speed yet. After running a low grade fever with a high white blood count for six weeks, then having a horrible Fibromyalsia flare, then developing cruddy sounding lungs the doctor decided to put me in the hospital to find out what was going on. As it turn out from the tests I had pnuemonia. For me only having pnuemonia is a good thing. Anyway they started treatment in the hospital and sent me home. I was still running a low grade fever when I left but by then I could do for myself at home what they could have done for me in the hospital even if I was not completely well.

I'm certainly glad to be home and it has made me grateful for some things I normally take for granted, like hot water and the Internet. It's amazing how fast new technologies get accepted as part of our daily life and get integrated into our lives so we really miss it when it was gone. This hospital has no Wi-Fi and even if I knew it going in, I sure missed it while I was there. I can't even imagine what it would be like without TV. Even though I watch little TV in the hospital most others do. You can hear the many different channels down the hall; which is why I wear earphones and listen to music. It's just a cacophony in the hall. Until I learned the trick with the earphones the noise of the hospital used to keep me always on edge. Anyway back to to getting used to change and new technologies in our lives; I remember when TV was a luxury that you paid extra for; now it is a right and loud would be the protests if the charged 'extra' for it. I imagine that in the not too distant future there will be Wi-Fi in the hospital to. Already people bring their computers and use them, not long ago the would have been locked up as valuables or not brought at all. If you think about it Laptops have not even been around that long allowing people the option to even bring a computer. Come to think of it a personal computer of any kind has not been around for all that long either. I was able to do some editing while in the hospital. I was extremely grateful for having just gotten a laptop that I could take with me. While editing I even came across a couple more funny pictures.

The other thing I missed the most was hot water, a little step backward there. They turn down the water temperature so that sick people who are not thinking well can not burn themselves; which left me with cold showers. I hate cold showers and with a fever I hate them even worse. It might have been good for me, look on the bright side type thing but I couldn't think that way with cold showers. I hate cold showers period. I hate them even worse with a fever cuz they give me chills.

Of course I missed my family and Thanksgiving which wasn't fun at all. I did get lots of sleep in between everyone checking on me. I really needed that sleep. I really needed to be in the hospital.

I am really grateful to be here still to be with my family and friends, to feel of their love and concern, to know and feel their prayers and best wishes for me. Many people expressed their concern and kept me in their thoughts and it truly touched my heart. Thank you it was a most memorable Thanksgiving; one truly felt in the heart.

To the hospital I go

I'm going to the hospital and I'll probably be gone for about a week, but I shall return.

Keeping my promise

Today after coming home from church, having been inspired by the lesson given, I felt good, at peace with myself. I decided to rest and went to sleep but when I got up I just took a leisurely pace and did that which I felt I wanted to do. I updated my profile on MyShutterSpace and got rid of my complaints about my problems between my computer and the site. I hate complaining and being a whiner. I went though some of the pictures from others on the site and found many new people who I invited to be friends with on the site. I edited a picture that I took of a barn at the end of the road. One that I kept saying I really liked but kept putting off because while I really liked it I didn't think enough other people would like it. So I didn't make it enough of a priority to get out my tripod to take pics of it. I took the photo after my promise to myself to take pictures just because I liked them. Today I took it one step further and edited it and posted it. Before I could finish with the description I already had a compliment on it which just goes to show that maybe I should trust my instincts more.

Just Because

I posted these photos just because I like them:

Funny

After the last post I realized that I don't take a lot of pictures just because they are funny. I may take them because they are interesting or even because I think others will like them, but to take a picture just because it's funny or purely something that I would enjoy I don't do. Shame on me. I went through my pics looking for funny pictures and did not find many. I did find this one and this one was not taken by me but by the camera. I dropped the camera and when it hit the ground it took this photo of our concern. Now that I have made this realization; I've another promise to myself....TAKE PICTURES TO PLEASE MYSELF AND THINK ABOUT PLEASING OTHERS LATER.

Laughter on a dreary day

Yesterday: rain. drizzle, grey skies, fever, aching muscles and joints, nausea, doctor's office: enough said about the dreary day. When we went to get lunch we took a wrong turn and found this little strip mall with this little shop in it with this sign in the doorway.

I never thought I would see such a sign in real life. LOL but who ever thought in the seventies that plastic would actually be safer for doing business than cash. That the ease of using plastic would not be the reason for not accepting cash, but the ease of counterfeiting that would cause it. Of course there's what the store sells that adds to the laugh out loud, 'What they been smokin' in there?' A real good laugh and a bit of serendipity.

Electric Sunset

On the way home from the store a couple of days ago, I saw this sunset and had to take a picture of it. I don't very often get to see a good sunset because my house is surrounded by very tall trees which block any real good sunset shots. I have to be out on the road to get sunsets or sunrises. Anyway I've also decided to work on one good edit a day and really spend some time on it. I posted this photo up on MyShutterSpace today as my first concentrated effort and thus far even though it has been posted only a short time I am getting probably the best response I've ever had. I check on my responses just before I go to bed and I just had to share this with you all. I'm excited.

I'm back

I've been busy the last several days getting a display of my photography ready for a program at our church. I promised myself that I would listen to my body and rest when I needed to and not worry if everything didn't get done. I pretty well kept that promise and since I usually write my posts at night that was what didn't get done. I am proud of myself for keeping that promise and I recuperated from the extra effort quickly.
The program at the church was to give many homemade quilts to the Linius Project. This is a project where children who experience traumatic events receive a quilt to snuggle with to help them through the crisis. Policeman carry them with them in their squad cars, hospitals have them on hand so they can be given out in time of need.
At the same time we celebrated the many talents of the ladies of our church. We displayed our talents and gave a little speech on how we got started and what our talents and developing them meant to us.
It was a truly wonderful inspiring evening. I've got a couple of pictures edited and ready to go except for permission of the person in the photo to post it on the Internet. I'll put up what I can and put up more later.

Celebrate the day

Original picture for Confused

I accidentally left this off yesterdays blog.

Confused? bare trees, autumn leaves, rose blooms, winter berries

I am so excited for the first time I am laying down with my feet up and doing my blog. I've had the computer for a couple of days and Tom, Benn and I have been working on getting it set up with programs and data. It still is not quite organized like I would like, but it is useable.
I also had a touch of serendipity with the programs. With the old computer for some reason we had an editing program that didn't get put on; I don't think Jeremy and I
could figure out how to do it. I wasn't going to worry about it but Tom went through the programs and any program that was for photography he put on. The program, Photo Suite went on with no problem and I think it is going to be my favorite program. Not only do I really like this program but it does a good job of replacing the programs that can not be upgraded for my new computer. A real good case of serendipity.

Then on the way to the library yesterday I saw this little garden and it stuck me as a perfect representation of what I have been seeing all around me. The plants and the weather can't seem to make up it's mind as to what season this is. I have seen flowers blooming next to fall leaves, my veggie garden has started producing again, tomatoes and green peppers. My herb garden is growing like crazy. I have trees that lose leaves with every whisper of wind. I have flower buds in my front flower garden.

The plants seem truly confused than I saw this garden with all of it combined. It had bare trees, autumn leaves, green trees, roses blooming including rusebuds, winter berries and trees with algae on them and had to take this picture.

I decided to use this picture to explore my new program and have some fun with my new computer and program before I went back to organizing. I hope you enjoy the fun editing I have done.

WOW

This is going to be short and sweet; I'm stealing time between setting up my new computer and transferring data. This photo is the WOW I got from my new computer. This little beetle has been in my files waiting to be edited, but it was not very high on my list of priorities because it was just a little beetle on the brick wall with a reflection on it's back. Kind of dull and ordinary. Then I put one of my back-up disks in my new computer just to see how the pictures would look on the new screen with the new computer. I set it up for slide show and when this picture came up I realized that the reflection was not just a streak of light but a reflection of the sky and the trees. WOW! I almost couldn't believe my eyes (giggle with delight). I love my new computer and I have a feeling that it is going to make even more of an improvement in my life than I thought.