Stormy skies

I had an interesting lunch hour today. I had spent all morning on the computer and my eyes were going batty. My camera was ready. I had peeked outside the window from time to time and had noticed there were some awesome clouds rolling by. So - out I went. Into the wind. I picked a perfect time. No rain but a drop here and there. Sunshine, blue skies and white puffy clouds to the North and East. Gray rolling clouds to the South and West. It was a photographer's paradise.

I sort of rescued a little beagle. I am sure he would have been fine, but I like to take a little credit. I pass his little dog house almost every day after work (depends on which way I drive home). At lunch when I went on my picture-taking escapade I walked behind the building to the back alley. As I passed his empty dog house I thought to myself "That's weird. Maybe his owner took him hunting. He is a beagle, after all."

I was taking pictures and I heard the tapping of little dog paws and looked up the road. There he was trotting along dragging a fifteen foot chain behind him. He was a little shy and afraid of me at first, so I played it cool and walked away from him. I said some nice things to him in a friendly voice, but I continued to walk away from him. He trotted towards home. I thought to myself - he is going to be okay.

I walked back past his house - I knocked on the door. Nobody home. He was barking at me. Not a mean bark. Just a "Who are you and what are you doing in my yard?"

I walked around to the alley again. He followed me. It wasn't long before I was able to step on the end of his chain.

He didn't care for it at first and I got a little muddy, but he was so friendly and so nice. I attached his chain back up the best that I could. I wrote the owner a note and stuck it on their door. I went back out to the alley and continued taking pictures.

After work I stopped at the house and spoke to the owner. The dog's name is Earl.

Not much time this evening for anything. Lots of company. Just as one left, another walked in the door. It was that kind of night.

Middle of May

Give or take a day. I am more behind every day. Hey, that reminds me of a joke my Mom used to tell.

Did you hear about the lady who backed into the meat grinder at her job? She got a little behind in her work.

Yuck. Or, maybe I read it in the Reader's Digest. I don't know anymore. I can't keep track.

The above flowers are the others waiting yet to be planted into a planter. We are getting that awful rain that soaked the Northeast. Or maybe we aren't. I haven't watched the weather channel. Usually it doesn't travel that way. I used to watch the weather channel all the time.

Oh, darn. I am not making any sense. I had an eye migraine and I took my medicine at 8:30 or so. That was 2 hours ago and my brain feels like it is shorting out. I have to keep going back and re-type all of my sentences. My fingers are moving much faster than my thoughts are.

Fireworks in my head. That is what it feels like. Sparks. Brain waves shorting out.

Anyway, I didn't get much farther on the Where I am From poem. I just can't feel the rhythm that I want to catch with it. Still need to whittle down some of the adjectives. I can't believe I just typed shittle instead of whittle. Okay spell checker - have a field day.

Vivid Orange

Still sitting in their flat because this rain just won't stop.

I have been working diligently on the "Where I'm From" template.I tend to go hog wild on the adjectives so I am trying to tone it down somewhat. I got the idea from Tabor.

I hope to have it ready by tomorrow.

Blah to Bwa-ha-ha!

Above is a poor little plastic custard dish on my scratched up scanner glass.
Go here to see how I do my "open scanner" pictures.

I use the eyedropper tool in Adobe Photoshop to pick the correct shade of black and the Paintbrush tool to cover up all the little white specks that look like lint. I colorize the dish with a prettier blue. (Image, Adjust, Color Balance).

Switching to Jasc Paint Shop Pro, I use the Effects, Reflection Effects, Pattern option to get the above image. I use Jasc Paint Shop Photo Album to crop the picture and create a three tiered frame around the image. Matching the colors as close as I can.

Back in Jasc Paint Shop Pro, I save what I have and using the Edit, Un-do on the previous photo I return to the prettier shade of blue plastic dish. Still using Jasc Paint Shop Pro, I choose Effects, Reflection Effects, Kaleidoscope to get the above image.

Above is another rendition of a different angle of the same custard cup. I also used MS Power Point to create this image. Then to top it all off, I use IrfanView to re-size the images.

I realize that I don't need to use so many programs to get the results, but that is how I work. I have to toggle back and forth between many different applications and use the feature I am most familiar with from that program. It would take me longer to learn how to do it all in one particular program than it does for me to just jump around. Besides, I make more mistakes this way and that is how a lot of interesting pictures are created!

Explode in neon blue

Maybe I should call this my masterpiece. It started out as a simple little blue dish from one of my dark scanner series. I "electrified" it.

Here is the poor little thing before I changed it.

Dogwood green

My flowering dogwood surrounded by the green of Spring. I left the photo blurry. I sharpened it, but liked it better with a little blur. This was taken on a rainy evening. They are still pretty much in bloom, some have fallen off the tree onto the grass like huge snowflakes. I dreamt about white flowers floating down from out of the sky the night before they fell. It was beautiful.

I like to do the crossword puzzle in my daily newspaper. I am currently on March 24th. I do the crossword, the cryptoquip (cryptogram) and the jumbo (jumble word scramble) puzzles. All word puzzles. I have tried a few of the sudoku's but they aren't my forte. If it is the morning, give me a good cup of hot coffee and the puzzles. If it is afternoon or evening, iced tea will suffice. And I am in heaven. Sometimes the television will be on in the background, sometimes not. This is probably why I have to watch movies a second or third time. Distraction.

In all honesty, I have been doing the crossword long enough so that I understand the author's lingo and terminology enough to work them. When I first began, I had not a clue what an Epee was and other clues and would have to peek at the next day's answers to finish solving the puzzle.

Rarely would ninety minutes or two hours go by in my house without some form of chaos or madness. Too many pets for that. For some strange reason my dog has started snapping at our cat, Precious. Since my sister has moved back into her farm house she may be getting this cat back. She can be very needy. In fairness to my dog she does give quite a few warning growls to the cat, but she isn't the brightest crayon in the box.

My cats have been enjoying the open windows and doors. They gaze out of the screens. When there are birds or squirrels in the yard they chatter. Have you heard a cat chatter? I have only heard it this year. My daughter pointed it out to me. I have two cats that chatter while watching their "prey" in the yard. Only the dog goes outside, though. Precious does run out whenever somebody leaves the door ajar for too long. She is easy to catch because she is out there rolling around on my patio or driveway.

Oooh, I purchased a hydrangea. I have been wanting one for about four years, but was hesitant because I was not sure how difficult they are to get started and to keep them growing. I have taken the plunge, and am nervous. I worry that I will kill it. Either by neglect or over watering it or something. I need to read up on the flower and get some good ideas. The gardener said she planted hers on the west side of her house and it gets more sun than not. She also stated that she pruned it too much last fall and it won't be blooming this year. Yikes. What if I do that?

But I'll tell you what. My peonies on the west side are going to be stunning again this year, but the bush on the east side is a little bit slower. It is still alive, though. The first year I didn't think it was going to make it. They were my first flowers that I planted when I purchased my house. Perennials.

I also have a flat of marigolds to plant. I am weird. I actually like the smell of marigolds. I love orange flowers. The ones I picked out are a blood red orange. I have some dirt(y) work to do.

I don't know.

This one was kind of hard for me. I find it hard to define the word Masterpiece. Anyway, that was the title for the Photo Friday Challenge.

I know that there are many forms, but usually I envision a work of art in the form of oil painting when I hear the word masterpiece.

My favorites are J.M.W. Turner, Monet (not Manet), Vermeer, Cezanne and I give a small thumbs up to Pollock.

Since hate is too strong of a word, I will just say I don't much care for Dali, van Gogh, and Picasso.

I held off ....

... as long as I could, but whew! It's out, now. A blue photo. I tried, really I did. But it was sitting there just bursting. "Cold Water" is the Indian definition of the lake above. If I give the actual name of the lake then co-workers and family and friends may find me on Google and you know what that means. No more anonymity.

coke and a smile

If Friday's challenge is ever titled "coke" I have a picture! This was at the cook-out on Sunday. I saw a photo moment and took it. I am a Pepsi drinker. Well, mostly iced tea. Pepsi once in a while and coke very rarely. I was drinking coffee at this time, that is the handle to my cup.

I was trying to remember nice neighbors. I had one in Virginia. The sweetest lady. She was a whirlwind of activity. She got up at 5:30 a.m. to clean her house and get all of that "business" out of the way so she could enjoy the rest of her day. She had six children that were all grown and had some little ones of their own.

In confidence one day she showed me a picture behind a picture in a frame that she kept. It was a man she had run away with. I didn't ask many questions. I was young and couldn't fathom how somebody could up and leave their husband with six young children. Well, okay I can see somebody leaving their spouse, but children? No way.

There was the movie ya ya sisterhood or something where that woman would go on drinking binges and leave her children. Well, so much for the nice neighbor memories. Racking my brain, nice neighbors, nice neighbors. I know I had some.

Oh, in Texas we had this nice lady that lived up above us and she would give us extra food from her dinners. White beets she called them. I called them turnips.

When I was growing up we had a really mean bachelor that lived on the one side of us. I still remember his name. Hatchie Truex. Even the name "Hatchie" drums up pictures of a nasty man. He was Mr. Wilson-like on the Dennis the Menace comic strip series. Grumpy, chubby, balding. Always working out in his garden tilling, planting. He shot birds out of our trees with a bee bee gun. One time he shot my sister's window out of her car by accident. We think it was he who shot one of my brother's hunting dogs, Clem. He survived, but the vet had to leave the bee bee in because it was too close to the heart to remove it.

We just stayed out of his yard and out of his way. I can't imagine he was ecstatic seeing a family move in with all us kids anyway.

The mean neighbor

pinkie

We have all had one. The cranky neighbor who doesn't like anything or anybody. His yard is perfect, he doesn't like children because they are messy. Heaven knows how he raised his. They are long gone and aren't coming back. Making him even crankier.

He is the type who puts up "Do NOT walk on the grass" signs in his yard. He plows out his driveway every snowfall and even when a new Mommy parks in it to carry her newborn to his neighbor's house who happens to be her baby sitter there he is when she returns to her car, trying not to slip on the small incline. Shaking his fist he bellows "Who gave you permission to park in my driveway!?" It wasn't a question really. It was a mean man marking his territory.

There is the neighbor who yells at the small child for pulling grass. Holy cow. The child and his family rents an apartment that this man just happens to mow the grass for the entire complex. What? A child can't even pull grass in their own section of yard just because he mows it?

He shoots stray cats because they bother the squirrels that he feeds.

He rants and raves when your company parks in one of his two parking spaces. And just because you only use one of your two, his family is in your other one each and every Sunday. When you bang on their door and tell them they have to move, they grumble and rev their engine. The next morning you just happen to have a flat tire.

Most of the time a nasty person like this will be married to one of the sweetest people. How does that happen?

I'm sure you have one or two memories of any such neighbor. I am lucky this time around. I have moved into a house with the nicest neighbors on both sides. Big sigh of relief.

It was a Monday

I was labeled a "holding hog" yesterday. A week or two ago, I had a dream that I had a baby boy named Justin and my family (sisters) wouldn't let me hold him. So when I got to hold my great-nephew yesterday I took off to the other side of the yard and sat on the swing with him. I hogged him all to myself. He slept the entire day. Sheesh! Fortunately for me, my sister had her fill of him for about six hours the previous evening.

The photo above is from the day after he was born. Day old baby.

What? I was wearing my rose-colored glasses.

Cat in the Hat

My niece named this fish "Cat in the Hat". It is in my sister's pond (her Mom). They have a ton of fish in there and he is the biggest. My brother-in-law retired a couple of years ago and this was his main project. To build this pond with a small bridge and waterfall. It was a lot of work.

I am tired. I spent the day at their house for a cook-out and some PC training. Mostly how to resize and send pictures. I was thrown a little bit when I looked at their computer and most of the files were dated 8-2004. After doing a little investigating here and there it dawned on me that the Dell store must have "ghosted" the image of Windows over to their "new" computer. Whew. I thought for a few minutes there that they had received a re-furbished one.

I would like to give my readers a "heads up" notice in case any of you have arachnophobia that I have some intense pictures of spiders that I may post in the next day or two. My daughter freaks out when she sees spiders and she didn't care for my pictures.

A little color

Eww. After all the black and white I needed a little color in my postings. I have a busy day ahead so I wanted to get all my e-mails caught up and blog readings done. My brother has his new pc up and running (YAY!). Even painful eye surgery didn't stop him from setting it up. Well, it did delay him for two days. Understandable enough.

One of my comments from Tabor prompted me to bring up the subject of media storage. How unfair is it that we purchased albums in the 60's and 70's and then (some of us) purchased 8-track tapes of the same albums, and then cassette tapes, and then CD's? Is anybody else getting tired of this merry-go-round? Of course, everybody is. That is why so many people are illegally downloading music.

And what of movies? How many VHS tapes do you have in your library? How many movie DVD's? Now they are speaking of the DVD format (as we purchase them today) will no longer be offered, but we will have to move into another format of Blu-Ray or HD DVD. A few of my family and friends do not own a DVD player, yet. I suppose it will be a while before we have to worry about this happening, but you know how time flies. Meanwhile, the big guns keep raking in their profits.

Adolescence

This week's Photo Friday Challenge: Adolescence. Not a child, not yet an adult. That quirky, irksome, tiresome, frustrating, stage in between.

The adjectives above describe the Mom during this stage of the adolescent's life. LOL!

Black and White and 666

Wow. I could not get this post up here fast enough. When I logged on this evening and saw that my number of posts was 666. Yikes! And I went 24 hours with that number hanging over my head. Anyway, I don't post in black and white very much and I was playing around with my dogwood blossom pictures and blasted this one a few times and there it rests.

I don't know. Am I ready for warmer weather? I have a big bee by my back door. They are in under my back porch. It is cement, so they are in under the house area where cement meets wood. I have mowed twice, now. It needs it again. I want to plant more flowers this year.

I had a meeting today where the drive takes me past one of my area lakes. I posted 99 pictures on my web page under the Photos section. It was cloudy so the first half I messed with them in Photo Shop and Paint Shop and Irfanview. The second half I was tired and just posted most of them as they came off the CompactFlash card.

My nephew informed me today that he saw a 4GB CompactFlash Type II Photo hard drive I can use in my camera. Say what? For $87. I had to change my CompactFlash cards and used up all 3 today. (I gave my 128MB to my niece). I filled up my 512, my 256 and my 32MB cards today. The 32 came with the camera. Whoo Hoo. This hard drive card is made by Seagate. Microcenter sells them and they say there is an 8GB size also. I am thinking I am going to have to bite the bullet and purchase a second battery. I did have two at one time. Lost one. :(

I was concerned about losing my pictures in case of an unfortunate event. I told my nephew that when my battery dies if I don't STOP taking pictures right then I take the chance of ruining the card and losing all the pictures I took. The card is refreshed when I format it. He said that since this new device is a hard drive card it will be more rugged. Huh. For $87, I am thinking of getting one.

Long driveway

When I travel north to visit my sister, I pass this home close to hers. I missed the front of the house which sets off the road after a long driveway and the pond that makes up the front of the yard. It follows the same theme as the dark brick and black wrought iron fencing. I thought the purple azaleas(?) and lush green grass set if off nicely. Shoulder shot trying for a sunburst through some low lying clouds.

My daughter's new 19 inch flat screen Dell monitor came today. I didn't have to sign for it. They just left it on my front porch. Eeee-yikes. She did have a 15 inch flat screen that came with her system about three years ago. I was going to get her a 17 inch, but wouldn't you know it? The 19 inch was cheaper on sale. So my system is back together. Just now goofing off I changed my monitor to 1600 x 1200 pixels. And now, 1280 x 1024. I'm messing around. I better stop.

My daughter and I watched 'The Butterfly Effect'. It was rated R and I watched it earlier when she was not at home and let her watch the later showing on Starz. I warned her of the violence in it. It was very good. It reminded me of Stand by Me a little bit. I was caught up in it. My daughter loved it. She didn't even get on the computer while it was playing. Her computer is in the living room. Poor soul. It will stay there. She wants it in her bedroom, but I won't allow it. The iSafe training I had a week ago re-enforced that reasoning.

My older brother ordered their new Dell system. I went up Sunday to help them finalize the details. They are going from a Windows 98 machine with probably less than 4 gig of hard drive space and 64MB RAM with a 15 inch full and clunky monitor to a Dell with 160 gig hard drive, 1 gig of RAM, 19 inch flat screen monitor. They have cable modem and I can't wait to see how they like it. It hasn't been delivered, yet. This is the brother that does the family tree program on the computer.

I plan to go up after it arrives to show them how to download pictures off of their camera, save them, re-size them and edit them. They ordered a photo shop program to go with it. My sister has her first grandson and she needs to create a photo album. I am thinking of Flickr, Picasa or Shutterfly. Any opinions or reviews are appreciated.

Okay, I just had to change my monitor or go get my glasses. I put it at 1024 x 768. What a sissy!

Lilacs

The beautiful aroma of lilacs explode all over Ohio this week. Everywhere I walk, on my dining room table I can smell the sweetness of Spring. And the color ain't half bad, either.

The new monitor is ordered, now I can only hope that I am home to sign for it when it is delivered. Maybe I should have had it delivered to my work office. Darn it!

I never did finish my comments on Brokeback Mountain. I was left flat, I guess. For some reason I thought that his daughter died in the movie. So, I was waiting for something to happen and "poof" it ended. In parts I was bored so I made dinner and kept looking at the television around the kitchen corner. 'Yep, they are still sitting by the lake talking.' For me that seemed to be the whole story. I told you that I couldn't half hear their conversations. I'll watch it again someday from my computer where I can hear it up close. (When I get my monitor back). I was so anxious to watch the movie that I really didn't wait until I could give it my full attention. My bad.

My daughter's suture is healing well. I clean it with diluted hydrogen peroxide. It itches her something fierce and I try to scratch it for her without causing any pain.

Gravel road

As I drove along the other day snapping my regular shoulder shots I recalled the days of my youth when I had plenty of time to roam in the woods and down the long gravel roads that are so abundant in my neck of the woods.

And I thought about some of the more popular sitcoms that depict city people. Sex in the City, Seinfeld, Friends and more, I began to wonder how many people "don't" see the country. How many people go through a day, a week, a month, or heaven forbid a year without seeing live plants, wild roses growing, trees tangled up in each others' branches? When was the last time they touched the bark of a tree? Or heard the buzz of a bee or the song of a bird? And what a sad thought that was for me.

While looking back at the photos on my computer screen I began thinking that the sun is shining on that field or that patch of woods every minute of every day (well, during the sunny daylight hours) and that life is going on all around it. Far to the east in New York city the people are trodding over ground billions of footsteps pounding the pavement and out here in a little wooded county of Ohio gets barely one footstep every five years or ten years. If even that.

Then a wild thought popped into my head. What if we could just take a group of those city folks in NYC and drop them onto the gravel road above for one hour? Let them walk along the sunny backroads and see what I see. Let them feel the sunshine filtering through the tree branches and leaves and let them smell the wood that permeates this country back road. Would it change their day? Would it improve their lives?

Is some company somewhere simulating this so that a city person can take a walk down a sunny back road on their lunch hour? Just to get away from it all? I sure hope so. Because it does wonders for me.

Famous

Photo Friday Challenge - Famous. My sister that looks like the famous Jackie Kennedy.

A huge thank-you to all who commented on my blog about my daughter getting her last mole removed. At least I hope it was her last surgery. She is sore but it is healing. They look like centipedes on her back with the stitches. After the stitches are removed the scars look like fossil imprints of a centipede. She wants to get butterfly tattoos to cover them up. How poetic. From a centipede to a butterfly. Kind of close to a caterpillar.

I still am researching flat screen LCD monitors. When I purchased my PC and my daughter's I just ordered them through Dell and took whatever monitor came with what I picked. Now, I need to get just the monitor, I have to wonder if I get a nice enough monitor should I upgrade the video card? And if I upgrade the card, will the BIOS need upgraded? Ugh. There is a new Dell shop that just opened up north of here. Maybe I will just take the old monitor and see if they can give me a replacement or fix this one or trade it in. Hey, it's worth a try.

What is that?

Paying attention to the group of kids on the gator (croc?) I didn't notice the statue behind them to the right when I was taking this shot in Myrtle Beach 2003.

What is that statue doing? Praising his god(s)? Or is this how golfers look when they make a hole in one?

Surgery is done. The offending mole is (hopefully) all gone. The scar tissue from the previous surgery causes some grief to the dermatologist. Now, we get the stitches out in 2 weeks. The six internal will dissolve by themselves, the six outside will need removed. And then, if this last test results come back okay we just go every six months to check and see if anything new is developing or if the old ones are contrary and decide to grow back.

My daughter said this is why she keeps her hair long. When she wears a swimsuit this summer her hair will cover the scars on her back. Her entire left arm is sore so I will need to monitor her carefully over the next couple of days. She insists on going to school today. I really hope nobody pats her or smacks her on the back.

Working from my daughter's PC because her monitor died and she is using mine.

Some sun fun

Some fun in the sun in 2003. Before the mole removals began. Tomorrow evening is the (hopefully) last one. This is the one the dr. should have taken off three or four months ago and we would have been done and over with. Then a month later, she decides it needs to come off. I put it off as long as possible. Tomorrow is the day. My daughter told me she is scared. After having six or seven removed, this one scares her. Because it has been so long since the last one.

Now, look!

Now, look Great Aunt Peruby. You remember what I said I was going to do with that camera the next time you started flashing that thing in my face!

Oh no.

Peruby has found the liquidate feature on Photoshop. I can see why nobody told me about it before. They knew I would get carried away. This pic was taken this evening. It was a few gray clouds by some blue sky with a black stark tree and the moody sun bidding me farewell. Well, I liquidated it. Just like in the Wizard of Oz.

I am tired. I went to a small theater today to see a live production of Anne of Green Gables. It was longer than I expected but still very good. The costumes were spectacular.

I should be sleeping, but just had to post new pictures of my dogwood tree to my web site. Yawn. Link on the right bar, yada, yada, yada.

Flowering dogwood

My dogwood is getting very close to blooming. This picture was taken yesterday in the evening, but I spruced it up with a lens flare and a bluer sky. I then added artistic brush strokes or something similar. Sometimes I just get carried away and I have fun.

The Photo Friday Challenge I already had covered on April 13th. They must have been sneaking in and looking at my blog and stealing my ideas. No, not really. Just co-inky-dink.

It was 'Golden'.

I have watched about half of Brokeback Mountain. Unexpected company stopped in for a visit and I had to stop the movie. Now my daughter and her friend are in the living room and I will wait to watch the rest of it. Perhaps on my computer. It is better that way because I just can't seem to get the audio loud enough from the television. Darn movies. Just when I get it to the level to where I can hear what they are saying the scene changes and the sound likes to knock me out of my chair. Arrrggghh!

My red tulips

I lost a day this week because of having Monday off. I forgot to put the garbage out on Wednesday morning. I had a lot, too. Because of all the food fixings I did for Easter dinner.

Above picture was taken about ten minutes ago. I wanted to capture the tulips while they are fresh. They are in the front yard. The ones in the back yard do not get very much sunshine and the leaves show up, but no flowers. I think they bloomed the first year and that was it. I may dig them up this fall and replant them elsewhere.

My yellow feather tulips are blooming also. Again, I will mention that I did not order yellow ones. I am sure I ordered deep orange red, but this is what I got. You can't really tell from the bulb you stick in the ground. Bah!

My peonies look like this will be a banner year for them. They are light pink.

My dogwood is coming along nicely. My lilac bush has a lot of dead debris on it that I need to chop off.

I was gassing up my car the other day and it never ceases to amaze me what people will paste onto their vehicles. I feel the same way about yard ornaments. About the time I turned 25 I began thinking of a house of my own and how I would decorate it and landscape it. I never really understood the homes that put a wooden cutout of a little boy with his pants down peeing into a bush or flower. They would use a clear tube for the stream of urine. I guess they thought this was cute. It was kind of in the same vein as the shapely lady bent over her flower garden in a red print dress with her bloomers showing. At least I think that is what it was. I always wondered "What are you trying to say to people who drive by your house?"

Which brings me back to vehicles. There are so many bumper stickers or support stickers you can paste onto your car to tell the world how you feel or what you support. I recall seeing a bumper sticker while living in Virginia that said "Sh!t happens". It was also a big thing to get vanity plates during the mid 80's. Some people really had imagination.

At the gas station I saw a nice truck backing up. On his back windshield was a huge red sticker. I couldn't make out the picture, but the words were clear. "My other ride is your girlfriend." Oh, how mature is that? I am kind of glad I couldn't make out the graphics. I never did get a look at the guy, but he did have a girl in the passenger side. I remember thinking to myself, 'What kind of girl would ride in a pick-up with that on the back window?' Needless to say I didn't have much respect for her or him.

A few weeks back on one of my jaunts, I sat in a redlight behind a Pacifica. There was a purple support sticker. (The usual loop ribbon shape). I wondered 'Now what does the color of purple support?' I inched closer to read the ribbon. 'Support B!tch!ng' Wow. Okay. On the other side of the Pacifica was a clear ribbon outlined in red. What did it say? 'Some a$hole, stole my support sticker.' This really is a character, huh? It didn't stop there. In the bottom left corner of the back window was a sticker of Homer Simpson bending over and pointing to his rear end. I guess that meant 'Kiss this?'

Of all the things you can tell people about yourself with your vehicle or yard and this is what some people choose? Where is the class? This is another big reason I can't stand to watch shows like The Simpsons and The Weakest Link. There is no respect for other people on certain television shows. Where have we as a civilization come to when we criticize and put others down? Can you actually laugh when Judge Judy belittles the people in her courtroom? I can't. I can't help but wonder who in the hell she thinks she is.

Wait! And this coming from somebody who loves to watch Seinfeld. Oh well. Guilty as charged.

Tiny Bubbles

Give me some tiny bubbles in the wine, Mr. Ho! Turn your speakers on and sip the wine!

Country Sunshine

Who sang that song? Oh, Dottie West. "I was raised on Country Sunshine." This was my drive yesterday. It was sunny. The sky was clear - no beautiful clouds to photograph. The grass was green but the trees were brown. There were some tiny buds, but you can't see them from a distance. This photo is near the Leesville Lake area of Ohio. The sun in the upper right corner is fake. You can tell by the photograph that the sun was directly overhead and if the sun was really coming from that angle the left side of the rooftop would be shaded. Oh well. The sky needed something.

That was about the best shoulder shot I got. Too much brown out there for me. I don't drive fast and only take photos from my shoulder if it is a back road. On one main road I was driving along enjoying the sunshine and the beautiful Carroll county scenery. A huge new truck passed me on a double yellow line between two small hills. After he passed I could see into the cab of his truck and he was making the motion with his right finger pointing at his head and his hand circling around. I think it is the motion for "crazy". I had to laugh. Sheesh mister. He probably sees the country every day - he probably farms it. I wasn't even taking pictures, just driving. Maybe he was telling me that he was crazy. Nah.

Note that if I am taking pictures and a vehicle comes up behind me, I put the camera away. Usually I pull over and let the other driver pass. I didn't think I was going all that slow. Maybe I was rubber necking. Soaking up the scenery.

After dealing with technology, computers, printers, software and lines of code - the beautiful country landscape makes it all come back into focus for me. My sanity.

Fun stuff

Easter purple

I did get to spend a wee bit of time with the munchkin before she was carted away to the other Grandma's house. I had a surprise tyke show up with my niece. He is her nephew on her Mom's side and we got to enjoy him for a little while before he also had to go to another dinner.

One sister and I helped another sister move some furniture in the morning on Friday and in the afternoon I had unexpected company show up. A welcome guest. She and I worked together in 1978 and have remained great friends since. I moved to Texas and Virginia and back. She has moved a few times to Columbus and back. We played catch up. She is a grandmother of three and takes care of her Mother who is wheelchair bound.

My sister and nephew came on Saturday and the baking and fixing of food began. I have stayed up way past midnight on all three nights and still get up around the 6:30 a.m. time frame. I am exhausted. It is no wonder that a sore and scratchy throat feeling began this morning.

I loaded my car up on Sunday morning and was at my sister's house for the family get together from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. There were about 20 people in all. If everyone came with their significant others, children, step-children and grandchildren we would have at the very least 30.

In the middle of all of this I have neglected my teenage daughter somewhat. She has had a friend over and they have run amok since Friday. Last night was a tad bit too much drama for me. Her friend is causing trouble between her old boyfriends and her new ones. I put an end to all of it this morning by taking her home. Her parents never come to get her, she wouldn't go home if I didn't take her there. I gave this one a second chance since the late night fiasco a couple of weeks ago and she blew it last night.

So that was even less sleep and the result is one cranky Mom this morning. I slept with my daughter's cell phone and with the Internet box unplugged. I cleaned house this morning, my daughter did a few chores and is now enjoying one of her late birthday presents from her cousin. She talked to me for over an hour with tears about how she misses her boyfriend and how she really didn't want to run with her friend this week-end but was so bored. I guess I should have made her go to the family get together yesterday. Then I would have had to put up with her whining every hour, "I'm bored, can we go now?" Without her I was able to help my sister clean up. She had to work today, I didn't.

Oh, well. The dust has settled from my house cleaning and we are settling into a quiet last day of Spring break before returning to school and work tomorrow. And what a beautiful day it is. If I get rested up enough, I want to tackle the yard work. Yeah. Well, that's the plan.

Still cooking...washing...

Still cooking, baking, fixing and washing clothes in preparation for tomorrow...err - today's family dinner.

Tater Tot

I hope to get a little quality time with this little 'tater tot' tomorrow. Sweet!

In Full Bloom

Photo Friday Challenge - Full (In Full Bloom).

My lilacs last year. Hoping for a similar display this year.

Must sneak one in....

Before I retire for the night, I wanted to post one picture of the new baby. I need to tell my nephew his hands look like a giants' hands next to the little bambino. My nephew is on cloud 9 + 900 along with my sister and her husband.

More photos of my Grand Nephew, Sunsets, Grand Niece at my webpage. Link is in the right column, blah, blah, blah. I have added a new feature - screen savers with the Photos. Whoopee.

Golden

Sunset from the hill. Somewhere in Ohio. Somewhere close to my house, but on a hill where you can actually see the western sky and not your neighbor's house. The park was full of ball players, walkers, cyclists, cars and squirrels. No dogs. No pets allowed.

The Easter holiday stretches out before me. Almost every day is filled up with socializing of one sort or another. My daughter said she does not want to go anywhere or do anything. She is depressed with not being able to see her beau. She did speak to him on the telephone last evening.

I do have most of Saturday free so that I can make my part of Easter dinner. We travel about twenty miles to one of my sibling's houses this year. Not very far.

I remember Sunrise Service when I was young. We would get breakfast in the basement of the church afterwards. One of those little boxes of cereal and half a banana. Some years I would have a new Easter dress. I remember two favorites. One pink and one yellow. My older sister would polish me up until I was shining. I wasn't allowed to wear the dress anywhere but to church. Only once to school for picture day. It was such a special feeling. It was also kind of silly. Somebody paid good money for that dress and I only wore it a few times.

After church we returned home to hunt for our Easter baskets. Once mine was in the oven (not an easy task for Easter day - not sure how the bunny pulled that one off). Another time it was in the clothes dryer. Once my brother's was hanging from the ceiling in the place of a plant. That was funny.

We would have so many colored eggs that we couldn't eat them all. Oh, and back then we didn't know you were supposed to refrigerate dyed eggs. Ours sat out in the basket for weeks at a time and we still ate them. (That might explain a lot).

One time my brother, myself and a bunch of neighborhood kids played ball with a bunch of eggs. What a waste. I just remember pieces of hard boiled eggs flying all over the neighbor's yard. Somebody would pitch an egg to the batter and they would swing and "egg explosion". Wow. I am so glad we didn't think of that with the extra tomatoes we had in our garden in September. Most of them rotted on the vine and my brother and his friends would enjoy throwing them at me and my girl friends. Nasty boys!

It looks as though we get another seventy-some degree day today in Ohio. I think the rain sets in this evening or tomorrow. My daughter did rake the yard (YAY!) into about three piles of pine tree twigs and the neighbor (the one whose tree did the depositing) told us we can just throw it onto his burning pile. They will have a bonfire every other Saturday night during the summer months.

Time to get outside and get moving. I have had the windows open in the house for the past two days airing out the stuffiness. The cats have been killing each other for window post seating. They have to get a running jump for the bathroom window. I laughed because I expect one day they will overshoot and the screen will give way. Or maybe that is just wishful thinking. No, not really. We are one story so they wouldn't have far to fall and I would have to go outside chasing them. I can't let one of my babies out there in the wild with strange dogs, cats, squirrels and teenagers racing their cars up and down the roadways.

Wow. I am impressed. Spellchecker only stopped on the word YAY. I must be awake. Of course, if I ran it again it would stop on the word Spellchecker. Yep, it wants to change it to splices. I see why. Spell checker is two words, Peruby. Two separate words!

Pink jag

Hey - wait! The baby was a boy so I should be posting in blue. Oh, darn. He was born at 12:45 a.m. today. Another April birthday.

I am so darn tired tonight. I have postponed the hospital visit until tomorrow when my sister can be there. I have heard that baby and parents and grandparents are all doing fine. Relief. Apgar of 9.9 (which tells me either there weren't too many drugs involved or this is the second reading). Hey I just Googled the word Apgar and found out it is an acronym for Activity, Pulse, Grimace, Appearance, Respiration. Named after Virginia Apgar in 1952.

Okay, I don't think I want to know what they do to get the poor baby to grimace. I know what I do to get a grimace.

1. Think about my daughter and her boyfriend.
2. Think about the mess my pets are making or have made.
3. Think about a staff meeting.
4. Think about the rising prices of gasoline.
5. Think about how hard it is getting to post anything on this blog anymore.

There are more, but I am just too tired to think.

Network topic for today: Before you e-mail friends and family pictures be sure to resize the file so that it does not exceed the mailbox limit. A quick and nifty re-size program I use is called Irfanview. Free, dependable, easy to use. Lots of features for a free package.

Waiting...

I am waiting to become a Great Aunt for the second time. The doctor sent the expectant Mom to the hospital at 3:30 p.m. My nephew and my sister are on pins and needles waiting. This is my oldest sister's first grandchild. It will be a boy. They already know.

Mom also has a son from a previous relationship. He is nine. I am so excited.

I work tomorrow and then I can go to the hospital and visit!

Above picture is a forsythia bush from my Park adventure yesterday. Blooming beautifully!

Network term for today: DCOM - Distributed Component Object Module. Possible buffer overflow that could allow a worm to attack a network resulting in a denial of service attack.

Sunset through the trees

I took an hour this evening and went to the hill at the top of our town park. Most of the shots were taken through some huge but beautiful pine trees. I didn't mind. Although I felt like I had camera bulb flash or welders flash in my eyes. When I looked away out across the grassy park after taking the photos everything looked foggy. I thought 'Wow, what a day for picture taking'. And then I realized it was not that way really, it was my eyes.

Stress in the teenagers life. Her boyfriend got in trouble and she can't see him for a week, maybe longer. That is their entire spring break. I feel bad, but I won't have to worry about her sneaking him into the house while I am at work.

We are melancholy tonight. I just spoke with his Mom. Tough lessons, tough teenage life.

Today's network topic: smurfable. Many networks are understaffed and poorly managed. They are still quite "smurfable." See, I can talk about work without mentioning work.

I should be cleaning

You can read all the books you want on how to tweak your digital photos, but I have more fun experimenting on my own. I found this feature in Photoshop's Filter, Blur, Twirl and just can't stop. Below is the original photo.

giggle, giggle.

Radial

And with her tummy full of popcorn chicken from KFC, the happy (now) 15 year old fell asleep playing her new video game Kingdom Hearts II. Mom sighed and began to clean up the carved ice cream cake. She neglected to get a picture of it before everyone tore into it. Ah, well. Maybe later. Into the freezer for now.

Outside Mom found the sun shining, the birds chirping. The yard is going to need some serious care this week. The neighbor's huge pine tree has deposited so much debris this spring. The daughter is off all week for spring break. Think there is any chance of getting her to work off that extra $30 she ran up on the cell phone bill buying tokens for her PC game online? Maybe.

cans

Photo Friday Challenge - Organized.