Moving On

I’ve been away from my computer a lot lately. We’ve had family things going on. The older daughter and hubbie were here this weekend and it was so nice to see her. Have I mentioned she is expecting? We find out – boy or girl on July 7th. She is just now started to “show” just a little. The younger daughter made supper at her place and it was scrumptious – alfredo sauce to die for!

Moving On

My fur babies have been allowed out for the last two nights and they somehow were able to behave. Isn’t it wondrous how sometimes cats can be so good and other times you wanna yank their tails? I am working on getting de-programed. They really had me the way they wanted me. I would feed them in the morning bright and ealry right off the bat. Once, they had that programmed into me, they started getting me up earlier and earlier. Its hard, but I am breaking that programing. Now, I make sure to brush my teeth, fix breakfast and maybe even eat it before I feed them.

Clio has been happy though. She has been getting lots of lap time. That is something she just thrives on. As soon as she hears that recliner click back, she comes plodding out to get in my lap. If I am eating in the chair she will sit towards my feet. This all stems from when we first met each other. I was desparately ill and could not do much but sit in my recliner and she was very nervous about losing this new home she had found. So we spent hours and hours each day together in that chair. I feel she was part of my recovery. Her calm accepting behavior and unconditional love just kept me going.

Moving On

Saturday, hubbie was locked out of the house while I went shopping with the girls. For some reason the door locked when he went outside to fill up the bird feeders and put out corn for the other critters. While out waiting on me to get home, he watched a huge snake crawl across the drive way and then up into a tree to get him some supper. This snake had to have been at least five feet long hubbie says. So when I got home after dark, we took the big, red neck flashlight and went looking. I also brought along my little weenie flashlight that needed batteries. So, here we were searching the tree branches for this snake. The June bugs were dive bombing us, the crickets were roaring and the red bugs were chowing down on. Then it occurs to me to wonder just what did we think we were going to do IF we found this snake? We don’t kill snakes unless we have to. We do the catch and release thing. We looked around the outside of this stand of trees but did not go into the brush underneath the trees. THANK GOODNESS! I just don’t think my nerves could have taken that. But, we found no snake. My little flashlight was geting weaker and weaker. Hubbie showed me where the snake crossed the drive way. And then we came in. Actually, it is a dirt road, calling it a drive way is like calling a shed a barn. Where the snake was seen is not close to the house, about a half block away. So I am not too worried about that snake. Plus, when hubbie looked him up, it looked to be a King Snake. They eat all the bad snakes -the rattlers, copperheads and stuff. So we want him to stick around. Sigh, he may not be the kind to hurt me, but like my mother in law used to say, he could cause me to hurt myself!

Moving On

Today’s freebie is a set of overlays. There are three sets of two. Each set has a simple pattern and a more complex pattern of the same flower. You can use either one by itself, or you could use the simple pattern on top of the complex patter and make it a different color. Take the complex one, put a color burn on its layer, then add the simple one on top of it, lock the transparent pixels and then do a color fill. That will change the color of its flowers. (To lock transparent pixels in Photoshop, choose the layer you wish to lock, click the little box on the layer palette that says lock and then a padlock appears on the layer you have locked. Then when you do a color fill, all the transparent pixels stay transparent.) I also included three papers with texturs and all I made using the overlays for those of you who have to desire to make your own papers.

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It is Tuesday isn’t it? I have not seen anyone since hubbie left on Friday. Though, I did walk down to the mailbox and also watered the plants. I thinki I did that on Sunday???

But, finally I got a respite, a little breather. All my obligations for the month are done and there is a little breather before time to start on next month’s work. I even had time to fix the ads at the ScrappersZone Forum. At first it looked like it was going to be contrary and then I rememered to upload the database back up. Such a simple thing, but that was all it took. Without the database it could not run!

There is a tutorial on the DigiScrapStation blog on how to make a photo look like this:

And yes, that is me with my long hair and green cap. I think I am about 15 pounds lighter there and we were on vacation in Louisianna.

Moving ON

So, Dayton and Cio have been allowed out at night while hubbie is away. I don’t mind fussing at them in the middle of the night when he is not here to be disturbed. They are doing OK, only trying to get me up once or twice a night and not persisting when I fuss at them. Though, this morning they were pretty desparate. Their food dish was ALMOST empty, and gee, the food in it was at least 6 hours old.

It is comforting to be able blame the cats for noises you hear in the night. Those of you who live alone might know what I mean. The house creaks, something goes thud or perhaps a pipe rattles. With cats around you become used to all kinds of noises and learn to ignore them. But, when they were shut up in at night, I could not ignore the sounds. So, they get a reprieve when hubbie is away. They love him very much, so I hope they don’t figure out that his prescence at night means they get shut up. Its funny though, you would think they would keep out of the office during they day when they are not shut up in here, but if I am here, they have to be here. They are my little shadows, although they sleep most of the time. Clio is funny though. She can really sleep pretty hard and if I don’t wake her up when I go to bed, she wakes up in the dark and start howling, wondering where everybody is. Soo cute.

Moving On

The title promised a Commercial Use Freebie – though everybody can use these. They are lantern stamps. They are the kind of images that look like you have stamped them with a rubber stamp. I thought these might be cute on camping layouts and maybe some old timey layoutst too. There are six files.

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For real, Scrapper’s Zone is up and running everything is working. After hours and hours of work we got it humming along just fine. Oops, the calendar is not quite going yet, maybe I’ll get around to it and just maybe I can talk Nichole into dropping it. She just might put it back up herself, maybe. That gallery, I really had to just walk away from it several times, it was soo frustrating. I was able to get it up and running from the old server just fine. But, when it was time to bridge it so the same log ins worked there and in the forum it just would not budge. I tried every permutation of cookie names, cookie path, domain name and all. That database and me became real familiar with each other. It turned out, I think, that the domain name on the forum needed a period in front of it. I have never heard of this and just don’t know exactly what this is all about, and really don’t care at all. EXCEPT IT WORKS!

Moving ON

Wild Pig update: Hubbie and I walked the south pasture tonight and he showed me where this critter has been digging. It really went to town on a lot of property which is why hubbie believes it is a pig and not an armadillo. He says it is likely to be a domestic pig gone feral, and they are not as ferocious as a havelina, unless they have a bunch of little ones. There was not evidence of little ones though. We did run across quite a few of the hostess gifts left behind by the cow that was visiting a while back. Such a sweet guest.

Moving ON

Ok I pulled a miracle out for the SZ gallery. Now I need one for myself. I’ve been so busy lately working on the new store, getting SZ up and running and before that on National Scrapbooking Day, that I was ignroing my External Hard Drive, or the EHD as some people like to call them. I have two and one of them I use as backup and the other is used for extra space. Well, the one used for extra space has gone bonkers on me. It started by not letting me access the files there in a timely fashion, then it started being contrary in other ways. And now? well, it does not look good. I was able to boot it up for a few minutes to get some dvds burned, but not the ones I really wanted. Now, all my digi layouts are gone unless I can get this booted up just a little more time. The warranty expires in 18 days, I wonder what Western Digital knows that we don’t know? Are these things only supposed to last one year?? You have to wonder.

So tommorrow, I am going to be hot and heavy on the phone to Western Digital asking “Please, Please will you help me?” Gosh, I hate tech support . . I never seem to speak their language. I am going to pray for my EHD tonight before going to bed, do you think that will help? Perhaps I also need to pray for patience too.

Moving ON

I made a tutorial for you all on how to make grunge brushes. Its at: http://catstation.net/howtos/grungebrushes.htm

It shows just one way to make grunge brushes how to make many kinds. With that in mind, I have a set of grunge brushes to give you all. It is commercial use Ok. There are four brushes in the download and sorry but no directions are included at this time on how to use brushes. But, if you do a google search I am sure you can find plenty of places that will give you lessons on how to load and use brushes. Also, these brushes do not have any brush preset settings on them. They are just straight up and down image brushes. The png’s are included for those of you who might need them.

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So I’ve put on a few pounds these past few years, well a lot of pounds. At five foot almost nine inches you would think I could carry a lot of weight. But not so, with tiny bones, the weight causes problems. I’ve been on a few serious diets but nothing too extreme. But, now it is time to do something drastic, like maybe eat healthy for a change. Tuesday, when I went to the grocery store – the day I got my photos taken – I kept this in mind and was careful to leave the candy on the shelves and to look for alternatives. I even picked up some salad makings. AT checkout, I discovered healthy is expensive! I paid $111 for my groceries and when I carried them into my house, it only took three trips – Is that all there is for $111?

For lunch instead of eating sandwiches, two sandwiches being the norm, I decided to go the Lean Cuisine route. So the first day, yesterday, I self righteously got the box out of the freezer and followed the directions. When I pulled the meal out of the box, it was like, where is all the food. Is that all there is?? I was good, I determined to eat it up and not crave more. So, I put it on a plate and got a small fork to make it last longer. There were like five bites of chicken in there and a little bit of sauce AND broccoli and carrots for veggies. But, gee we have apples with crunchies for dessert on the tray. Holding off on dessert til last, when I started in on the apples, I found they had an unusual flavor. What is that flavor? could it be a caramel taste? If I could just identify the flavor perhaps I could enjoy it more. Then Iooked into the container, into the section with the apples and realized I was tasting broccoli juice. WEll, that spoiled the apples for me. What a bummer. So as I was cleaning up, what do I spy? The cherrie pie that I made on Sunday. It was just sitting there being evil. Did you know that cherrie pies can exude an evil atmosphere? This one was. But I was good, I did not eat any. After all the cool whip was still frozen and I had no ice cream. What good is cherry pie all by itself?

We will see how long I stay on this healthy food kick. History shows I am not good at this stuff called diet. Today, I had a beef and noodle dinner for lunch. I did not wait until I was starving to fix it and it was a little more satisfying. The cherry pie gave up a piece to me last night before I went to bed – now ithe pie is going out for the critters. It is soggy and very unappetizing. So I will not tempt myself any more.

Mama Cow came back tonight. AS i was cooking supper she was out there. She did not like all the noise I was making trying to find the right pots and pans so moved off. Then I saw she had brought junior up with her. Oh Boy! more cow patties. He was hiding in the brush towards the back where she must have stashed him while she ate supper. When she moved off, he had to follow and he was like, Is that all there is? I could totally relate.

Hey, I added another item to my blog – check it out on the left at the bottom of the column. Its a way for you to subscribe to my blog. It is set so every time I make a new post, subscribers will get an email. As most the time when I post, I give out a freebie, you might want to sign up. If you don’t like it, you can always unsubscribe. How cool is that!  will try to be sure I put in the title if I have  freebie with the post as the title of my blog post will be the subject line of the email you get. That way you will know if it is worth it to come read.

The freebie for this post is another Commercial Use Freebie. Its three bows to recolor. For some reason I learned how to make bows way back when I just started designing. No one told me they were hard and that a lot of designers could not do them. So I persevered and taught myself how. Here are three I made yesterday for you to download.

Click here to go to the no wait download page