In other news, I’m taking a Photoshop course this quarter. First week was photo correcting. It went okay. I got the points, but I’m not really satisfied with my work, and am hoping that I will do better at the work. We had to change the color of a hat and it was very difficult. I had pixels that were red even after I made them green. Don’t know what’s up with that. I spent close to 9 hours on it, by the time I was done, and did the exercise probably 12 times. Ah well.

Supposed to be starting to pack and prepare for the scrapbooking retreat at the end of the month with the girls. I haven’t got anything ready. Nice. Guess this weekend I better get focused on that little task!

I was sick for the entire 2 weeks we were off work. I had all kinds of plans of going to the gym daily, and doing lots and lots of things to get ready for the retreat and for 2010. All got postponed. Back at the gym as of last week, however, and am back on track with going regularly.

I guess that’s enough whining for now. Sorry it’s not a nice perky positive post, but it’s getting more and more difficult to keep my chin up and look all happy as April and the possibility of Steven’s getting laid off gets closer. I don’t know what happens if that happens. I know it’s nice to just not think about it, but it would be better to come up with a real, concrete plan. Sigh. As if there was such a thing possible.

We did have an extremely nice visit this past weekend with Steven’s parents, who came up to celebrate a late Christmas with us. Enjoyed our time together, although it seemed very short… Dad made me a fabulous lazy susan that I need to decorate in some way. Still noodling on what I want to do.

I also made my 50 book challenge for 2009! In 2008 I didn’t make it, but I did this year. Go me. (even with classes all year!) Signed up for another 50 this year, we’ll see how I do. Last night I fell asleep at 8:45, so no reading was done. LOL

Make it a good day!

My second project was to create a poster that featured a fontographer. It had to showcase one of his fonts. I chose a guy named Harold Lohner who is one of my favorite designers. He created a font called Pharmacy that I use quite often in my scrapbooking…. Here’s the poster. I got 24/25 on it, so I was pleased.

I had a project a few weeks ago, to create a CD cover. It was really not easy. You could not use pictures, only type. I had a vision and I worked it and worked it but I couldn’t get any further than what I submitted. Work was also really busy at the time, (whcn is it not) with a lot of “change” going on, and I don’t think I was quite up to my usual focus. I turned this in, and I got 21/25. My first B. I was really disappointed, but stuck it out and dug in and worked harder.

For our final project, we had to create a poster that used only type, and it had to showcase a Bay Area attraction for children. I knew right away that I wanted to do the exploratorium in San Francisco, as it is one of my very favorite places to visit. I played around with a bunch of different ideas, and phrases and came up with my final poster. Last time I was there, you could create an earthquake, so I focused on that. Here’s the poster. I don’t have a grade yet but the instructor seemed to like my design, so fingers crossed.The background of the poster is white, so it doesn’t show as well as it could, here…. I guess you get the general idea.

Next quarter, I plan to take Photoshop. I use it, but I have no training in it, so I think it’s time to learn how to use it right. I think it will be fun!

Not much else going on. I did start my Christmas Journal yesterday. Maybe tomorrow I can post yesterday and today’s entries. We’ll see how the day goes.

On a side note, I did not finish National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo) again this year. I only wrote 968 words. Having said that, Steven wrote something like 53,000 or more, so I’m really proud of him! Way to go!

-Have a great day!

Our first project was to create an illuminated letter. When books started to be written by hand, a lot of them contained a large, decorative first letter, which often related to the story. This was called an illuminated letter. Some of them were really fancy and elegant. When I went to Italy in 1984, I picked up a postcard that had some gorgeous handwriting with an illuminated letter. I had no idea what it was, I just thought it was pretty. I remember seeing a lot of illuminated letters on various documents we saw in various museums. Oh, sorry, sidetracked a bit. So, the assignment was to pick a 6 word story from a website that the instructor provided and create an illuminated letter that represents the story.

I chose this story: “Rained, rained, rained, and never stopped.” by Howard Waldrop (no clue who he is, might be nice to look him up!)

Here is my illuminated letter.

I painted it! It is acrylics, on a stretched 11 x 14 canvas. I used irridescent and matte medium. I am so in love with it! My goal was to make the R look like it was almost flooded with water. I think I accomplished that. I used the irridescent medium to make the water have some depth. This is among my first paintings, so it probably could have been way better, but I’m thrilled with it! I’m actually thinking of adding a simple frame and hanging it somewhere in the house, since it IS an R (like Radecki, get it?)

-Have a wonderful day!

2. Josh is at a new, smaller high school and doing fabulously! He’s loving it. We’re all so happy about it! (ALthough it’s made our commutes hell, it’s worth it!)

3. My pal Melody Ross has release new scrapbooking products. OH MY GOSH, are they gorgeous. YOu can see them here: http://gcdstudios.blogspot.com/

4. Saturday, it was 95 degrees here. Right now, it’s 68. Ok, then, enough said?

5. The cat knocked my iron down while being chased by the naughty little dogs. I bought a garment steamer instead of another iron. I’m in love!

6. Steven’s had a really bad cold all weekend. Yuck. Feel better, honey!

7. I changed my aligner again on Friday. It hurts, but I swear it’s getting a tiny bit easier…

8. I took Josh to a career fair for folks who want to become police officers on Saturday. He wants to be a homicide detective. They took him seriously, it was great!

9. The month of September was extremely good to us. josh and I worked out at the gym together 3 times every week in September. Go us.

10. I’m in a challenge with Mary Ann to read 50 books in 2009. I’ve read 41 so far. I might make it! Yay!

I guess that’s about it for now. Thanks for stopping by, I’ll try to post more. I’m finishing up my first project for Typography class, so maybe more on that soon.

-Have a great day!

Here’s the scoop…

Overall, the whole experience is good. In about 14 months, my teeth will all be straight, my smile will look nice, and I’ll be a happy girl. Having said that, the first two aligners are baby steps. Seriously, they don’t do much. Then, you go in and they put on “attachment buttons”. Aha. This translates to “they bring in the big guns.” I think it’s akin to rubber bands on regular braces. The only difference is, with these, you can’t get away from the pressure and pain except to eat. Nice, but who wants to eat when it feels like every tooth in your head is loose? LOL

I’m sorry, I won’t whine anymore. As Josh continually reminds me, I volunteered for this. I didn’t have to do it, I chose to. But wow, I have a WHOLE lot of respect for my son now, since I know what he went through with his braces. Every parent should have to do this so that they have more patience and understanding.

Lots more going on, but no time to post now. Soon.

-Make it a great day!

Click here

- Have a great day!

Speaking of fresh starts, sometime in August, I guess I signed up for an online scrapbooking class with Shimelle.com. I have no recollection of doing so, but I guess I did. LOL Yet another fine moment of insanity, I guess. And just when I was relaxing into a mode of reading and doing other things. ha! The class is called “Learn Something New Every day” and it requires an album page a day. I was pondering this a bit earlier, and trying to figure out how I was going to do this, when it occurred to me (you know I can be slow sometimes), that I could do a digital album, perhaps. Hmmmm. After all, I DID take Adobe Illustrator, and I have all these new Graphic Design skills, right? I’ll make at least some of them digital, I think. I don’t know if I’ll share them here or not, I guess it depends on the day and what I learned and whether I want to share it with the world or not. Sorry. Sometimes, things are just for me. I do have this vague recollection about being curious about the class, and looking into it and thinking it was a good idea, but I wonder when I signed up. LOL! Whatever. It will be great. She says you can just do your journaling each day and catch up when you can, so perhaps I’ll do that on the days when I just can’t get to creating.

About that creating. We had a sad moment this past weekend, followed by intense relief. My iMac started acting strangely. Like it was possessed! It wouldn’t go to sleep. Then, it decided that it liked being asleep and would not wake up. Then when I did a hard reboot (which you NEVER have to do with a mac) it would give a gray screen. Well, Steven’s iphone lost a button, (apparently a known problem, so they replaced the phone immediately), so we had to go to the Apple store. While there, we mentioned my problem and they said “bring it in, now. right away.” So we went back home, packed it up, and brought it in. Turns out my hard drive failed. But you know what? It’s all good. (This is the intense relief part!) Steven, being the brilliant husband that he is (I’m serious!), bought me the 3 year warranty. I’m getting a new hard drive and all it cost us was the gas to bring the iMac to the Apple store! Go me. Not only that, they are putting a LARGER hard drive into it (it used to be 320 gb and now will be 500!), AND, when we get it home, we connect it to the network, and my Apple Time Capsule (thank you, brilliant husband!), and say “restore from Time Capsule” and my new hard drive will magically look exactly like my old hard drive, except this one will work. LOL I don’t think you could ever get me to go back to a PC. I’m definitely a Mac. There was a guy wearing an “I’m a Mac” tee shirt at the store, I told Steven I want one. Seriously.

I guess that’s about it. That’s more than I’ve blogged in a month, huh? Speaking of months, it’s September, and my birthday is Friday. Oh, sorry.

Make it a great day!

A friend of mine has this saying on a poster in her office. I always read it and think about what wonderful words they are. I love sayings like this that make you think. When times are difficult, or when things aren’t going the way I think they should, or want them to, these are the kinds of sayings that I try to steer toward.

It’s pretty easy to navigate smooth water, you just point and go, but when the water is rough, you need to calculate and adjust and “go with the flow.” So often, when things look bleak, I think it is easy to try to control situations rather than letting life take its course.

Have a great day!

The other day, I came across a cool site, however, that has had some great stuff, so I thought I’d share it! It is called Peachy Cheap. Everyday they have a different scrapbooking item, deeply discounted. Love it!

Here’s a link: Peachy Cheap

Enjoy!

September’s Final

Not much else to report. Summer has sure flown by, and it’s been a decidedly strange summer too. We never swam. Not once. It was hot enough a couple of times, but we just were too busy doing other things. None of us are tan, none of us show any signs that it was summer. Truly weird.

School starts on Monday. Josh will be a junior. How did that happen? I don’t start back until September 21st. I get a break. Go me! Lots of work at work so I’m glad I get a break.(I’ve had my face buried in casual reading since class ended and I think I’ve read 4 so far! LOL)

Looking forward to Steven’s birthday on August 25th and then mine on the 4th…. I’m taking the day off and going to San Francisco for the day with my friend Karen. Yea! Mischief time!

Have a great day! I promise to try to post more often. It’s just kind of weird, because I certainly don’t want to post “Same thing as last time.” LOL