Welcome to the Gender Reveal Party
02 Jan 2012 3 Comments
in Aren't You Curious?, Curio's Meows, Family & Friends Tags: Cake, Gender Reveal, Hemlock, Ivy, Pansy, party, pizza, Rose
Woo, hoo!
Here’s the sign in:
Name suggestions are requested:
Holly asked for plant or flower names: Among the suggestions were Rose, Pansy, Kendal, John Ray IV, Hemlock and Ivy. All given in good fun of course.
The party table:
Yummy.
Where’s the cake?
If you guessed this was the cake, you were right.
It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Everyone thought it was an actual present. Nope. John’s Aunt Judy created the cake for the parents-to-be. She also did their wedding cake. In case you’re wondering, as good as it was to look at, it was even better to eat.
Good Bye 2011
01 Jan 2012 4 Comments
in Aren't You Curious?, Curio's Meows, Holidays & Special Occasions Tags: 2011, 2012, Adobe Photoshop Elements 9, All Night Long, April, baby shower, brown rice, Christmas, February, final exam, frogs, Happy New Year, HTRYN, HTTS, January, Lionel Richie, March, Maryland, May, nature, New Year's Eve, polar bears, Stellarcon, tigers, unicorn
Its been fun but it’s time to look forward to fresh experiences, reach for more goals and meet new challenges.
Year End Wrap-up
My photos of the gender reveal party weren’t all that great. What a coinkydink, I just took a new Photoshop Elements course and I’ve been working on them this last week. I should have them up by this Monday or Tuesday at the latest. I didn’t use a flash and didn’t stop to check what was happening and they were a little dark and off in color. The lighting really was awful in that room.
Everyone was either looked like a zombie or had huge shadows around their eyes. Not a problem but it’s taking a bit of time to fix them. Yeah, I’m enjoying myself. 
Otherwise, we had fun at the party and I can’t wait to share.
Let’s see, what else? Oh, yeah. I revised To Touch a Unicorn one last time (I swear!) and submitted it to a magazine a couple of days before Christmas. I’m still cringing over it but I promised a friend I would and I did. Wish me luck! Also, I started the sequel to the short story called Whispers of the Unicorns.
Hmmn. I finished up the Photoshop Elements course just after Christmas. I am not doing that again. What was I thinking to start a class just before the holidays? I ended up with a 94 on the final exam that I’m extremely happy with. The funny thing is I did great on the hard stuff and missed two simple questions. One question I still think was subjective but I’m not quibbling cause I got the hard stuff.
The last couple of lessons had some really cool stuff like denuding tigers and making polar bears disappear. It was a lot of fun but I felt so sorry for the poor tiger I gave his stripes back. I gotta work on that technique anyway.
No goals were really set for this year. I ended up 2010 sick and started 2011 sick. January 2nd has not been good to us these past two years. Resolutions were forgotten or not started because of that and Paul lost first his sister and then his uncle on January 2nd of 2010 and 2011. This year I am going to believe that January 2012 will be a month to remember for good things not sad.
But I can say that it has been a good year in spite of its rockiness and sad times. I went to my first con and met Terry Bane there. It took us over six months to hook up again but it’s been a pleasure to get to know her. Terry and her husband are role-playing gamers. Glenn actually designs his own games. They invited Tracey to play his new game and Terry told her she will be credited for that. She plans to join another session with them early in January.
Health wise I finally managed to kick the virus that hung of for so long to the curb. All I gotta say is Sage tea is awesome, if you’re congested it’s the way to go. Green tea is a great substitute or addition.
Even though I signed up for the worst possible time of year I still loved the Photoshop Elements class. Fun, fun, fun. I learned lots and I want to take the second class if I can.
The best of this year was when we found out Holly is expecting. The second best was when we got to see the first sonogram of The Peanut. Nothing can beat that. Holly’s belly is rounding nicely.
We’re Having A Concert
25 Dec 2011 1 Comment
in Aren't You Curious?, Curio's Meows, Holidays & Special Occasions Tags: Carol Of The Bells, Darling, Deck The Halls, Do You Hear What I Hear, Go Tell It On The Mountain, holiday, James Taylor, Jethro Tull, Jim Nabors, Little Drummer Boy, Mannheim Steamroller, Merry Christmas, Ring Out Solstice Bells, The Carpenters, The Harry Simone Chorale
It’s Jesus Christ’s birthday. Let’s celebrate with some music.
This first song is technically not a Christmas song but it’s beautiful and fits for this time of year.
This is an interesting version of this song. I’ve never heard it before and I like it very much. I hope you do, too.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Layers, Adjusting Color and Light With Photoshop Elements 9
14 Dec 2011 2 Comments
in Adobe Photoshop Elements 9, Aren't You Curious?, Curio's Meows, Holidays & Special Occasions Tags: 99.5 Magic, Adobe Photoshop Elements 9, Bing Crosby, black and white, Christmas, color, David Bowie, hot air balloon, Little Drummer Boy, Peace On Earth, tangs
I’m sort of caught up on my Photoshop Class. The classes on sizing images for email or the internet and on printing were not ones I could really show on the blog but the next one about layers was pretty good. The photo was provided by the instructor.
Here we have a hot air balloon with no layers.
Now we get fancy. First we make a5x7 purple for the bottom layer, then make a 4.5×6.5 gold layer to be laid down next, last the4x6 photo of the hot air balloon is put on top.
The next class was about adjusting color or to be more specific: using color to enhance black and white photos. Again the photos were provided by the instructor.
The first photo on the left is the original.
I really got a kick out of this next one. Don’t ask me why. Again the photo is provided by the instructor.
Original.
Next I changed to black and white with salt shaker highlighted in color. Cool huh?
Lesson Seven is about adjusting colors and light. As usual the photos are provided by the instructor.
This photo is very dark and needs to be vertical.
Ta-da.
This original is washed out and needs some color.
Photos with different methods used to add contrast and color.
It’s A…?
04 Dec 2011 4 Comments
in Aren't You Curious?, Curio's Meows, Family & Friends Tags: Baby, Cake, Christmas, Gender Reveal, party, Sonogram
Baby girl or boy. We don’t know which right now but Peanut Smith has shared. That information is in a sealed envelope that only the cake maker, John’s Aunt Judy, knows so she can bake a pink cake or blue cake. We’re having a gender reveal party just before Christmas with family and friends.
To make things even more fun Holly is requesting everyone to wear pink or blue depending on what the wearer thinks the sex is. It should be a lot of fun. So far the unofficial polls are showing lots of pink will be worn.
Cute as a button, huh?
So what do you think? Boy or Girl? Stay tuned for Part II of this post.
Peace.
Remember…
24 Nov 2011 2 Comments
in Aren't You Curious?, Curio's Meows, Holidays & Special Occasions Tags: Adobe Photoshop Elements 9, Christmas, Magic 99.5, November, stuffing, Thanksgiving, turkey
…to be thankful for what you have.
Today I give thanks for:
- My lovely daughters and handsome son-in-law. They make it all worth while. Besides they’re awesome.
- My mom and dad. They are always there for me.
- All of my animals. They make me laugh even when I want to strangle one of them. It’s like having a bunch of four-year olds running around.
- Paul. I don’t know what I’d do without him.
- My camera. I don’t always get the shot I want but when I do it’s the best.
- Adobe Photoshop Elements. When the shot doesn’t come out I can photoshop it. Yay.
- My friends. I’ve been blessed with some good ones even though I don’t always deserve them.
- Turkey and stuffing. Yum.
- Christmas music. One of the reasons I look forward to this time of year is the music. The music is ageless and makes me smile in my heart if not on my face. Magic 99.5 starts playing Christmas music beginning in November. I start listening around Thanksgiving. Bliss.
- My computer. If I didn’t have one I couldn’t write this post.
- Last, definitely not least, I’m thankful for The Peanut who is due to arrive April 30, 2012. Yay!
This lovely video has quotes by famous folks reminding you to be thankful and why.
Happy Thanksgiving, Y’all!
Peace.
I Blame The Morphine For Me But I’m Not Sure What Randolph Hospital’s Excuse Is
21 Nov 2011 6 Comments
in Aren't You Curious?, Curio's Meows Tags: Asheboro, morphine, N.C., Randolph Hospital
Last Thursday my mom called an ambulance because I got in a lot of pain going around from my back to front. It woke me up from a sound sleep. A good, loving mom is a mom who will call an ambulance even when you tell them not to because it scares them when their little girls are in pain no matter how old or big they are.
So the ambulance comes. And it goes. My mother hobbles down the road after them to flag them down. When they arrive the first scary thing was the paramedic telling her since she was able to flag them down she can walk out to the ambulance. My mom stared at him open-mouthed.
It took me a second before I got it and had to advise they were here for me. What that says about them or how my mom looks I’m not sure. I just know at that point I couldn’t have flagged down that ambulance if my life depended on it. It seems to me the correct thing to have done would be for the paramedic to ask who they were there for but what do I know about paramedic etiquette?
Making Magic with Adobe Photoshop
14 Nov 2011 6 Comments
in Adobe Photoshop Elements 9, Aren't You Curious?, Curio's Meows Tags: Adobe Photoshop Elements 9, America, photography, Pictures, Randolph Community College, You Can Do Magic
I really do have awesome daughters. They bought me an online course to take for my birthday this year from Randolph Community College. I had the option of which photography class I wanted to take and decided I wanted to start with the photoshop class because I have a lot of photos that could use some help.
Besides I’ve had Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 for nearly a year now and decided it’s time I learned how to use it. Taking the class is the best way to go about doing that.
The classes are on Wednesdays and Fridays until the end of December. As of now I’ve had two whole lessons. So far so good.
I’ve decided I want to share what I’m learning, if I can, each week. So this week there was the introduction to Photoshop. We learned where things were and how to arrange things to suit ourselves.
Lesson Two introduced some of the tools. The first two were tools I have used with the dinky Adobe Photoshop I’ve had for years, the crop and auto fix. It allows you to cut parts of the image out that you don’t like. The image being used is one provided by the instructor.
Let’s talk about the auto fix first. The original photo is dark and the image is not clear.
I corrected the picture using the auto fix manually. Meaning instead of just clicking on auto fix I used a scroll button to decide how much fixing I wanted. The image is clearer and lighter.
The cropping tool is important. Here you can see there’s no real focus in the photo, it’s not very good. Cropping makes the difference as to whether your image is crap or glorious.
Not glorious but a nicer composition.
Meh.
Better.
I liked this but it wasn’t quite what I wanted.
Yes! It almost has a 3D quality to it.
The cropped pictures are different pictures from the original, aren’t they? It has occurred to me that cropping a photo is a good deal like editing a story or book. What you start out with doesn’t necessarily mean it will resemble the final product. If for no other reason than curiosity, we owe it to ourselves to complete our stories or projects just to see how it ends.
The next thing we learned about is the straighten tool. It does exactly that, it straightens. I wish I’d know about this years ago.
It’s magic. Lol. Cool, isn’t it?
Do you use photoshop? Did you teach yourself or did you have some help? What do you use photoshop for? Business, pleasure or both?
Magic Music:
Peace.
Summer is Over
12 Nov 2011 4 Comments
in Aren't You Curious?, Curio's Meows, Pets, Animals & Plants Tags: Danielle Meitiv, garden, garden container, sci-fi, Seals & Crofts, straw bale, Summer Breeze, Thanksgiving, Them, tomatoes, yellow squash
I know I’m a little late on this post cause hel-lo it’s nearly Thanksgiving but I was looking for my post on voice to work on and ran across this. It’s short and fun so I hope you enjoy it anyway.
The music to listen to while your read is even more inappropriate for this time of year but who cares? I’ll probably use it again when it is. Seals & Crofts was one of my favorite groups growing up in the 1970′s. I adore them and their songs.
It’s a good thing my family doesn’t rely on our gardening to eat, otherwise we’d be very sad. And skinny. Not that skinny would be bad in my case but it’s not good to be around any of us when we’re hungry. We tend to get cranky about it.
We used two large green and orange containers to garden this year. It worked a little better than the straw bale but not as much as we hoped. To be honest I think it was more our fault than the containers cause I think we put too much in them.
We’ll probably try again next year. Danielle Meitiv has a barefoot method along with the containers. She knows how to grow an awesome garden. My friend Diane, who is also an awesome gardener, has sent me some tips and links, too. Mainly, I think, because I pout to her and she feels sorry for me. 
We had a few more tomatoes after this picture but this was about it for the summer. Next year we need to plant in May instead of June. I think that’ll make a big difference to how much or many we grow.
After Paul brought in all these tomatoes then my dad brought over a big bag from his garden. They were delicious. We had a lot of sandwiches and salads garnished with tomatoes for several weeks. Anyone know any good recipes?
I’m including this photo if for no other reason than to show how big we grow ‘em here in North Carolina although Florida’s bugs are even bigger. See that shadow? It’s also known as Mcgillus’ Garden Beetle. They sneak in on the vegetables because they’re partial to cat food. They scurry for the bowl but the cats usually catch them before they make it. Crunch, crunch.
Not really, just joking. But doesn’t the shadow look like that of some mutated creature from one of those old sci-fi movies like Them?
To be honest our cats do like to munch on bugs so that much is true. I never worry about flies or moths for long because the cats and the dogs consider them yummy snacks. Ewww! But it’s useful.
How did your garden grow? Does your cats or dogs like to snack on bugs?
Peace.
Ahhoooooo!
31 Oct 2011 7 Comments
in Aren't You Curious?, Curio's Meows, Holidays & Special Occasions Tags: Halloween, trick or treat, Werewolves of London
Jade and
Belle Amie
Are enjoying
their treats.
They want to wish you a….
Some howling good music.
What do you think of the pumpkin wolf? The wolf’s glowing eye is awesome and I managed to shoot it that way without having to photo shop. Did you carve a pumpkin this year? Which do you prefer, tricks or treats?
Peace.
