Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Gonna try again

I have been finding that blogging has given way to facebooking.
Blogging is more artsy, more personal, and has introduced me to great people
But it takes more time.  
So easy to just post on facebook.

But blogging also offers the opportunity to have a permanent record in a diary form
Because you can print your blog pages, which I did once.
I have researched printing facebook posts in a book form, the one site I found was not very versatile in its choices.

So, when I make a facebook post, I am going to try to blog it as well.
I am going to try to resist spending an hour or more per day
visiting old friends.  I see most of you are still active and I miss you all.
Its' not because I don't want to, but because I don't want to end up deciding, yet again,
that blogging takes too much time.  Maybe I just need to prioritize again. 

So, if any comments are made, I appreciate them
and I am sure that I will visit you now and then
but I have to do this for me, and to create a record of me
and who I am, for myself and my children and maybe even my children's children.

Love, me

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Kayden

 
 
Just when I was getting back into blogging,
my little unborn grandson passed away
and I had to take a break.
 
The poor baby had problems which would have made
life outside his mother's womb very difficult
 
but it still broke our hearts
We hope he's in a good place now.
 
Kayden, you'll always be in our hearts
and we will always wonder what could have been.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Introducing a new blogger to visit!

Recently I reconnected with an old friend from elementary school, Lisa.
This is she and I at a Girl Guide Winter Camp.
 
 
 
We lost touch when I moved across the country when I was 12
but over the last few months I realized that she is a lot like me in many ways
and suggested that maybe she would like blogging.
 
She has started a new blog here:
and I urge you all to check her out and show some blog support.
I've met some great people blogging and I'm sure she will too.
 
I told her if she builds it you will come,
so here's to Lisa and her new blog. 

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Somewhat better

 
I took Rick's words to heart and printed out those 228 pages into a booklet form
and studied up about focusing.
 
I think I have the beginnings of knowledge of how to do it when the camera doesn't want to
(and no, camera, you can't "just say no")


 
So now what I need to do is practice, practice, practice until I can do it in my sleep and in my waking state without needing to look it up.
 
As I look at it now though I see that I was in a little too close and cut too much off the background.  I think that's what my friend Lisa's suggestion about wide angle meant as I read up on that,
seems it does not mean what I thought it meant.  I thought it just meant a wider picture, with more in the sides, but I think it has to do more with depth of the picture?  Correct me if I'm wrong please.
 
 I couldn't find it in the manual....I think the
index leaves a lot to be desired because I know I zacksidnetally saw it show up as an option as
I looked through the lens one time....it has to be there somewhere.
 
That will be my next learning goal.
 
Thanks for the pointers and keep them coming.


Saturday, June 28, 2014

the more things change the more they stay the same

 
I walked by here this afternoon, sans camera, and thought what a beautiful picture this would make
I wasn't exactly sans camera, I did have my cell phone but it didn't do it justice.
 
unfortunately, neither did my camera camera, as you can see.  I did edit them with the "Orton" setting in Picmonkey so they are presentable, but not what I saw through the lenses of my eyes.
 
 
So I thought I'd change angles but try as I might, I could not get the focus onto the flowers, it kept going onto the logs behind.  There's a setting on my camera, called "ISO" that I think is supposed to take care of the problem, and let you pick the area you want to focus on, but it
JUST WON"T WORK!!
 
 
When I look back to starting this blog five years ago, I had that problem then,
and now with a newer camera that was won as a prize, which I really don't like because I can't figure it out, I still have the same problem. 
 
This camera comes with a manual, 200 and some odd pages, on a CD.  What am I supposed to do, carry my laptop around with me whenever I want to take pictures so that I can access the manual?  I keep meaning to print it out but haven't gotten around to it.  Writing to the company (Sony) for a manual produced no results, they don't print them.
 
When I finally get my driver's license back in a few weeks, after two and a half years (don't ask) I am going to sign up for the next photography class/club that I can find, which may only happen a few times a year in my small town.  And if I still can't figure it out, that's it, I'm getting a new camera. 
 


Finally, a subject that never fails me, something I can count on to always be there for me...
my Monty dog.



Thursday, June 26, 2014

Technology funny bones

 
My son changes his Facebook profile like he changes his socks
in his words "I just keep taking better pictures of myself."
 
 
We both got new phones last week
I requested the simplest phone I could get that takes good pictures.
They sold me the Sony Xperia M.
 
The reason we got new phones was that I hated my old one, which was finally paid off,
 I never liked it from day one
and Trevor lost his old one,
most likely he left it on his car as he drove off, as when he tried to phone it it was turned off,
a good indication that it was broken as he had a password on it where someone finding it
shouldn't be able to do anything to it. 
So his new one is the newest model of his old one,
 an HTC
 
Anyway, I asked him today if he ever installed that 'find my phone" app on his new one,
so while I was eating my breakfast, he was complaining about how
technologically complicated the app was. 
I suggested maybe the one installed on his (and my) phone would be easier. 
So after going through all the steps on the first one, he tried that one.
 
When he tried it out, the answer to where is my phone was:
"Your phone is in your hands."
 
I thought that was hilariously funny. 
Almost choked on my porridge and berries
Still chuckling over it. 
 
Just now he popped his head in my office and said
"Wait a minute, if I lost my phone, how would I ask my phone where it was?"
 
Good question. 
 
I suppose there's a technologically smart answer, like accessing it from your
computer or another phone or something.
 
I'm still laughing over "your phone is in your hands"
 
Duh!!! 
 


Saturday, May 17, 2014

Mother's Day at Mom's


 
It's been a long time since I was with my mom on Mother's Day
25 years to be exact
Ever since I moved "up north"
 
Not that we haven't seen each other of course,
just not on Mother's Day
It has also been four years since I have been down to "the coast"
Again, not that I haven't seen her, just, due to circumstances, I haven't been down there
Gerry has, but he goes every February for his mom's birthday (she just turned 90)
and being that we live where we do,
somebody needs to be here in the winter, literally to keep the home fires burning
we only have wood heat here and things would quickly freeze at -30 C
without that wood stove burning 24/7.
 
So, we had a nice day.
We offered to take her out for breakfast/brunch
but she said what she would really like is for me to make a big breakfast
and us all to sit down together
"like you do at Christmas"
so, sausages, eggs, toast and hashbrowns it was
Yummy.
 
Then she had a list of yard work for us to do.
Tree trimming for the guys
(luckily I found a hedge trimmer in the shed that she didn't know she had...
and bonus....it worked!)
and for me putting new spool on her weedeater and showing her how to use it
Trevor wanted me to find my old skateboard from when I was a teenager, he wanted to see what it was like
Mom was sure she still had it, that old wooden board that at one time I painted blue and put glittery heart stickers all over, but despite turning the shed and the storage basement area upside, down,
I couldn't find it.
 
 
then, after the chores were done (boy, I love the recycling options they have, worth writing a post about that is)
we went with the four of us to visit Gerry's mother
visited with her for the afternoon where Gerry's daughter came to pick up Trevor
and take him to her place for the night.
 
 
Then home again to another me-cooked meal
and a relaxing evening.
 
The only thing missing was that Jeremy was far away in Alberta
but I did talk to him anyway
Baby is doing better and things are looking up in that area,
so next Mother's Day, I may be a grandma!