Photoshop Elements 10 and May Flowers Day 31

Well it’s the 31st day of the flower a day challenge. I’m going to miss it! Thanks again for hostessing this Lori Moon. It’s been so much fun for me!

I have so many flowers left I’d like to show you that I don’t which one to pick…

Should it be the cosmos?

Or maybe the red Penstemon?

Or perhaps the pink gypsophilia?

Or even the red pin cushion…

But then the pink salvia will be jealous…

And I really wanted to show you the red hollyhocks…

I don’t know…there are even more. Maybe I should just skip it today, and finish up my post on the overview of the garden for tomorrow!

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I hope y’all are ready to join me on the roller coaster that will be my life as I try to learn Photoshop Elements 10.

I understand it is not at all an intuitive program, and I’m still scarred from when my husband tried to teach me DOS back in the day (talk about not being intuitive!) I had snot dripping down my face like a five year old dreading piano lessons, crying “I will never be able to use a computer until it knows what I’m TRYING to do instead of just laughing at me and saying over and over you screwed up, try again, you screwed up try again!” Thank God for Windows or I’d still not know how to use a computer!

Anyway, I am really interested in improving my photos, and maximizing my art, so I know I need to do it, but I’m scared. My girlies in my art group have convinced me I can do it, and several are aces who are willing to help. So, I went ahead and bought it, AND a dummies tutorial. After looking the tutorial I found myself asking, “what’s one step below dummies?”

So, it should be interesting. I’ll keep you posted!

Aging, Pain, Crabbiness and May Flowers Day 26

I’m going to tackle aging, pain and crabbiness first. It’s become a real topic of discussion in our household lately. Mr. Tattered is now on Medicare, and I turn 60 in a few weeks, so it’s bound to come up. As we look back on family pictures from days of old, and the current ones, it’s hard to miss that we ain’t spring chickens anymore!

Aging really didn’t bother me much before now. I flew through 30 and 40 like they were nothing, and even 50 didn’t phase me all that much. But with 60 looming? Hmmm. Not loving it.

And now, with my back injury taking so long to heal, I’m facing the possible prospect of chronic back pain, and it really has me taking another look at the aging process, and how the pain of aging alters our outlook on life.

I’m a basically cheerful person, with a happy disposition most all the time and a positive outlook on life. Even at 59 I’ve had a bounce in my step. I have known crabby old people, and I have known happy old people, and I always thought it was a choice. And, of course, I always knew I would choose happy.

Now I am not so sure it’s a choice.

I normally have a high pain tolerance. Things that would have many people crying, like slamming a finger in a car door, cause only a flinch. Even injuring my back didn’t cause me to cry. But the day after day pain is wearing on me, and I am beginning to see how debilitating chronic pain can be. It casts a a pall over your whole day, perhaps even your whole life. The bounce in my step is gone, at least for now, although I get a glimpse of it now and then.

I haven’t given up. I am working on strengthening on my back muscles, and I refuse to concede defeat. I still have hope that this situation isn’t permanent. But it is making me look at crabby old people in a different light. Maybe they DON’T have the choice, after all. Maybe the pain of aging is just more than they can take with a smile on their face.

Is that the lesson this injury is supposed to be teaching me? I have been a bit less than sympathetic to Mr. Tattered’s aches and pains over the years. And I certainly have found crabby old people to be a pain in my backside. I have often thought to myself that they need to “man up” and get over it. I am wondering now if I have been too harsh in my judgement, now that I have spent some time walking in their moccasins.

I have to admit, I’m anxious to get out of them, and back into my high heels.

Lord, almighty…light bulb moment. I just realized why my mother-in-law held onto her high heels for so many years after she was unable to wear them anymore…man do I feel like a jerk for scoffing at that (even though I did it out of her hearing.)

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For my flower of the day, I’d like to present my delphinium. I just love the blue-edged blossoms. I have trouble getting the delphinium to return year after year, even though they are supposed to be perennials, so these are new. I’ve planted them a little more out in the open this year, in hopes that they will have an easier time coming back next spring. I hope the color is as shocking on your monitor as it is mine!

If you’ve been going over to Lori’s main May Flowers blog, you’re probably getting tired of the reminder, but just in case, she’s a wonderful photographer, as well as a very special lady…

Facebook IPO and May Flowers Day 24

The month is winding down. It’s hard to believe time is flying by so fast. I’m running out of month with so many more flowers I want to show you!

Today I’m showing you my purple salvia. There are many varieties of salvia, but this is one of my favorites. It has a larger bloom than many others, and the deep purple is very dramatic, especially when paired with hot pink and white and yellow as it is in my garden.

I’m guessing most of the world knows that Facebook went public a few days ago and had a very disappointing debut. The talk on the business shows is all about the concern that Facebook will struggle with being able to make money because they have not come up with an effective way of monetizing the site on mobile devices. There was a big discussion about people being unwilling to pay for services.

Before they got very far into the discussion, I mentioned to Mr. Tattered that the people discussing it were obviously not big users (if at all.) Finally one of the panelists said that it is too a much a part of people’s lives for them to ever let it go over a few bucks, and I thought, jeez…no kidding.

I came to Facebook late, and in the beginning I rarely used it all.

But that all changed with a business art class that set up a Facebook community for class discussions, and I found my tribe.

Although some of the group have either met a few of the members, or live close enough to get together every once in awhile, we are spread all over the globe, and Facebook is our primary means of staying in touch. The core group of roughly 50-60 women visit every day off and on throughout the day and evening 7 days a week. We share our art, our lives, the trials and tribulations of child rearing, illnesses, job problems. We help each other with sources for materials, critique classes, give technical advice, and act as each others guinea pigs. We encourage, commiserate, pray for, laugh and cry with each other. We GET each other. We are friends. No, we’re family.

And without Facebook, we would not have met, and we certainly would not have a means for ongoing relationships. We are not about to let that go away. And if that means paying for it, there is no doubt in my mind, we will. And multiply that times many, many other groups across the world, and you’re talking some serious coin.

If Facebook were to start charging $10-$20 a month for access, would you pay? My answer is not just yes. It’s HELL, YES!

House Finches and May Flowers Day 20

Several years ago I added a little treat to my garden…a ball of special cotton for the birds to use for nesting.

At least two seasons went by with none of the birds having any interest in it – then all of a sudden this year we’ve found it laying in places it shouldn’t have been, and pulled out of shape. Finally last week we actually got a glimpse several glimpses of bird pulling tufts of cotton out and flying away with it. Yesterday we discovered where at least some of it has gone.

On the side of the house there is a little vent box, and a pair of our house finches have set up housekeeping in it.  (Mr. Tattered saw debris coming out of the box and went up to explore and took this picture with his iphone!) She’s laid 5 eggs!

Here’s mom and dad sitting on the fence waiting to feel comfortable enough to visit the feeder with me outside.

When I came around the corner to see the nest, mama took off and flew up onto the neighbor’s roof, the slowly worked her way closer and closer until finally climbing back into the nest.

We looked them up in our bird book and the eggs take 10-14 days to hatch, so we may have babies before we leave on out little trip.

On the May Flower Challenge front, this is day 20. Today I’d like to show you my Fransii. It is a fast growing drought tolerant shrub with a showy pink flower that is VERY common in our area. By mid-summer the shrub will be covered in flowers!

11 more days of the May Flower Challenge! Check out the other participants if you get a chance!