Wednesday, December 31, 2014

New Years Eve

Happy New Year from MaDonna

Since it is New Years Eve I thought I would stop in and wish you all a wonderful 2015. We will have a nice quiet New Years Eve like we have had in the past few years. I think the last New Year we saw in was 2000 and we wanted to see if everything would go dark like some people were predicting. And it didn't! The lights are still on, etc. 

Fibromyalgia has been putting a crimp in my life the last week. I thought I was managing it pretty well but I decided to go off one of the night time medications and it threw my whole system into a breakdown. Plus the cold, cold weather does't help any. And I am sure going on 76 years old doesn't make it any better. It is a horrible disease that won't kill you, but you sometimes wish it would! 

Well, Happy New Year everyone and let us hope for peace and tranquility in the future, for all of us. 

Friday, December 26, 2014

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Snowy Owl

Just wanted to drop in and wish you all a Happy New Year.
 Hope your Christmas holiday went well.

We find we are more thankful each Christmas that we have family we can spend time with. My brother and his wife are up for the holiday and we had a wonderful visit with them. We have so much to talk about we didn't stop talking from hello hug to goodbye hug. I just wish we could visit with them more often. But it sounds like they will be up for the whole summer this year so we have that to look forward to. I feel very lucky that my family is close and get along so well. I didn't get to see my sister this year but she was in my heart as she always is.

Christmas eve day we spent time with some of the grandkids and great grandkids and the evening we spent by ourselves. We find we enjoy the quiet Christmas eve's by ourselves. We had years and years of loud, happy, fun Christmas eve's with kids, grandkids and tons of gifts and we are thankful for that. Christmas day we had our sons here for pizza. No stress dinner. Thankyou, Papa Murphy! Our daughter and grandaughter had a holiday at Disneyland together and didn't get back until early Christmas morning so she spent the day with her kids, so we missed her.

I wanted to update my blog today since I had time so will get back soon. Have a wonderful New Year holiday and don't drink and drive!

Will be back soon!

 

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Bright Firefox 2015

I only have a couple minutes but I wanted to wish you all a wonderful  Christmas Eve and a Merry Christmas day. I hope you can all be with some family to share love and good food.

I have some pumpkin breads in the oven and they make the house smell wonderful.

Firefox has gotten the User Counter fixed so that is a big plus for all. I have quite a few New Year ones on line and working on some more.


Friday, December 12, 2014

Weather & Flu Bug!

Solitude at Dawn

I love the design I am highlighting today. I tried to make the morning sky and mountain off to the left side of the screen and think it worked out well. The eagle adds a touch also.

It has a been a tough two weeks at our house. Right after Thanksgiving my husband caught some kind of flu bug and didn't take care of himself (like I nagged at him about!). Of course several things happened that he did have to take care of. The gas heater in our "big" room went out and wouldn't stay lit so he had to make 2 trips to town to get parts to fix it and that was during our cold spell. Then we got warm rainy, windy weather, 3 different storms actually and the cap off the chimney blew off so he had to find it, fix it and get up on the roof and get it back on. A neighbor's tree blew down on our daughter's deck but our youngest son got that taken care of. The deck, rails, etc. still have to be fixed but that is no hurry. 

Then I caught my dear husband's whatever it is. We haven't had anything hit us like this for a long time. Both have been pretty much out of it for 2 weeks. Beginning to see the end of it, hopefully. I have been able to keep the house and laundry up, work a bit on designing just to keep my mind busy...but that is about it. We managed to get to the Dr. one day to get some cough medicine and he put my huband on antibiotics because his lungs were pretty bad. Our daughter kept us in home made soups, although neither one of us had much of an appetite. We both got flu shots this year like we always do, but they say 2 different strains weren't in this year's shots. Thanks, CDC!

I haven't done much for Christmas this year and doubt if I do. Got my cards and letters out, but don't think I will do much decorating. 

I don't think Brand Thunder has put any more of my Christmas designs on so won't be submitting anymore for awhile.

Mozilla still doesn't have the user counts fixed and it has been way over a month. I don't know if they are short staffed or just don't think it is important enough. They "say" it is supposed to be fixed by next week! But I have heard that before. The Up and Coming have been the same for over a month also and I am sure everyone is tired of looking at them. I know I am. Enough griping!

I hope you all had a good week and don't get any bugs! Happy Christmas shopping, baking and decorating.

Will try to be back next week.


Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Back on Brand Thunder!


Winter Sweet Bullfinch

This will be short and sweet today as I don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to let you know I am making designs for Brand Thunder again. Both GMail, IE and Firefox themes so those of you out there that don't use my favorite Firefox you can still use my designs. I will post links to them as they get on line. I have to learn how to embed the script right in my blog so you would be able to download it from here, but "have to learn how"! So far I haven't figured it out.


The first one is up now and you can download it at: https://gallery.brandthunder.com/en-US/theme/glowingchristmaseve#.VH4fgntUiUm


Mozilla STILL doesn't have the user counts, up and coming fixed yet. It has been a whole month now. Hopefully they will get the bug fixed soon. Many of the other designers are complaining about it on the forum I notice. 

I have been working on winter and Christmas. I love making the winter ones with the lighted cottages, etc. 

Warm and Cozy Holiday


Christmas Cats and Dogs

I will get back ASAP. My husband had a check up with his cardiologist this morning so is a short work day. It has been almost a full year since he had his heart attack. He is doing so well and I am so thankful. After being together for 58 years I don't think I could live without him. I honestly don't.

Will check back in soon! Have a good week!

Sunday, November 30, 2014

December December

Warm and Cozy Holiday
 
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Day. Our kids and some grandkids were here for dinner and some of the grandkids and great grandkids stopped in to visit. So it was wonderful. I have a lot to be thankful for and I am. This was the 56th Thanksgiving day dinner I have fixed. The first one we couldn't afford turkey so we had deer meat from the Ocotber deer hunt. But my parents, grandparents, aunt, uncle and nieces and nephews were all there. Our daughter was born the next week! 
 
I will finish updating this tomorrow. Getting tired!
 
 
 

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Keep Warm!!

Wonderful Winter Wonderland

I hope you are all keeping warm. I feel so lucky that we just got cold weather and no snow like the eastern part of the US.

Mozilla still hasn't fixed their user counts so hopefully they will get that fixed soon. I see on the forum a lot of the designers are complaining about it. They have had several updates on Firefox lately and one update really screwed up both of my computers. I lost Personas Plus, my weather and about 3 or 4 other add ons I had installed to help me work on designs. And of course I couldn't remember the exact name of them, so had to search. I even lost my GMail Notifier. 

I have been having so much fun working on winter and Christmas designs. I love the little cottages with lighted windows. 

I must have the greatest fans because I have been getting such nice emails and reviews. I feel so blessed that I can still work on designs and have people really like them and use them. So thanks to all of you that have become followers and use my work. I love getting the reviews & I try to answer each and every one.  I know how busy everyone is and it does take you time to write a review so an extra thanks to you.

I have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. It has been almost a year since my husband had his heart attack and he is doing very well.

At this time of year I always miss my brother and sister. I wish they could be here and spend Thanksgiving day with us but they will be with their family's. Family changes so much over time. Siblings have children and then they have spouses and children and then the children have spouses and children and it just gets harder and harder to all spend time together. And I miss our old Thanksgiving's when the house was full of food, love, people and laughter. But as you get older you don't have the energy or strength to do it all, plus everyone has somewhere else they have to be. But I still miss it.  I feel blessed that all of our children will be here this year.

I worked on updating my blog after Thanksgiving, getting ready for Christmas. I will do that next week so hope you will like it.

It is time for my afternoon coffee break. So keep warm and have a wonderful happy Thanksgiving. See ya next week.

 

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Baby, it's cold outside!

Autumn On the Farm

Well, it is definitely "almost" winter. It came in with a blast, didn't it? We have a northeast wind blowing but no snow, so far! If you live to the east of us you probably have some snow and cold.  My poor husband has been trying to keep up with the leaves and the wind. He gets them cleaned up one day and the wind keeps blowing so he does it again the next day. I am ready for the wind to quit blowing and I know he is.

 I decided to write on the blog and quit designing for a bit. Firefox is having some problems again! The user counter and Up and Coming have been "broken" for almost a week now. I don't check in on that enough so didn't realize it until yesterday when I was checking on something and it looked like no one was using any of my recent designs so checked in on the forum and find out it is down and they don't have anyone working on it yet. 

The election is over and I am very unhappy with the results. I am afraid we are in for some hard times. Older people that are on a fixed income are going backward instead of forward. And I don't see any improvement on the way. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer! How many times have we heard that phrase? Well, it is sooooo true.

I see I have some new followers and I would like to thank you for joining. Check in every once in awhile. I don't update every day like a lot of bloggers do. I am lucky if I get on once a week but I have been better this year than previous years.

A Light in Autumn Forest

Night Flight

I used to crochet a lot and thought I would make myself a hat. Well, I found some free patterns on line and since I hadn't read a pattern for awhile, I didn't even remember what some of the terms were. So I started watching a few You Tube's to see how to do them! I can't believe how hard it was. I kept pausing it an then trying it and another pause and try again. Well, right now my yarn and hook are sitting on the floor where I threw them. I will try again but I doubt if I have a hat before next winter IF I can figure the pattern out.

I am not submitting designs to Brand Thunder anymore since they closed it for submissions. But I check on their blog and see many of my designs are being featured every week. So that made me happy. Thank you, Brand Thunder!

I got out some of my old family recipes, getting ready for Thanksgiving. My sweet potato recipe was my Grandma's and she didn't have recipes! She just told us how she made it and she didn't really measure anything. She was a fabulous cook. I used to stay with my grandparents a lot and felt so cherished! I guess that is the best word for how Grandma made me feel. She made the best baking powder bisquits you ever tasted. (That was what she called them) She would put handfuls of flour and a pinch of this, pinch of that, etc. and then roll them out and cut them. They were so good and they had their own honey and that was what we put on them. I have never had a better biscuit in all my life. And they always turned out perfect. I miss her. 

Well, that was dumb because it just made me hungry so will sign off for now. Have a great week end, everyone. 

 
 


Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Turkey Month

Deer in Winter Woods

November is here and it doesn't seem possible. 

I updated my blog over the week end. Took Halloween off and got November on. Hope you like it. Not realy pleased with the winter part but couldn't find another fall one I really liked so we got a little bit of snow on the blog for November. I am enjoying keeping my blog updated. I used to only get on about once a month and it was never up to date.

I am working on winter designs already because you have to be one step ahead of the season it seems like. I have seen Christmas advertisements on TV and that is just wrong! But I guess with money the way it is for most people, you have to start early. When we bought gifts for all the kids and grandkids, parents, etc. I started the week end after Christmas for the next year. Then we got smart and only bought for the grandkids. Now we are just down to great grandkids for gifts and since they get so much from so many, we just give them money to put in the bank.

Today is election day and I hope you voted. In WA we have mail in voting and I don't understand why all states don't do it that way. It is so important for people to vote and the Republicans are trying to make it hard for us to vote in some states. I think voting may be one of the things my great grandfathers and great great grandfathers fought for.

I have made quite a few designs with wild animals in them lately and have really enjoyed making them. The one above is one I was happy with how it turned out. Several are below. 

 Early Winter Moose

Fall Black Bear

 Autumn Morning Serenity

I spent hours last week watching You Tube trying to learn a crochet stitch to make a scarf and how to work with Masks in Photoshop Elements. I got the Masks figured out but the crochet stitch I am not so sure about. But I looked for yarn on Sat. and decided it would be cheaper to try to find a scarf already finished. I enjoy crocheting, though so we shall see.

I wrote about trying to make liquid hand soap and it worked pretty well. I used almond for the fragrance and it smells wonderful and feels more like a lotion when you go to use it. I put it in foam pumps so it comes out like a foam. The only problem I had with it is that is separates, but it doesn't see to make any difference, it still works fine. 

Well, I have wasted enough time so will get back to work. Hope you are enjoying the fall weather and are ready for winter. I will never be ready for winter but I don't think that will make any difference in the long run! It will still arrive!

Have a super week and I will come back on soon.



Monday, October 27, 2014

Happy Halloween

Sunshine Autumn Morning

 Good morning to everyone. Hard to believe this is the last week of October. It is definitely beginning to feel like fall, especially in the mornings. 

I have been busy on fall designs and starting on Christmas. But I have so many made I shouldn't even do 1 more. But I enjoy it so much.

I wrote about a threatening letter I recieved from another designer a few blogs ago. Well, I recently got 2 more from her. I won't post her name but if you want to find out who she is you could just search for one of her designs and she should pop up! One is called A Little Sweetness in Spoon. I probably shouldn't post her last letter to me on line, but it bothered me so much I am going to. 

" You bitch - What a wonderful notice - I'm glad I didn't see this before I posted - Or I would have fought you tooth and nail - None of your stuff in copy-righted just because you wrote some doesn't mean a damn thing. Check it out with whoever makes up your fucken paperwork!
Yeah you're a little old lady - you try to cause old kinds of trouble and you sit back and have your little minions do your dirty work for you... Stay away from me bitch cause I'm the one who wll come after you - This is now the second warning - Take this one to Amy too - you see who she stood up for before! I'm not the one causing all the trouble - You are and they see that!
Don't threaten me Madonna I don't take to it very well - I'm on disability for hurting on person who tried this shit - lets not make it 2..."

I don't even know if this can be posted on a blog because of her language but if Google removes it, so be it.  I won't even mention her spelling! This was just one of her last emails to me. You can tell she has some "problems". I refuse to get into a confrontation with her so don't answer he emails. I don't even know half of what she is talking about!  But this just goes to show making persona themes is not all fun and games. She uses my wallpapers to make designs and when I ask her to remove them she  sends these kind of emails.

I am beginning to think about Thanksgiving and looking forward to it. All 3 of our kids will be here and some of the grandkids.  

The last school shooting at Marysville Pilchuck High School was a little too close to home. My nieces children attend that school and one of them was very close to the shooting. I can't imagine what the parents were going through when they heard the news. When our kids were in school we didn't have to worry about such things because nothing like that happened. When I was in high school, the boys had rifles in racks in the back window of their pick ups. And no one thought anything about it. You can't help but worry about your kids, grandkids and great grandkids now. School should be a safe place. 

I haven't been designing any new themes for Brand Thunder. They closed their submissions. They still have themes of the week but I have so many on their site they are just going back and using some of them. I see this week it is Famous Music Artists. 

We have been having fresh strawberries up until lst week. The plants my husband planted have strawberris all summer. But it is getting chilly at night and we have had so much rain, that will be it for the summer.

I had an eye appt. last week and I will have to have my cataracts removed next year. Something to look forward to!

Have you been inundated with political phone calls? I will be glad when the election is over because of phone calls and junk mail. 

Time to start lunch. Have a good week and a great Halloween.




Friday, October 17, 2014

New Venture


Stunning Pathway to Fall


Cold, dreary fall Friday. I am already tired of it. Ready for 85° again.

I told you about making my own laundry detergent several months ago. I have used one whole batch now and am loving it. I can't believe how much money it saves. It gets the clothes clean and that is what is important. I have learned to make my own fragrance crystals to match the detergent and that works every bit as well as the one on the store shelves. Now I am going to "try" making my own liquid hand soap. I have some ingredients on the way from Amazon and picking up the rest at our local community co-op. I will let you know how it works out. I have decided to try the foaming dispensers because it makes the soap go father and isn't as messy. I have researched a lot of recipes on line and have put my own together so we shall see.

 Harvest Pumpkin House

The theme above has been doing very well. It was a lot of work. Had to add all the little critters, etc. but think it was worth it. 

It is funny about submitting a design. I "never" know what will be popular and what will flop. Several I have put on I think are not very good and for some reason they will catch on and be quite popular. I guess it is good everyone doesn't like the same thing.

Well, I am going to get back to work. Friday is a busy cleaning day for me, so back to work.



Wednesday, October 8, 2014

October Thoughts

Autumn Winter Wolves
This year has gone way too fast for this old lady. Summer was great and now we are into fall. I think we had one of the nicest summers we have had in a long time. I know we broke both heat records and rainfall in one day records! But for some reason this summer the weather was usually nice on the week ends and that usually doesn't happen in WA state. When we were riding our bikes it seemed like we were always waiting for good weather. Now that we don't ride anymore...the weather was great. Sad to get old and not do the things you want to do. The only time I felt free and really good was when I was riding. I really miss it. I found the graphic of an old lady on a motorycycle and had to use it for my avatar on both Desktop Nexus and Firefox Themes. She makes me feel happy every time I see it!
She even has a white puppy dog behind her and the last dog we had was a white fluffy one. We lost him in 1991 and I haven't been able to open my heart up to get another one. I know my husband would love a dog, but I get too attached to them and it just hurts too much to lose them. I am not very good at losing things or people, so the easiest way to prevent loss for me, is to just not replace. 

I am really dreading winter. I have Raynaud's Phenomenon so when I get chilly my fingers turn white and lose their feeling. It used to happen when I was riding and sometimes was hard to even pull the clutch in on my bike. The Dr. told me you have to keep your core warm so I wear hooded sweatsirts and vests in the winter. When I start working with food they will turn white. We have always had wood heat but can't get out to get wood anymore so we haved to use the furnace and you just don't get the same kind of heat out of that as you do wood.

I have been working on fall and Halloween themes and really have enough made but I still keep working. I really like the autumn winter wolves I highlighted in todays blog. It is a mixture of the wolves that I love to work with and the fall leaves blowing in the snow. 

My husband and I read quite a bit and it can get expensive if you aren't careful. I wrote about FreeBook Sifter a couple blogs ago but I found another place called BookBub that emails you every day with free or low cost books from
 Amazon's Kindle store, Barnes & Noble's Nook store, Apple's iBookstore. You can even specify what genre and format you want and that is what they send you information on. My problem is I find too many I want so have lots of books in the "cloud". I signed up for the Amazon Unlimited for a free 30 days but the problem with that is, you choose the 10 books from a list and if you don't get them all read during the "free" period they take them back, so you end up and have to pay for at least one month, which I did, so we can finish reading the series we were reading. BUT when this month is up, I am closing that account. 

I am going to get back to work. Have a great week and hope everyone is doing well. 



Monday, September 22, 2014

Threatening Letter

Early Sunday Morning

Well, I had a first this morning. I opened my emails and found a threatening letter from a theme designer. I have had a bit of trouble with her before because she uses some of my wallpapers for her designs. I think I mentioned her before...but anyway...I had posted a review on one of her themes that was quite distorted, (just to let her know so she could/should edit it). Well, she didn't like that so this is the exact email she sent me. 

"What the hell is the matter with you!!! Don't I have enough people attacking me without you starting up too. You have some theme I don't like at all but I would NEVER put one - or two stars on yours even if I though you deserve it. I give a 4 and then explain why that's the way a theme should be rated! How much time and effort do we put in making a theme - you don't think just that is worth more than two stars!/? I can understand the 4 ass-holes rated my work with 1 star THEY HAVE NEVER MADE A THEME - I though you were better than that... Don't attack me again "Friend" I'm not someone you want to make an enemy  of - I have a lot of friends on here and if you want to have a bunch of one stars on your themes - you keep attacking me!!

Apparently she didn't take time to proof read her email before she sent it or doesn't use spell check! I think this person has a mental problem because she feels she has to threaten someone that makes a comment. I have recieved reviews that were not very complimentary and I either delete or edit the theme. I certainly don't threaten anyone or call them names.Rather petty!

OK. Enough venting. We had a super week end. The weather was perfect for the last days of summer. Our daughter came over Saturday afternoon and her Dad put new brakes on her car. The shop wanted $600 to do them and she can't affored that.  Our oldest son stopped by for a short visit Sat. afternoon, also. We got to have our 1 year old great grandson for the entire day yesterday and we had so much fun with him. His Dad got tickets to the Seahawks game for his birthday so the little ones were doled out to relatives. And the Seahawks won....but was pretty scary there for awhile.

Well, I will get back to work. Just had to vent a bit and that is what friends are for, right?

Autumn Butterfly Song


Tuesday, September 2, 2014

September and feels like fall!

Winds of Autumn

September has arrived in it's cold, clammy fashion in the Pacific Northwest! Rain showers and much cooler. I DON'T like it at all. The weather man says it will be in the 80's this week end, so am keeping my fingers crossed.

We had a nice Labor Day week end. Of course we both labored some but it was still nice. Got to visit with our daughter and grandkids on Sat. night. Had delicious tacos and lots of laughs. Have to admit we got a bit loud but it wasn't long before half of her neighbors were as loud as we were. Don't get to see these grandkids as often, so was very special. I feel so fortunate to have such a "nice" family. Everyone seems to get along and enjoys being with one another. I think if more people would make an effort, more families would be happier. 

But who am I to judge?

Mozilla finally got their user count fixed so designers can actually see if their work is getting used. For a whole month we didn't know if anyone was using any of our work. So thanks, Mozilla. I kind of think most of them take their vacations in August because I remember other problems in past August's.

My very favorite television program is Sons of Anarchy. Yes, I know there is a lot of violence in it but I love the show. Have from the very beginning. We started watching Season One (for the 7th time) on Netflix the first part of August and are on the last episode of Season 5 now. Then we can watch Season 6 which I got on DVD last Tues. I can't wait to watch it but season 7 is beginning on TV and it is the last season for SOA. We don't watch it on the TV but wait till it is out on DVD.  So am hoping since this will be the last season they won't wait till next fall to put the DVD out. I will have to be very careful about not hearing or reading anything about the last season cause I don't want to know anything! But then at my age, by the time the DVD is out, I will probably have forgotten what I heard or read.

It is time for me to begin dinner and since I don't know anything I will sign off for this time.

Have a good week and drop  in again.

 

Friday, August 22, 2014

Time Going Too Fast

Deer in Fall Aspen Forest
This week went by so quickly I can't believe it. September is just around the corner. I am not ready for cold weather. I love this warm sunny weather and if our kids, grandkids, and great grandkids didn't live here we would be somewhere where it is warm all the time. I know my husband dreads it, too.  But at least we can enjoy the warmth while it lasts, I guess. 
I love the theme I am featuring today. It looks like it does around here in the fall. It is from a painting by Rosemary Millett and I used it as the base for my design.
Mozilla still hasn't gotten the user count fixed, Up and Coming nor Most Popular. It has been "broken" for almost a month now.
In eastern WA where they have been having all the terrible forest fires are now having flash floods and slides. So if it isn't one thing it is the other.
Got to spend some time with some of the great grandkids this week. I don't see how I used to do it with 3 little ones! I guess it was because I was more than 50 years younger than I am now! But it is great to be around little ones and see how they grow and change every week.
 This time of year when our kids were small I was busy canning peaches, apricots, plums, dill pickles with hot peppers, and making jams for the winter. I  baked 4 loaves of home made sourdough bread from scratch every few days. (I got the "starter" for it from an old woman that lived farther up in the mountains than we did). Plus we would be getting our wood in for the winter since the only heat we had was a wood stove. Diapers were not throw aways back then. They were flannel diapers that I had made and had to wash in a wringer washer I had to pull in from the porch and hook up to the sink! For about a year we had 2 in diapers at the same time and that was a lot of diapers to wash and hang up every other day. But I would go back to that time if I could. The world was a better place, people were friendlier and less judgemental. Gas was 29¢ a gallon and we thought that was high! 
Thanks for stopping in. 

Monday, August 18, 2014

Another Great Week End

Cones of Tomorrow

We had another great week end. Weather was pretty good so we got to be outside a lot.
Remember when I said I didn't want to go to my husband's 60th class reunion? Well, we went and we both had such a good time. I got to visit with several old friends. One I was best friends with in grade school so had lots to talk about, especially old friends. Some not around anymore. 
Yesterday the weather was beautiful so we sat outside and talked most of the day about old friends. Our daughter showed up with her super macaroni salad so we got out hot dogs and had a wiener roast. Good old summer time!
I am not submitting very many themes right now because the system is still broken. Plus I want to enjoy the sunshine. Which I am going to do right now.

♥ More later ♥


Monday, August 11, 2014

Great Week End

High Mountain Autumn

Hope everyone had a great week end. We certainly did. I actually hated to see Monday come, which is unusual for me. The weather was fantastic and I really hate to see it leave, but the forest fire danger is really bad, especially with lightning forecast.

We spent most of the week end outside. We always have a breeze at our house and with lots of trees we can find a cool spot somewhere. Got to spend time with some great grandkids, grandkids and kids so was especially nice.

 My Mom's birthday was yesterday and I seem to miss her more and more. There are so many things I wish I could ask her, but it is too late.

I helped my daughter get her computers updated so she could sync Firefox. She used to help me with the computer and now I am helping her! She was one of the recently unemployed for several months and luckily she got a really good job and is hoping she doesn't have to get a second job to meet her house payment, etc. It is unfortunate that women don't make as much as men do, but that seems to be the way it is now.

 I think a lot of Mozilla's employees are on vacation because the user count has been broken for almost 2 weeks now. I hope they get it fixed soon. You can't tell if a design is being used or not because the count does not show up.

What a mess this world is in right now! Religion seems to be the cause of all the fighting, disagreements, etc. I think it is fine to have a belief in somthing but I do not think it is right to try to make everyone else think what you believe is the "right" way to believe. And then to kill others because they don't believe like you do is just wrong!



 

Monday, August 4, 2014

August

Autumn Golden Glories

Our beautiful summer weather is still with us and looks like the entire week may be nice or at least warm. I love it. With the warm weather my body doesn't  hurt like it does when it is cold. 

Summer seems to be the time for class reunions, doesn't it? My husbands 60th reunion is this month and I am ashamed to say I don't want to go! The last one I went to with him all the women talked about was their latest operation! I guess when you get old that is the most exciting thing in your life! But I guess I will listen to them because he wants me to go with him, so I will. When my class had their 50th class reunion he had a hunting trip planned so he couldn't go and I didn't want to drive that far so I told him I was going to go with a younger man! I asked our oldest grandson if he would like to go with me and he was thrilled. We had so much fun. He is a very "people" person and I actually think he enjoyed it. 

I decided I wanted to get some sunflowers on my blog so hope you like them. 

Till next time!

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Cool Down

Fractal Color Shine

This is a bit different from what I usually showcase, but I kinda like it. I put the cyan font color to bring that color onto your screen.
 
We have definitely had a cool down here. The east side is burning up and I feel so sad for the many people that have lost their homes to the forest fires. The town of Pateros has really been damaged. We used to ride our motorcycles over there and stay every summer. We would sit along the banks of the Columbia River and cool down because it was always so warm over there. One time it was over 100° in Pateros and we decided to go for an evening ride and my husbands bike wouldn't start. So I was pushing him and his bike down the street so he could bump start it. Here I was with my jacket and helmet on, pushing this heavy bike and him! But he got it started and off we went. Anyway, back to the fires. Lots of people aren't going to have power or water for a month! But perhaps they are the lucky ones because they didn't lose their homes. 
 
Most of the businesses in towns like Winthrop, (which is my very favorite place to go) depend on the summer visitors for their livelihood. So they will be hurting financially.
 
They cut the hay in the big field across from us so we have seen  the eagles and hawks soaring above us. The field mice have no place to hide so the eagles, hawks and ravens have lots of free food.
 
They are harvesting raspberries and blueberries in our area right now. And the weather has been helpful this year to our berry farmers. I am so glad this county still has so much agriculture land. It is a battle to keep it because the developers would love to build houses on nice level farm land. This is one of the things I feel so strongly about is protecting the farm lands in the U.S. And it upsets me when I hear they allow foreigners to purchase up these huge farms, like they just did in Idaho. A Chinese company just bougtht thousands of acres of good farmland to grow alfalfa to send back to China. This is just so wrong. Just like a Japanese developer purchased over 500 acres from a cattle rancher right next to us. Of course they want to develop it into houses, but so far we have fought them off. I only hope and pray we can continue to fight them off. 
 
Gonna get back to work. 

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Burning UP!

Summer Explosion

The weather here has been extremely hot. It sounds like it is going to change, but we are just not used to it. I don't have to work outside in the heat so it doesn't bother me but I feel for our sons and all who have to work out in it. I really feel sorry for the firefighters that are working so hard in 100° weather. My husband used to be gone weeks on end fighting forest fires during his 33 years in the Forest Service. Our kids  have told me they remember the smoky smell when he came home. Back then they didn't have portable showers for the fire fighters like they do on some fires now. His fire fighting boots would smell smoky till they were worn out. The money was good, but I was left home with 3 little ones and we all missed him. I had to get his dirty clothes washed and dried right away because he had to be ready to go on the next fire. One time I didn't even get them washed before he got that call! I can't remember if he took the dirty ones or not.

But the eastside of Washington is burning up. So many of the trees are dead because of pine beetle infestation. So they actually look brown and burnt and are tinder dry, just ready for that lightning strike or whatever. 

It sounds like the midwest is colder than usual, the polar express or whatever they call it. It didn't use to be this way. When I lived in Iowa the summers were very hot. Our air conditioning was to open the window at night to sleep, put a damp towel over you and hope for a cool breeze. But yet there are people that deny their is climate change!

It only took by grandson 2 days to get my computer cleaned out, the new solid state hard drive in and back to me! And it is definitely faster and I don't get "Not Responding" anymore. So that was definitely the problem. 

I am not doing near as much design work as I was, though. I have so many made already I just don't need to but I miss it! Mozilla has changed the way they choose their Featured designs and I think they must be picked by a machine or something because I have noticed when one of mine is featured it is one that is really not very good...and yes I do make many that are not very good! As do others, so they aren't choosing them by which ones are really extra good, so that makes me wonder about how they are chosen.

Now to Brand Thunder...something is screwed up on their site, too. You can't submit designs anymore. They told me weeks ago they were working on it, but I check once a week and it is still not working.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Time on my hands!

Fieflies in the Forest

Wow, but I have extra time on my hand this week. My desktop computer that I use for designing was getting tired and my grandson said it needed a new hard drive, which he hadn't replaced the last time he upgraded it for me to Windows 7 (which I totally love). So we got a solid state hard drive from Amazon, my very favorite shopping place. He picked up my computer Sunday and is working on it. I only hope I got everything backed up so I don't lose anything. And I totally dread having to install all my progarams again but it has to be done. So anyway, I do have time on my hands so am actually getting some stuff done that needed to be done but didn't really want to do. You know how that is! If you don't want to do it, it is much easier to put off and then when you are doing it, you think,"Well, that wasn't so bad after all!"

The Persona theme I put at the top of the blog was one of my first ones ever and was actually one of my most used at one time. It reminds me of catching fireflies when I was a little girl in Iowa, except we called them lightning bugs. Fireflies sounds more exotic, I guesss.

I hope everyone had a great 4th. We did. Our oldest son had to work, but our daughter and youngest son came over and we sat on the patio, roasted hot dogs in the pit and had a really good time. The weather was great and it didn't cloud up until later afternoon. At the last minute I had decided to make baked beans. I don't have a recipe, just throw brown sugar, molasses, smoke, lots of onions and dry mustard. So tasting is the only way to tell if you got enough of something. I used a different brand of beans this time and I could not get them to taste right. They just seemed real blah! So, more stuff got thrown in and since I made a smaller batch I didn't know what size dish to bake them in. I actually had them in 3 different sizes before I found one that was just right. I threw them in the oven and figured I would just bake them a long time! Which I did. When we decided to eat I opened the oven and they were really, really thick. And I mean really thick! But none of us could believe how good they were. They were actually the best I had ever made and my son cleaned the spoon and I think he would have cleaned up the dish if he could have! I had to soak the dish & spoons for 48 hours but it was worth it. Our daughter makes the best macaroni salad in the world. She uses some special spice ingredient from Penzeys that I have never heard of, but it sure does make the salad really, really good. She makes a huge batch and left some here and sent her brother home with some, plus she had more at home. 

One of our grandsons (my go to computer grandson)  and some buddies hiked up to the top of a mountain and camped out so they could watch the fireworks all over the County. They got rained on a bit, but guess it was pretty specatacular.

Our one and only great grand daughter turned 2 yesterday and we went to her birthday party Sunday night. I think she was the belle of the ball, too. She was so excited over her birthday cake and showed it to everyone. It had layers of different rainbow colors. And sooo good! I don't make cakes anymore unless for something special. So enjoy it when someone else does, plus I don't have to clean up the cooking mess.

Enough for now, but will probably get back on soon since I can't design! Have a great day....week!

Hope you like my summer blog design. I updated it the morning of the 4th.

Glories of Green

Redwood Forest Mist is the design I am using right now. I was really happy with the way it turned out.

Redwood Forest Mist

💚Marching on to Spring💚

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