Thursday, December 31, 2015

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year to everyone that reads my silly little blog. I appreciate each and every one of you. Thanks for writing the wonderful reviews on my themes at Mozilla.

I am taking a little rest today from designing because I am upgrading my desktop computer to Windows 10! I really hadn't planned on doing that today but I thought I would at least download it and do it later like it says BUT after you get it downloaded it only gives you a few days to choose from to install it. I didn't want to do it over the week end, etc. so figured this morning was the best of the worst! I am just hoping all of my programs, etc. will work with it and it doesn't give me any problems. So I am typing with my fingers crossed!

We had a very nice, very quiet, warm, loving Christmas day.  All of our kids were here and my husband had picked up Papa Murphy's pizzas so I didn't have to cook. The kids all brought snacks so the table was full of snacks. We snacked until time for pizza. My oven is an older built in oven so not very big. The biggest pizza I can bake is a Large so we put one in, sat around the dining room table and ate that until the other one was done. We sat at the table for hours and just had the best time. I feel very thankful that our kids can come home and not have to drive very far. They all live within 10 or so miles from us. If that far!

It has been very chilly here but clear and beautiful. My husband went up to the mountains with one of our grandsons and 2 great grandsons yesterday. They roasted hot dogs and had a good time. 

I have been experimenting with new Crazy Cake recipes and made an orange one yesterday and I think it is one of the best. I didn't know how it would react when I added the orange juice instead of water and because the baking soda and vinegar had already started bubbling, when I added the orange juice (I guess because of the acidity) it really bubbled but I popped it in the oven and it was a success.

If you remember me writing that I was trying to make my own laundry pre-spray since I use so much on my husbands work pants. I make my own laundry detergent and save tons of money so thought I would give the pre-spray a try. And it does work very well and much, much cheaper than any you can buy. We didn't get any "raise" on our retirement this year so every penny counts. 

I just made a couple Star Wars The Force Awakens New Tab Themes for Brand Thunder to put on the Chrome Store. It is funny bcause I have never seen a Star Wars movie, nor do I want to. So when I made the theme for them I knew about Storm Troopers, BUT I didn't know they had changed them in the new movie so BT sent it back and asked me to use the "new" version! I honestly feel like a traitor to Mozilla by making themes for Chrome, since I don't use it and probably never will BUT I really like making them and Brand Thunder has been very good to me.

Well, my Windows 10 upgrade went really well. I was afraid a couple of my old programs might not work with it but they do. I worked on our family tree for quite a few years and had a Personal Ancestry File program that I used to document all the info and sinced that program was discontiuned I was afraid it might not work but it does. The one thing I don't like about Win 10 is it doesn't have the translucent appearance that Windows 7 has. Will have to do some research and see if there is a way of figuring that out. I also don't like the white bar at the very top of Firefox, either. So looks like I have some work to do.

We will have a quiet New Years Eve again this year. We used to go out and celebrate but now we are just glad to be home, warm and still alive!

Hope you all have a wonderful evening and New Year.


Friday, December 25, 2015

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

I just wanted to stop in and wish a Merry Christmas to everyone. Hopefully you are not on your computer today but having a day with family and loved ones. 

Our kids are coming today and we are having pizza! 

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL


Thursday, December 17, 2015

Hubby's 80th Birthday Today!

Winters Bright Birds

Today is my husband's 80th birthday and of course he is working on an old car for someone! He shouldn't be because he had a very bad night and didn't get much sleep. But this guy needs his car fixed. I worry about him so much.  

We had his birthday party Sunday and all of the kids, grandkids and great grandkids were here. It was so special and we took a lot of pictures. Everyone (21 of us and 2 little dogs) were sitting in the living room talking and laughing and my husband started talking about his life, growing up during the depression with 9 kids and no money, his years working for the US Forest Service, fighting fires, etc. Everyone was listening and learning. Our oldest great grandson came over and sat between us and at one point put his head on his Great Grandpa's shoulder. I feel so very blessed that we have this wonderful family surrounding us with love. And wow, are they loved back! It makes me sad that so many in this world don't have that. Especially at this time of year when family should be together, if not physically at least mentally. So write a note, make a call. Don't wait until the next day because the next day may not come. 
 
I don't have any Christmas decorations up yet. Just on the back door that everyone uses. Christmas doesn't excite me like it used to. As you get older it almost seems like too much work for just a few weeks and then all the work of taking everything down. We always used to have a big old tree we would go up in the mountains to get and I swore we would never have a "fake" tree. BUT it gets harder to do that and the ones you buy at a lot have been cut for ages and are so expensive for something you are going to throw away. So we did buy a big fake tree and then that got to be too much trouble so we bought a small fake tree that already has the lights on it. I decorated it and now we just put a big bag over it, put it up in the attic and then after my husband brings it down, all I have to do is put a few of the decorations back on that fell off! We may put it up Sat. since one of the great grandkids will be here for the day and might enjoy that.

Mozilla still doesn't  have the Theme User Count fixed and I doubt if it is fixed until after the new year. It really doesn't matter but you never know if something you made was worth while or not. I have enough Christmas designs made for next year but I still keep getting ideas and make more. 

Time to call my hubby in for coffee break and get him out of the cold. I am making his favorite dish for dinner, Orange Chicken, so need to start on that, too. 

If I don't get back before Christmas, I want to wish you all 
MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!


Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Christmas M & M's

Christmas M & M's from Google Store

I just noticed my M & M Christmas New Tab Theme design was on the Google store now so am posting it.

I took this morning off from designing and worked on our County Comprehensive Plan again. The County Planning Commission didn't accept the City's recommendation to leave our area out of the City Urban Growth Area. Which didn't surpise me when I saw the names of the Commissioners. They are known to be Pro-Growth. I can't understand why people think that growing big is something good. Pretty soon there won't be any farm land left. Cities have to start growing up, not out. I will fight being put into the city till my last day on earth and may come back and haunt them after that!

Mozilla still hasn't fixed the user count yet, either! Oh well, no one is perfect.

Have a good week and take some time to take a breath during this busy, busy time of year.

More later.....




Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Can't Believe it is the Last Month of 2015!

M & M Christmas

I decided since I had taken so many hours putting Santa hats on Minions I might as well take some more time and put hats on M and M's so that is what I did most of the day yesterday. Oh, I did go out and help my husband in the shop put a transmission in a car he is working on for a lady. He wants to retire from cars, but these women call him that can't afford to go to a shop to get their car fixed and he can't say No. He doesn't have heat in his shop anymore. He has a big old wood stove our son made for the shop years ago, but we don't have enough wood left to use it for the shop, so...it is cold out there. 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and got to be with family. Our was very small this year. So we had tons of left overs. My daughter in law made up a left over casserole from the bigger dinner a couple weeks ago, so she did it for me on Thanksgiving. She put a layer of stuffing, then layered mashed potatoes, crumbled up turkey and then poured left over gravy over the top. It is very, very good and and easy way of using the left overs.

Wonderland

Next thing on my agenda is my husband's 80th birthday! I can't believe he will be 80 this month but the calendar tells me it is so! I am having all the kids, grandkids and great grandkids. I am so hoping everyone can make it. The ones that work on Sunday have put in for that day off, but with the cold season here, it will be a mirace if all can make it. It will be the first time we have all been together for quite awhile. One of our grandson's is a photographer and he is bringing his camera and tripod so hope we can get some good pictures. Who knows if or when we can ALL be together again.
I was going to order a big cake from Costco but my husband doesn't really like them with all the frosting, etc. so I am going to make his favorite cake. It is a simple cake that got popular during the depression because it has no eggs, milk or butter in it. It is called Crazy Cake or Wacky Cake. I will have to make 2 and one I will frost and 1 I won't. I was talking about it on Thanksgiving and one of our grandsons mentioned that it would be something they could make for a roomate, who decided to go vegan. And since there isn't any animal products in it, it would. I just did some Googling and found  lemon, spice, vanilla, carrot and Coffee Kahlua cakes using the same general recipe. So I just tried the spice crazy cake and we will try it during our afternoon coffee break. 

Frozen Tribute New Tab Theme
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/frozen-tribute-new-tab/jcooehokdhliahpkpcdgaohdlpefbocn?hl=en-US

I just noticed that the Frozen and the Family Guy themes I made for Brand Thunder are available now at the Chrome Store.

Family Guy New Tab Theme
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/family-guy-tribute-new-ta/kdojpmdpjggbfeiclplfnelgnfgjdlda?hl=en-US

I better get back to work so I will be ready for coffee break.

Have a great week everyone. Will get back soon.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Happy Thanksgiving!

Minions Christmas Tree

Is everyone ready for Thanksgiving? I guess I am. We have had one beautiful Thanksgiving dinner already at our son's home and I will cook our smaller Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving. When a family grows it gets harder and harder to get everyone together for one day so we stretch ours and have several! This Thanksgiving dinner will be the smallest I have ever made in the 57 years of cooking Thanksgiving dinner so I am going to have to downsize all of my recipes.  So that will be a challenge!

Brand Thunder  just notified me that my Minions New Tab theme is on line now.  I had so much fun making them and they were a lot of work. 



This shows some of the scenes I made for the design.

My Donkey Kong New Tab Theme is available, too. 

I had a traumatic Saturday! I think I have mentioned that my husband has resurrected my Keurig coffee maker (that we bought for our anniversary about 5 or 6 years ago) many times. Most people would have thrown it away 2 years ago, but he kept bringing it back to life. And I had read reviews on the new ones and they aren't very good. BUT I decided I had to replace it since it wouldn't stop putting out water! I don't like spending that much money. But I got my new one and if it lasts as long as the old one I guess I can't complain. The new ones won't let you use any coffee pods but Keurig brand. If you put in a different brand it will say Oops! And no one likes an Oops! But our daughter told me about San Francisco Bay coffee and it is half the price and they made their pods with no plastic case. They figured out a way to make them work in a Keurig. It is really good coffee. Plus you can get a Freedom Clip from them in a sample package that you can clip into the coffee maker so other brands or older Keurig pods will work. I think Keurig made a mistake by making their coffee maker to only use their brand coffee, which is good but costly.

I am working on a couple more themes fro Brand Thunder besides the Christmas ones for Firefox so better get back to work. 

Mozilla hasn't fixed the User Count yet and it has been "broken" since November 9th so you don't know if anyone likes your theme or not. I guess it isn't top priority for them.

I want to wish you all a wonderful, cozy Thanksgiving and hope you can be with family. If not, make a phone call!






Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Veterans Day and New Tab Themes!

Wolves New Tab Theme


This shows some of the scenes from the Wolves New Tab Theme.

 This theme is the one I am most proud of. I love working with wolves and when Brand Thunder asked me to make this I was really pleased. The design that is on the first tab was made with Photoshop brushes and a fade. I hope everyone will like it that tries it our. You have to use Google Chrome to use this and since I am a true Firefox user I can't use it. Wish I could.


Black Ops III Tribute New Theme

Halo 5 Tribute New Tab Theme

I just submitted 13 Christmas Minions New Tab  Themes to Brand Thunder and will post the link as soon as they are on line. They were a lot of work but lots of fun.

I hope everyone is having a nice Veterans Day. I want to take this time to thank all the veterans out there that happen to read my silly little blog. I thank them for all they have done for us that have stayed home safe and sound. They are the reason we can stay home and be safe. Thank you. 


Have a good week end!
 

Thursday, November 5, 2015

November, Start of Busy Season!

Majestic
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/majestic-by-madonna/
 
I have been working on holiday themes.  Brand Thunder asked me to make a set of Minion Christmas New Tab Page themes for them so I have started those. Lots of work putting hats, holly, scarves, etc. on those little guys. But I love a challenge.

The only problem I am having is with my hands. Especially my right hand. I have Reynaud's so as soon as the weather starts cooling down I get cold. I dress for inside like most people do when they are outside, but my hands still get cold. Plus using the mouse so much for placement making themes makes them hurt more. I woke up the other night and my right hand hurt so bad I couldn't get back to sleep.

It looks like the local election turned out the way we wanted but we have to wait until the final tally for sure. One proposition and one council member didn't look good yesterday but that changed after yesterday's count so I am hoping it stays this way. 

I better get back to work. Too much to do.


Minions Decorating Christmas Tree

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Changed your clocks?

Hope you all remembered to turn your clocks back an hour. And hope you all had a nice quiet Haloween with not too many tricks and lots of treats.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Brand Thunder New Tab Themes


Game of Thrones New Tab Theme

I have been working on some new themes for Brand Thunder and I just found this link that actually shows the way it works.  

Assassins Creed Unity New Tab Theme

 Minecraft Tribute New Tab Theme

I will post more of these as I find them.  I submitted a theme for the new Assassins Creed Syndicate theme and as soon as it is live I will post the link here. 

Have a great Halloween if I don't get back before 

Monday, October 12, 2015

Columbus Day or First People Day?

Faces of Halloween

There is a little controversy going on right now about what we call Columbus Day.  Should we celebrate a day when an Italian sailor found a country with Native American people living happy, full lives and then those people were almost destroyed? I guess the small amount of Native American blood I have,  says No, we shouldn't. So last year when I made my 2015 calendar I didn't put Columbus on my calender, I put a proud Native American brave on a horse, holding a spear. But the funny part is when I flipped my calender over to October, I couldn't remember what holiday the brave on a horse was for! Until I looked at a regular calender and it brought it all back to me. Several cities in WA state have changed the name of the holiday to something different to celebrate the proud Native Americans. 

Brand Thunder has some of my Chrome New Tab Holiday themes on line and the link to find them is https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/myweb-new-tab-holiday-edi/gfhpcmbojloimhhakfjhlboepbdmheom?authuser=4

This is one of the themes for Chrome at that site. But I also have the wallpaper and you can find it at: http://abstract.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/2028404/

I have really enjoyed making a lot of the wallpapers and themes for Halloween so I hope you will like them.  I will post more Halloween themes next time. These are a few of my autumn designs.

Fresh Autumn Apples
 But my favorite is Deer Season by MaDonna

Have a great holiday today and call it whatever you want to call it!

Friday, October 2, 2015

October is Here!

Three Black Cats by MaDonna

It is hard to believe that October is here already. Yesterday, the first day of Oct. was beautiful. In fact in has been beautiful all week until today. Andtoday it is cold, wet and clammy. I want to go to our great grandson's football game tomorrow but if it is cold and rainy, I doubt if we do.

I have been busy making Halloween themes for both Firefox and Brand Thunder so have had lots of fun. I love working with the ghosts, spirits, haunted houses, etc. I guess that is when the "dark" comes out in me. I don't know! But they are fun. And now I have begun Christmas ones for Brand Thunder. Kind of having a hard time getting into the swing of Christmas, though!
My husband had another AFib attack Monday night so off we went to the ER. We would have waited a bit longer but he had pains in his chest, too so we didn't wait around for the meds to work. He didn't have a heart attack so that was wonderful and everything got back into rhythm on it's own. But they were all set up to shock him if needed.  I have an actual "go bag" packed all the time now and it is ready to go on a minutes notice. It has toothbrush, toothpaste, lotion, energy bars, water, tablet, and just about anything else I might need. When he was in the hospital after his heart attack I didn't leave his room because I was afraid I couldn't find my way back. I know that sounds dumb, but I have no sense of direction at all. You know how hard it is to find your way around a hospital! I didn't have a "go bag" back then but our son brought some home made deer sausage he had made for his Dad to try and if I hadn't had that in my possession I would have starved. They kept taking my husband for another test, etc. so I sat by his empty bed and would take a bite of sausage to keep going!  I didn't eat it all, so he got to sample it, too. And it was very good.

This morning when I was doing laundry I was spraying pre-spray on my husbands shirts and work pants and used the bottle up. I use a lot of laundry pre-spray so put it on the list for town. Then I got to thinking if I could make my own laundry soap, why couldn't I make my own pre-spray so got on line and found about 6 different recipes and made my own up using different amounts, etc. from the on-line recipes. So took it off of my shopping list. I posted the recipe on my Google+ page. So if you want to try it, you can find it there. I will see how good it works and let you know.

My husband will be 80 in December and I want to have a family birthday party for him. Nothing spectacular because we are simple people and not into that, but just kids, grandkids and great grandkids. BUT it is such a busy time of year for everyone I think it is going to be hard to find a day to do it. And then I start thinking about the stress of doing it and put it off and I can't do that anymore. I am going to have to just set a date and hope, I guess. And this week end is my deadline because I want everyone to make it and not make plans for that day.

It was fun making the header on my October blog, so I hope everyone likes it. I have been trying to make a new one for each month.

Will sign off for now. Have a wonderful week end and I will get back next week, hopefully!

 Bounty of Fall Leaves by MaDonna
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bounty-of-fall-leaves-madonna/


Monday, September 21, 2015

First Day of Fall

October Sunday Morning

Fall is here for sure. Maybe not officially until Wed. but it is in the air. 

Our oldest grandson's 35th birthday is today. I remember the day he was born so well. And it doesn't seem like it was 35 years ago. I had never thought I wanted to be a grandmother until the very day our oldest son and daughter in law told us they were pregnant. I was so excited and I think I started making flannel diapers the month after we knew. They didn't have those expensive throw-a-way diapers back then! These you had to make your own to get really good flannel diapers! I am so proud of the man he has become. His parents did a wonderful job of raising him. He is a good husband, father and provider. And what more can a grandmother ask for?

I have been working on Halloween wallpapers and themes since last week and have been having so much fun.  I can't say I am a big Halloween fan but I do love making the dark, Goth type wallpapers and themes. The wallpapers are more fun because you have so much more room to work on. If you have never made a theme you probably don't realize how hard it is to get any amount of graphics in such a small space. Some of my designs such as the one below: 

Bounty of Fall

take a long time to make because each pumpkin, leaf, grapes, etc. is put in  individually so there are many layers to get the final product. And when they are up on your screen they aren't very big! But they are fun.

Brand Thunder asked me to make a Minions New Tabs theme for Chrome and I sent them in a week or so ago but they aren't on line yet. I don't use Chrome so I don't know much about these themes but apparently each new tab you open has a different "picture" page. That is why I have to make 10 to 15 different "wallpapers" for each title.  So if anyone out there that reads my blog and use Chrome, let me know how you like them. It sounds very cool, but I am too old to change my browser. I love my Firefox and have such great and useful extensions for it that I won't change. 

And now to football! My Seahawks have let me down the last few games. Yesterday's game was hard to watch. When they came in right after the half, they were on fire and then the fire slowly went out! 

My brother and his wife are still working on a forest fire. Our local paper had an article in it yesterday about the farmers and the forest fires. They have lost so much.   Cattle, fences, hay crops. I wonder if some of them will be able to keep farming. One farmer had lost 40 miles of fence. The fire moved so quickly they couldn't get all of their cattle out so lost a lot of them that way and some that are still alive have burnt hooves. If they lose their hooves they have to be put down. They actually watched some of the cattle running through flames to try to get away from the fires.  On the east side of the mountains it is totally different weather than the west side. We have fires here, too, but the east side is so much hotter and dryer. Farmers have lost all of their field crops, too. So hay is going to be hard to come by for farmers on both sides of the mountains this year. That is one of the reasons I hate it so much that the 500 acre "farm" that is next to us is lying fallow so they can build houses on it. It is just wrong. They built a golf course on it already and that is a total waste of farmland! When they built it they said it would be a Scottish type course so it wouldn't need much water! Well, they water it every night in the summer so it is green! I guess they think no one will notice that the golf course is green and the grassland surrounding it is brown. They think people are dumb, I guess. And many people don't seem to care. As long as they can buy their fancy coffee on their way to work they are happy.  You can probably imagine I am not a golfer! I wouldn't set foot on a golf course because it is just a big waste of land! I have probably lost a few readers on that last statement, but I have very strong feelings about it.

I just set up the last half of our property taxes to be paid! Boy, that gets harder and harder every year. Once you are on a fixed income, all the bills get harder to pay. And the government has changed how they give you a cost of living raise. It used to be based on the actual cost of living but they wanted to give the seniors a little less money so they changed the formula. So if beef goes up,  they figure you won't eat beef you can switch to chicken...then if chicken goes up you can switch to something that costs less than chicken...rice perhaps! Boy, I could go on about that for another hour but I will stop!

When I started writing on this today I had no idea what to write about but once I start typing, the words keep coming. Kind of like making a theme, I guess. I usually don't know what it will be like till I get to working on one. And I have made so many it is really hard to think up titles for them. 

Y'all have a super great week and enjoy the fall weather because it is just going to get colder and colder!

 


Saturday, September 5, 2015

New Themes on Brand Thunder

Just thought I would let anyone that uses Chrome browser that some of my new themes are on now. I just finished a bunch of Minions that have a new theme for each tab you open and I believe these two new ones do also. I still use Firefox because I like it so well and am used to it, so I can't check them out!

Game of Thrones Tribute New Tab


Lord of the Rings Tribute New Tab

Hope you like these. There are a lot more designs within the one shown.

Have a great week end.

We have our 5 year old great grandson and the sun is shining so what more can you ask for?

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Won the Battle But Will we Win the War?

Down the Road

We had a freaky wind and rain storm over the week end. It was something else! It started Sat. morning. We were one of the lucky ones and didn't lose power, but the majority of the county lost power at one time or other. Some still don't have any 4 days later. We were headed south for our great grandson's first football game. We went with our son and his wife so we didn't have to drive. We could see power poles broken, lines down and tree limbs everywhere. We had been so lucky with the best summer weather in history and then hit with this storm. We had the warmest August on record and the wettest! The week end storm brought the wet part! I so dread the cold winter weather!

The game was really fun to watch but the other team's boys were so big. I can't believe that 10 year old boys can get that large! He had fun, we had fun so that was all that counts. It brought back so many memories of going to our son's and grandson's football games.

The radio station I usually listen to was off the air Sunday morning because they lost power and 4 days later, they still aren't on! So I listened to the news on another local station that morning and just happened to tune in when they were talking about the Urban Growth Areas for the City being on the City Council agenda Mon. night. It was just a wierd coincidence that I heard it or we would never have known it was going to happen. We went to the meeting and they voted to leave our neighborhood out of the planning. But there was a few tense moments for us when they were going through their discussion before they voted. The farm the developer wants to build houses in will be recommended to be in a Reserve Area for future growth. I wish they had just left that out for now, but we won our battle! The City's recommendation will now go to the County and we will have to start all over since the County is the Final Decision Maker. But I can't see any reason for them putting us back into the planning at this point. I know sometime in the future it will happen, but I just hope I don't live to see it.

There hasn't been a lot happening on the Persona theme front lately. I don't really know why unless people are on vacation! I don't go on vacation so I keep plugging away. 

I haven't decided whether to download Windows 10 or not. I have Windows 7 and love it. I am aprehensive about changing because I hate being slowed down by having to learn how to do something new. So for now I think I will keep my 7!

We will be keeping our 5 year old great grandson for the Labor Day weekend. So that should be fun. And it sounds like the weather is going to get nice by then. "Fingers crossed!"

Have a great rest of the week and I will get back after the week end.


Friday, August 28, 2015

First Great Grandson's Football Game!!!

I am so excited about getting to see our oldest great grandson play football tomorrow. It sounds like it is going to be pouring rain but I have rainpants, coat and umbrella all ready to go and sprayed my boots with water repellent! So this great grandma is ready for some football. 

I know the forest really need the rain so I will suffer through it and hope the fires will get under control.

My Hawks haven't been doing very well this year so that has been a disappointment but they will get better.

I have been busy sorting files this week. I have a bunch of my themes in a OneDrive folder and I deleted it! So had to figure out a way to get them back. I went to OD's recycle bin and restored them all. BUT that restored all the ones I had submitted and removed from OD. So I had over 750 files I had to go through and see which ones I had submitted already. What made it difficult and time consuming was the fact I had changed some of the titles when I submitted them. Took me 3 days but it is done. I think/hope I learned my lesson! 

Have been working on a few fall designs. I don't need to because I have so many made already but I enjoy it so much I hate to quit. I do want to make a new cover for my Geneology Notebook though. So gonna do that when I finish here.

I just got an order from Brand Thunder, too. But may have to wait until next week to start work on that!

Down the Road
 
Have a great week end.


Monday, August 24, 2015

Flag at Half Staff



My husband put our flag at half mast this past week for the firefighters we lost in the forest fires in WA. The fires are so bad and so dangerous for all the men and women that are trying their best to save the forests and homes of people that live in those communities. It has brought back a lot of memories for me and my husband. And I can tell he wishes he could be there. He even said to me that he could volunteer to sharpen tools, etc. And he could do it, but at his age, I doubt they would let him. Over the past few days he has talked about a lot of the fires he was on. The kids can remember how he smelled when he got back from a fire. He smelled like a camp fire but a hundred times more. Back then, there weren't support people to wash their clothes, showers or food stations. They wore the clothes they took with them and ate K rations a lot of the time. Or food that could be dropped in by planes. My brother and his wife worked for the past 10 years pulling a portable shower trailer, maintaining it and keeping it up for the fire fighters. They decided to retire this summer, but I got an email that they are on a fire right now. I don't know if they got called of if they made the call because there is no cell service or internet where they are. I hope and pray they are safe. 

The smoke is so bad in WA you an see it from space. It makes your eyes burn. It makes for beautiful sunsets, though. But that is about the only good thing about the fires.

I haven't been working real hard on designs this past week. I got the order finished for Brand Thunder but they aren't ready for publication yet, I guess. I heard they liked the Mickey Mouse ones but haven't heard about the Jeep designs yet. I worked a lot harder on the Jeep ones. They were just harder to find backgrounds, etc. for them. I finally used some of my mountain photo's that I had taken. I wasn't as happy with some of the end results and since I haven't heard back, they may not have been either. We shall see.

There is a new designer on Firefox right now that has been emailing me constantly about reviews. His profile got taken down a week or so ago and I think it was because he was writing 5 star reviews for himself! You just don't do that! But he is back on now and keeps asking me to write reviews for him. I told him that wasn't the way the system worked. It takes a lot of hard work and learning. I can still work on a design for hours and end up and delete it because it just wasn't right. I wish him luck.

It is time for me to start working on lunch, so will sign off for now.  I think I will sign off with one of my favorite autumn themes. 

Autumn Morning Serenity

💚Marching on to Spring💚

                                            Spring Tulip Farm https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/spring-tulip-farm-by-m-donna/  ...