Checking in!

Patriotic USA

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/patriotic-usa/ 

I hope everyone is having a great summer. Can you believe that the 4th of July will be here in less than a month? I can't. The only good thing about it is that it is closer until The Sons of Anarchy DVD comes out in August! 

I have been working away, making way too many designs, more than I can even submit.

I have gotten some really nice emails lately. One was from Steph. She told me that I had inspired her to go back to school for graphic arts. That made me feel like the hours I put in is actually worth something! I don't make any money doing this but if I can inspire at least one person to continue schooling it is doing some good at least. Another gal told me that my designs made her daily work on the computer much more enjoyable so that is a good thing, too!

One lady, Steph read my last post regarding the Stacy Martian that has been using my designs to make Facebook Covers sent me the link where all of this person's "designs" are. I can't believe that this website has absolutely no way to contact their site. I have searched and searched and found nothing. Plus I have no way of contacting her since I don't do FB. I do not want to be on FB since I think it just causes a lot of problems. My sister and sister-in-law want me to join so we can keep in touch. I will keep in touch with email! 

Speaking of my sister, I just got an email from her and she was out walking her little dog and three big dogs attacked her and her dog. They tried to tear her poor little doggie in half, so he had go have surgery, but will hopefully be all right. My sister got bit on her neck/shoulder and leg. She was talking on the phone to her husband at the time so he heard the whole thing! I can't imagine what he must have been thinking. It is over now and hopefully the 3 big dogs will be held accountable. Personally I am not fond of big dogs. 

Well, I am going to get out and enjoy the sunshine for a bit and have my coffee.

Hope all is well with everyone. Have a great Father's Day. I may get on later this week.

Piercing Ears

I just took my earings out to clean and got to thinking back to when I pierced them. We lived on the farm in Iowa that was on a dirt road that I previously talked about. I was 12 years old and my cousin had just gotten her ears pierced. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world but my folks said I couldn't get mine pierced. So, wanting something badly enough I decided to do it myself. I got a cork, some alchohol, matches and a good sized sewing needle, I went upstairs to my room and commenced to pierce my ears. I dabbed the ear with alchohol, dipped the needle in it, heated up the needle, put the cork behind my ear and pierced the left one first. Everything went really well. It didn't hurt too bad and I got the earring in easily. I didn't have a post earring so put in one I could change the dangle on! The right ear was a little more difficult and I couldn't get the earring in. I worked on it for a long time and finally decided I had to go downstairs and let my parents know what I had done. At first they were a little angry but my Dad stepped up and said he would try to get the earring in for me. By then my ear was pretty darn sore but I bit my lip and let him put the earring in! I was so proud! 

Well, when I went so school all the girls thought it was pretty cool and wanted theirs pierced. So, I started taking my cork, alchohol, matches and needle to school and I charged 1 pair of earrings for every girl's ears I pierced! (Back then earrings were like .29¢ at the dime stores) I don't know how many I did before we moved and never got in trouble with parents or school officials. Can you imagine any one doing that now? I would probably be hauled off to jail or juvie! 

We moved to WA when I was 16 and no one had their ears pierced out here. I did my sisters, sister-in-law's and a few women's later because by then it was beginning to be popular. And I pierced our daughter's when she was old enough and wanted them pierced.

It is funny how times have changed!

Just thinking!

Frustrated

Pansies and Sweet Peas

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pansies-and-sweer-peas/ 

Another cold, cloudy day. The sun usually comes out about this time of day, but I doubt it will today.

I must say I am frustrated with people using my wallpapers to make theme designs. They never ask for permission. I have had a problem lately with people actually copying some of my themes even! I have so many designs it is hard finding the one they copied because they use a different title. To report them you have to show the one they copied and it is really time consuming to hunt through all my designs. I have so many with flowers and butterflies it makes a search really difficult. But I can usually pick a copy out pretty quickly IF I see it.  Another thing I have noticed lately is one designer finding one of my designs that is popular and making one very similar, but not an exact copy. Some designers are reviewing each others designs to get more stars even. I guess I am not a good player because I only play in my own sandbox!

I guess it shouldn't bother me, but sometimes I will take an hour or more working on just 1 design so it fits perfectly in the corner, and everything shows I want to show. So, it is irritating when someone copies it! 

I am trying to take time away from the computer now because my back started hurting again. I don't know if it is sitting too long or what. The last time it got this bad I timed the computer work to 20 minuntes on, 10 off, so have been trying to do that today. It is hard for me to stop if I am in the middle of a design I am working hard on, though.

I just re-read this and wow, what a complainer I am today. I should just delete the whole thing and write another day, but...

I hope you all have a great week end and the world is good to you. Till next time............

Feeling Down

What a cold, chilly, rainy Sunday it is here for the Memorial Day week end. I am thinking back to all the great Memorial Day weekends we had in the past. My family was really in to dirt biking so holiday weekends were for camping out and doing as much riding as we could. My Dad, Uncle, Aunt, brother, sister-in-law and tons of cousins and their spouses rode, plus our boys. So we would load up the truck and bike trailer and head for Cle Elum, WA where there were big coal piles to ride on and lots of trails. We all camped out together in the woods and had a big campfire that we sat around at night, drank wine and told about the falls we took, the trails we rode and the hills we climbed. The hills seemed to get higher each time the story was told and the trails harder! We did that for all 3 big holiday week ends every summer for years. We went from a small tent to a small camper so really felt like we had gone up in life style!

We would head for the eastern side of the mountains because it was always better weather there. We did camp on the west side of the mountains years later, when we switched from dirt bikes to ATV's, 4-wheelers or what ever you want to call them. Then our sons, wives and grandsons, brother-in-law and his wife would take small camp trailers and camp and ride. The first thing you do on when you camp in western WA is put up some blue tarps cause you know it is going to rain at some point, or most of the time. But we got used to riding in rain gear. My cousins and families would camp in the same general area and they always had the biggest camp fire so we would ride over to their camp. We used to spend many hours under blue tarps telling stories

I really miss that. I miss riding my road bike on good summer days, heading across the mountains on Highway 20, getting away from work, phones, etc.

I don't like riding in a car and haven't for years. I am not one to just sit and do nothing for very long and that is what you do when you ride in a car. When you are riding a bike you have to watch out for deer, drivers and anything that might be in the road. Traveling at 70 mph you don't want to hit any rocks, etc. So it never got boring and was always exciting. I always felt more alive when I was riding. One of the hardest things I have had to do was quit riding. I guess I was lucky because I was strong and kept in shape so got to ride till I was 71, but I knew that year was my last. I just didn't have the strength in my arms anymore. But it was really hard knowing it was my last ride. And I still get jealous when we are going somewhere in a boring car and I see riders out on a beautiful sunny day.

I guess these are my golden years but they don't feel so golden this week end.

May too fast!

Elk in the Wild

 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/elk-in-the-wild/

I just can't believe how fast May has gone by. I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. We went to brunch at our daughter's house and had a great time. Her kids were here for the week end, too and that is always a treat when we can spend time with grandkids. Lots of good food and love to go around. Our oldest son and his wife came by with a beautiful basket full of beautiful flowers. He has been working 6 10 hour days a week. Our youngest son called. He had been working 7 10 hour days a week. One thing I can say about our 3 kids. They are hard workers. I wish they didn't have to work so hard but they were raised as outdoor kids and neither one of the boys could work in offices or want to.

We went to our first lacrosse game this Saturday. Have never watched or been to one but it was really fun to watch. Our oldest great grandson is playing lacrosse this year and we got to see him make his first score or point or whatever it is called in lacrosse!

Don't have much to say today so will get back to work!

Have a good week.

 

Missing Mom on Mother's Day!

The Bridge 

http://nature.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/1740021/ 

My sister sent me a card after our Mother passed away with this poem on it. It means so much to me and the words are so true. The older I get and look in the mirror I see my Mom and my daughter says the same thing when she looks in the mirror.

I had Mother's Day dinner for our family for years and years and continued to do so up until the last year of my Mom's life. I don't think you ever get over missing your Mom. Questions only she could have answered, secrets you want to tell her, how much you appreciated all she did for you, how hard she worked her whole life. I miss you, Mom. I would give anything if you were still here so I could honor you with another dinner. She always enjoyed having someone else do the cooking! 

I wish all of you a Happy Mother's Day and if you can't be with your Mom, give her a call and let her know you love her. I will tell my Mom and I know she can hear me.

Happy Mother's Day!

Some Firefox 29 Fixes!

Little Green Bird in Cherry Tree

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/little-green-bird-tree/ 

Wow, we are having summer weather in April and May! We can handle it, but what a difference. 

I have been working on getting my FF 29 where I am liking it again. I got my Add On bar (the bar on the bottom) back, got my tabs back on the bottom soI can actually find things again. I will post the link that really helped me get things back. Go to: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=2824649

There are links at the bottom of that article that will get the Add On Bar and tabs on bottom back, among other things. I like Colorful Tabs to make each tab you have open a different color and it doesn't work with 29 very well. I have always liked rounded tabs so disabled Colorful Tabs until Colorful Tabs updates to the rounded tabs.

An update on the washer/dryer! We finally broke down and really went shopping and found one we liked and could afford. It was actually the same set my grand daughter got. She did a lot of research and liked hers. We got the price down to what was acceptable. We went and picked it up yesterday and we got them in the house and installed ourselves. They wanted almost $70 to deliver and install! It took us all morning and 2 back aches, but they are in, look really nice and I have done two loads. The first load we stood and watched it wash because it was so different. It doesn't seem possible that the laundry can get clean with hardly any water, but so far so good. Plus my home made laundry detergent works great in it because there is no suds with it. In time the home made laundry detergent will probably pay for the washer!

I think I will go out and enjoy some of this sunshine. It is supposed to start raining tomorrow and over the week end.