Windows 10 and The Force Awakens!

The Force Awakens Tribute New Tab Theme

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-force-awakens-tribute/klmocpfjiicodokojdkgfgjmhknngjlb

The Star Wars theme I made for Brand Thunder is live on the Chrome Store now. It has 2 different scenes, The Dark Side and the Light Side. 

Well, I got Windows 10 in my desktop and got it hacked so it is very much like Windows 7. I did a lot of research before I decided to install it. So I had all kinds of links saved to help me out. I have quite a few right click items for my mouse that I couldn't work without, move to, copy to and a resize program. They work great with Win 10. But there were a lot of other things I didn't want, like all those big square apps, etc. so I found a site that has a program and a You Tube video to help you set it up. The You Tube site URL is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCnEhqmfZgc 
The program is Classic Shell and it has so many different settings you can really set it up the way YOU want it, not the way Microsoft wants it. So I decided to go ahead and install it in my laptop and got that done over the week end.

Fireflies in the Forest
http://nature.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/1354087/

A You Tube that features one of my favorite wallpapers (above) that I made from scratch  is really kind of cool. It is called Relaxing Nature Sounds and you can find it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yF0nz7D0x0&feature=youtu.be
 It is 6 hours of nature sounds. The author of the "sounds" was nice enough to ask if he could use the wallpaper. I always appreciate it when someone actually asks.

Timber Wolf Theme
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/timber-wolf-by-madonna/

I love working with wolf designs and I made this one a week or so ago and am currently using it.

I am on my 3rd book in The Manhatten series of books and they are so good. I didn't want the last one to end and I feel the same way about the one I am reading now, "The Cabin". As I was reading last night they mentioned feed sacks! That brought back a lot of memories. Most of you won't have any idea of what that means but "back in the day" when I was small, all of my pajamas and nighties were made out of feed sacks. When Mom bought chicken feed she would always pick out a print that would work for us kids clothes. The prints were always pretty nice and it was free fabric! Mom also made me pinafore's out of the feed sacks and I was very proud of them.

I am working on Valentines Day themes and wallpapers. I checked out my stash and I had a bunch left from last year that I haven't submitted so am going to try to control myself and not make too many new ones, but...I have a hard time controlling myself.

Well, I am going to sign off for now and be back soon. Will leave you with some bright sunflowers on the dreary winter day.

Pitcher of Sunflowers
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pitcher-of-sunflowers-madonna/

Hope 2016 Started Well for You All!

Blowing Snowflakes

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/blowing-snowflakes-by-madonna/

I hope everyone had a nice New Years Eve. I had the worse night I have had in a long time. My side of the electric mattress pad went out! I couldn't get warm. Kept adding blankets to my side of the bed and still froze. Our old one was up in the attic so my husband got it down the next day and we put it on, so "much better"! The company is sending us a replacement since it was still under warranty. We don't heat our bedroom so was very cold in there. But otherwise the year has been good! The Hawks won and won big Sunday so that was super!

I am reading a series of books that take place in the late 1800's and it is so good. They are called The Manhattan Series.   (My daughter-in-law is loaning them to me through Amazon) I was reading last night and they mentioned a treadle sewing machine and it brought back so many memories. I learned how to sew on one 67 years ago.The foot pedal was on the bottom and you had to peddle it...the faster you pedaled the faster the machine went. I remember one afternoon I had a terrible experience with it, though. I was alone in the house and the sewing machine was in front of a window. I was gathering a skirt for a doll dress and I found out it was easier to gather if I pushed the fabric through really fast and it would automatically make gathers! BUT this one day I didn't pull my fingers back quick enough and the needle went through my middle fingernail and ended way down in my finger! So here I was stuck to the machine and I couldn't get the needle up or move it at all. I saw my brother riding his bike in the driveway so I pounded on the window with the hand that wasn't stuck to the sewing machine. And he came in and rescued me. 

Speaking of my baby brother who is 2 years younger than me,  I got to see him before Christmas. We had such a nice visit and he mentioned how it was always me that got hurt! And we didn't even bring the sewing machine into the conversation.

 The worse time I got hurt, though was about a year after the sewing machine incident. We were up in the hayloft (and we weren't supposed to be up there because the floor was bad). Dad was working and Mom was milking the cows. Well, my left leg went through the loft and there was a big nail sticking out and ripped my thigh. Mom asked if I was OK and I said yes, because I was afraid I would get into trouble,  so I ran to the house. The cut looked just like a scratch until I lay down on the couch and it opened up about 2 inches wide. (My brother said he can still see it) But that wasn't even the worse part. Dad had the car so Mom had to get the neighbor to take me to the Dr. and the Dr. office was closed so we went to his house. The Dr. had me lay over a kitchen chair and with no deadening, pain med or anyting, sewed my leg up! My Mom was always a strong person and things didn't bother her much but this did! Mom and the neighbor man took turns standing beside me and then going to the door for air. There were many more such incidents but it would take a novel to tell them all and you would get bored!

I better get back to work  Have a good week, stay warm and dry.

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.

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

Hubby's 80th Birthday Today!

Winters Bright Birds

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/winters-bright-birds-madonna/

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!

Christmas M & M's

Christmas M & M's from Google Store

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/christmas-mms-new-tab/pibhgapikhgmoimhkjnjckbclljpophd?hl=en-US

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.....

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

M & M Christmas

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/m-m-christmas-by-madonna/

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

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/wonderland-by-madonna/

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.