The Spice of Nani

Daily Random

I have commitment issues. Yes, the whole love and marriage thing happened later in life for me and I say that’s commitment issues, but I say that jokingly. That wasn’t a problem committing; that was me staying committed to myself and not settling. Maybe that’s what the current issue is.

I am desperately and probably irrevocably behind on this year’s 365/52 project. After my success last year journaling a few lines every day and scrapping a page for each week I thought writing and scrapping a page a week on different topics would be easy. Not so. It’s been a good year for other goals I’ve wanted to accomplish, but not with the 52 topix idea.

I wondered what made writing 1-3 sentences about whatever in my life every day easy to keep up with that writing a paragraph about an assigned topic every week difficult. That’s easy; randomness! In 2010 I tried photographing something coffee every day. The photos were fun and the pages interesting, but that interest dwindled after about May. Again coffee every day while fun was not random. Real life is random. No matter how hard we may try to structure, it’s the random things we don’t expect that make it interesting.

I am putting away the 52 topix idea. I think I may use those layouts that I have done with the completed coffee layouts from 2010 and the completed layouts from the unfinished Patch 365 from 2009 and add some pages to make a “Nani’s Unfinished Symphony” book. Hmmm, maybe I’ll do it in a softcover and leave some blank pages to add some other unfinished things Smash-style and make it a multimedia art thing. Or maybe I’ll just get the pages printed and assemble it traditional scrap-style. I’ll give this some thought.

What I started doing on August first is adding an image a day to a folder called “Daily OPs.” (Other people's, places, possibilities, etc...)  I’ve done an image search for whatever flashes into my mind at the time and choose an image that inspires me or strikes my fancy on that day at that time. I’m not 100% sure where I’m going with this yet, but maybe for next year I’ll mix up photos I take, a few lines of journaling and a random image to suit my mood each day, any or all of them. I’ve got a few months to decide on next year’s project.


Life With Marco

It’ll be two weeks tomorrow since Marco came home. He has every bit the spunk Kaline did as a kitten, unfortunately Kaline doesn’t remember being that kitten! But the growling and hissing is already down and the girls are getting somewhat used to him and he to them. The interaction is interesting. Kaline and Carla will get close enough to give him a good sniff when he’s tired. They want nothing to do with him when he’s frisking around the house. When he runs into Carla’s face or jumps on Kaline’s back, that’s when he gets hissed at or swatted, but when he’s mellowed out they’ll ignore him or even let him get close! Believe me, that’s progress in cat relations after only two weeks!

Now he has some habits I love him to let go of including human leg climbing. He attached himself to jeans and climbs up all the way to the shoulder if he can. He usually doesn’t get that chance because in order to do it, he has to anchor his sharp claws into the legs he’s climbing. For David that’s painful and for me, with thinner fabric in pants, it’s awful! My legs and even my chest, to a little lesser degree, look like I’ve beet pelted with buckshot! I look positively broken out from all the little red-mark puncture wounds!

We got the kitten package for Marco that includes all his shots, healthy kitten checkups and his neutering. He gets 2 claw-trimmings in the package too. We decided not do it on his first visit because he wasn’t jumping yet and was climbing to get around. On Kaline’s birthday everyone goes to the vet, I know crappy birthday present, but they’ll get a salmon and crab party that night. Carla and Kaline will get their annual checkups and shots and rest assured Marco will be getting his first claw trimming!


The Cloud Is Raining On My Creative Parade

I was visiting Miss Edna’s Place where Edna mentioned her displeasure with Adobe and their new “Creative Cloud.”  You essentially lease your software instead of owning it. You pay a monthly fee to have the software and updates are automatic instead of buying an upgrade when a new version comes out, just give them your credit card number and they’ll automatically take out the charge every month. If you don’t sign on and let the license be updated monthly on your software, it just quits working. I’ve known about it for a while and I’m beyond “not happy” about it.

I was actually trying to find out if I could buy an additional license for the software I have. It comes with 2 which is one each for David and me, but I wanted to put it on a smaller laptop for travelling. I can’t add a license to PS CS5, but I could get the Cloud and pay for three a month. I did the math and since two licenses came with the old way of doing it and figuring in a student discount, after 2 years I’d have paid for the software and it’s all just monthly profit for Adobe after that.

Photographylife.com review of Creative Cloud

I did find out that I can just keep my Photoshop CS5 but they won’t be updating it. Conceivably that means it won’t work with Windows 9 or 10 someday. Maybe they’ll have changed their ways by then and the average consumer will have a choice of the Creative Cloud or just buying the software. Or maybe there will be a decent competitor with a better offer.

Worldwide Photo Walk Day

Last year I stumbled on to the date for this cool photography event. When I was working on proofreading my 2010 scrapbooks I got to the page for Photo Walk Day last year, July 24, and was worried that I missed it this year. Okay, I didn’t have any bookmarks or reminders for it either. (I do now!)

Worldwide Photo Walk Day was started by Scott Kelby, who is an instructor and writer of Photoshop and photography books and President and CEO of National Association of Photoshop Professionals. This whole thing is becoming more and more right up my alley! It’s only natural and in sync with the Photo Walk Day that I get my shots on my Photo Walk and use Photoshop to make a scrapbook page with my favorites from the walk, right?

The tentative dates for this year are October 1 & 2. Scott had taken some suggestions from readers at his blog and spread it to the 2 days of the weekend to make it more schedulable for anyone that wants to participate and moved it to the fall in hopes of getting better temperatures. Last year, David and I were in Port Deposit, Maryland and the thermometer in the car read 90 degrees at 9 in the morning! October 1&2 not only promises the hope for cooler weather, but it also has fall colors potential!

I’m going to be better prepared this year. I bookmarked Scott’s blog and follow him on Twitter. Last year we did an unofficial Photo Walk, that is David and me in an historic old city in Maryland, where we happened to be chasing trains anyway. This year, I’m going to give it a little more pre-planning. Maybe I’ll contract some friends who are into photography and see if we can organize a group and a place. There are pretty cool group shots from last year on Scott’s blog. It might be cool to have a small groupm four or five of us, in Frankenmuth or something and do a group shot to send in. We’ll see if this manifests into something. If not, I’ll still be concentrating some effort on my own!

So, here is the scrapbook page I did for WWPW last year in Port Deposit, MD.

Credits: I hadn’t really thought about posting this
at the time, so I didn’t record the credits. If anyone
recognizes the kit or template, please let me know!

Links: Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider

A Little Bit of This – Spring 2011

Mom with Dave and me, Easter 1970

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Moms out there and to all of the Mom helpers. That photo is the one I have as my ID on Facebook right now. I saw a few people using their Mom’s photo as their profile photo for Mother's Day and I thought it was a neat idea for the holiday, so I used that one. It turns out that my photo was such a good idea that my brother snagged it for his profile photo. Now we look like twins, but as I posted on his page, we kinda look like twins in that photo! (But trust me, we really are 14 months apart!) It’s my Mom with my brother and me on Easter Sunday in 1970. I was almost 5 and Dave was 3-1/2. That’s a photo my Dad carried in his wallet for a long time. There is one that goes with it, Dad’s other wallet photo, of us with him on the same day. We were almost adults and we were still under 5 in Dad’s wallet. The staples in Mom’s wallet were a little more up-to-date. She always had the current school picture, then we got to be seniors forever, but the First Communion photos were always there too.

Today is the 8th Mother’s Day that I won’t be at a ball game with my Mom. “Take Mommy Out To The Ball Game” was our Mothers Day tradition. She loved carnations and that was one of the Mothers Day perks. Many ballparks give a carnation to every woman who comes to the game on Mother’s Day. Sometimes it was a Tigers game, sometimes a Minor League game. In 1996, the ball game was the day before when Heather and Tracy were with us in Philadelphia. We saw the Braves and Phillies after a rain delay the night before and the three of us treated Mom to lunch at Old Bookbinder’s before we left for the airport. When I wrote the tribute that was on her memorial website, I mentioned that she’d see Roberto Clemente, one of her heroes as a kid, play again at Heaven’s ballpark. For this year’s Mothers Day game, she’ll get to see Sparky Anderson manage one of the teams.


Speaking of Baseball…


A little tirade of questioning Dusty Baker - why, oh why, would he put Francisco Cordero in to pitch when they were only ONE run ahead in the ninth inning, I don’t care if they call him “closer," which by the way is the most OVERRATED position in baseball, Cordero is more accomplished at throwing a lead away when it really counts than he is at saving games. I listen to the commentators on Fox Sports talk about how closers seem to perform better with men on base. PLEASE! Any other reliever, we’d call that “not able to get the job done,” “Poor performance.” But for a closer, the ulcers for managers and fans are part of their, I don’t know, legend? YEESH! The first batter Cordero faced went yard and tied the game. Correct me if I’m wrong, but a tie does NOT close a game! Oh yeah, but he did close it in the ninth. The Cubs got another run in to beat, Cordero. It just sucks that the Reds and their fans have to take the hit for his inability to do his job. Yes, he has a bunch of saves, but when the game has been tough or the score has see-sawed or just if it’s not easy, Cordero is NOT the man you want on the mound in the ninth. I don’t care how much of a Reds ticket goes to pay his overpriced salary, I’d rather pay him to sit on the bench and record a win.

Okay, that rant ends. If you read it all, thank you for indulging me. It’s just that Cordero really irks me. Congratulations Cubbies on the victory, but we took it easy one you and gave you Cordero and his beach ball pitches in the ninth. You can thank us by not hitting today!

So after watching the sad ending to the Reds game, I tuned in to the Tigers game in the fourth inning. What better way to wipe my emotions clean of that nasty Cordero inning than Justin Verlander! He was phenomenal yesterday, the second no-hitter of his career and just inches shy of a perfect game! In the bottom of the eighth in Toronto, after facing and retiring 22 straight batters, he went to a full count and walked batter 23, then ended the eighth with a double play. So, he did only face 27 hitters, an almost perfect game!

Justin Verlander - 2nd career no-hitter yesterday!

It was very cool to watch the game. As David said when he got home yesterday, we usually only see the last batter or at most the last inning when a network games breaks into it as the no-hitter is completed. I loved watching the game and seeing the pitcher for one of my teams pitch the gem. Verlander is only the second Tiger in history to throw two no-nos and at 28 years old, he has time to do it again in his career. Can he do it? Could he throw five more and match Nolan Ryan’s record seven in his career? Yeah, no one can answer those questions yet, but it’s going to be exciting as a Tiger fan to find out!


School’s Out For Summer

Well, this semester was tough for me. Planning on the medical issues being much simpler, I took two classes. Even in the easier one, Web Imaging, which is basically Photoshop 5, I only got a B+. I say “only got a B” because it’s my first grade since returning to beef up my resume that wasn’t an A! I had some of straight-A semesters through high school, trade school and college, but I was never a 4.0 student when all was said and done. I am proud that my cumulative average has always been in the “A” range, but really, I’ve never been asked what my GPA in school was in a job interview, so in the greater scheme of things, a B, even if it was a C, doesn’t hurt anything but my ego, and even my ego is only slightly bruised.

But the ego bruising fades with some very glowing remarks and the full 250 points for my final project in Photoshop! For the final project, we were to create two original pieces using the tools and methods we’d learned in class. I created the first one to be an in-store promotional poster for home and garden departments in the fall for spring perennial bulbs planting. I used photos of my own flowers and the labels from the bulbs with one of Darlene Haughin’s papers from the Everyday Life collab.


For the second one, I used a paper from Darlene’s portion of On My Knees, we had to secure permission to use anything we didn’t create or photograph ourselves, and photos of my own cane and walker. Remember that I got the walker when I was in aquatic therapy because it took me a little to get my land legs back after getting out of the pool. I positioned this as a motivational poster and one that could be used in a co-op ad or public service ad for a nonprofit like Paralyzed Veterans of America or Special Olympics.


As I mentioned already, I currently have an Incomplete in my XML class, with three chapters and the final to catch up by the beginning of August, I want to redo some of the chapters before that so I have the language down moving forward. As I said before, my instructor is awesome, very compassionate and understanding. I want to excel on the portion of the class that’s left, not just for me, but as a way of saying thanks to him too!


Flowers!

The entire length of the house next to our drive is in bloom!

I’m having so much fun watching the flowers Kelly and I planted in October come up! That photo was taken May 4. The tulips are up now and the colors along the side of our house are just beautiful! But, after the tulips are done, that’s it! I planted spring flowers. I’m still new to this flowers thing! I’ve been doing some looking for summer blooming perennials and next I’ll look for fall blooming ones. I’d love to be able to have continuous blooming plants through to fall on the side.

Here are three I found that are right for the growing zone we’re in and I just think would be beautiful in the summer.

Gladiolas

We’ve had glads in the side bed all along, but they were dug up when our basement waterproofing was done and we didn’t get them back in the ground soon enough. I want to get some to plant now because I know they’ll grow there and David picked a Glad branch for me a couple times, when rain or wind knocked them down, and I had a glad branch on my desk at work. So, they have sentimental value too.

gaillardias

clematis

These two are one I found that I just think are so pretty! I want to get some each of the gaillardias and clematis. I love the colors and the sunburst of the gaillardias is just SO summer! Kelly did the planting while I was at school in October, but I know how she did it and I figure I can set out the bulbs in the driveway and just move a chair down to each section to do the planting. David said he’d help too. I’ll see about choosing fall flowers and maybe planting them all at the same time.


Okay, I’ll be back with more later!

Welcome To April!

Man, is April starting off busy! It’s not a bad thing! It’s just a busy thing!

Well, yesterday was April Fools Day. The first thing that means in this home is HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAGGLE!!! Our boy is 13 years old. In human math, he is a teenager. He’s as old as Kaline acts! But in the cat world, he’s an honored senior cat! David came home at lunchtime yesterday, so we sang happy birthday to him and served the crab and salmon Market Selects cat birthday cake that you saw the kids eating in the late Photoblog yesterday.

For me, April 1 was also my debut on the DST bimonthly Blog Train. I was first off, a little thrown by the color palate. You know how I am with things that have brown in them. (I do have plans to get over that hump with a kit idea I’ve been playing with!) But I was very pleased with the way my portion turned out! It’s really not stand-out-too-much different than other designers’ contributions to the kit and it’s still something I’d use to scrap with. I’m going to venture out and download some of the other parts myself! That’s something I was bummed that I didn’t do last time I was on a train. I absolutely loved the kits in Christmas Around The World, but with a new store and you know, a new marriage, I just didn’t have time to get back before they were gone! By the way, if you click on the freebies link, you’ll find that you can still get my part of Christmas Around The World, just in case you got married at Christmastime too and didn’t get to download it! ;)

April one was also the first day of my 30-day paid membership at I Hire Marketing, the launch of a new kit in my store and PayPal accounting day. In the midst of all of the other things I was doing yesterday, I got a phone call about an unpaid graphics job. I couldn't say “no” to the graphics assignment because the person requesting it kinda lives with me!

Did anyone prank anyone for April Fools Day or get pranked? Little jokes and tricks are fun as long as they don’t hurt anyone or embarrass anyone too much. We got a letter in the mail, very official-looking, that came from the department of digital compliance, something like that, specifically the household appliances department. It seems that any appliances purchased before February...hmmm..., now that I think of it, I think it said February 29, 2009... would need digital converter boxes after March of 2010. It was signed “April Fuehl” and the contact number was the IRS help line! It was a VERY well-done spoof on the conversion to HDTV, but honestly, manufactured before the end of February this year? Eeeks! I need a converter box for my popcorn popper!!

The Graphics job David had for me was to create a “New logo” for CSX. The railroad companies have been promoting how much less fuel it takes to transport goods by rail instead of by truck. David wanted to play on that and play against the Norfolk Southern horse logo asking me to create this:



Of course, horses are afraid of snakes. right? He did a very professional press release and posted it with my artwork on Train Orders. No one fell for it, but it was very appreciated as a good April Fool laugh!

Tonight, I’m having dinner with Dad and my nieces. After dinner at Cracker Barrel, Tori and Rina are coming home with me! Yay Nieci time! Tomorrow will be a nice lunch and movie day. David is not working tomorrow, so it will be our first kidnap day with them as Aunt and Uncle! We’ll likely be playing Apples to Apples tomorrow night and that game is always a laughfest. The girls go back to Indy on Saturday for a birthday party to close their spring break. I’m just happy that we get them for a couple night this year!!


(David and all the non-scrappers, this post is a scrapping post from here!)


Laura

Yes, Laura is my sister-in-law, she’s also my new scrapbook kit!




The kit turned out so pretty! I based it on the colors from their wedding and well, you know you always name a wedding thing after the bride. Besides, there is a song named Laura. I don’t know of one called Dave and I always make my kits share a name with a song. Laura is in my store now! click the preview to go to the Scrap Bird store.

You can also find Crimson and Clover in my store now! That is the former blog bonus for showing me a layout you did with Digitalegacies Designs products. It’s time for a new bonus!

I started Laura to be the new bonus. I just got carried away. So, I decided that I’d do Laura as a smaller kit and create a larger add-on for the blog bonus this quarter. So here’s the new bonus!


If you want the Laura add-on, it’s free for showing me a layout you did with any of my products! This is the bonus for April - June. There will be a new one in July and the add-on will go into the shop, but for the next three months, the only way you can have this add-on to the fabulous Laura kit, is as the bonus!! Send me your layouts or links to chroniclesofnani@gmail.com

MORE Laura?



YES! Laura Favors is the challenge bonus at Scrap Bird for the I Wanna Talk About Me Challenge. This month, we’re scrapping your wedding! That is a layout with a picture of you from your wedding, a wedding you were in or a wedding you were at. I had a few comments from people who just didn’t have wedding photos of themselves, so I added that if you don’t have wedding pictures, a photo of you dressed up or just one where you think you just look GREAT! The key here is the scrap a photo where you are shining!

There are some great challenges this month and great bonuses too! I’m really looking forward to doing my layout for the Scrap It challenge with Mamrotka. Marzena’s kit for that is wonderful with bright blues, green and flower petals. Yeah, it’s very spring, very Nani too! Come play with us at Scrap Bird!!



Add It On For FREE in April

All of my kits that have add-ons are on a special sale this month, Add It On For FREE! That’s right, free add-ons with the purchase of the full kit! When you buy One Step at a Time, Homemade Love, Because Of You or Your Own Special Way in April, make sure you have the special coupon code to get the add-ion FREE!! Just put both the kit and the add-on in your cart and use the appropriate code when you check out. The price of the add-on will be removed. Now, if you don’t have any of these kits and want all four, I love you!!! But when you make your purchase, do it four times so you can use all four coupons! You have the whole month, so you can stretch out your scrapping budget too! I share a store with some very talented designers, so you may even find some other things to spend your Digitalegacies Designs saving on! There are also some great freebies from everyone to get a sample of the tastes at our bird feeder!!

Over the course of the month I’ll show you all of the sale kits. Right now, remember Your Own Special Way?



Romance is not only for special holidays! The soft candlelit tones are great for scrapping anniversaries, romantic occasions and that even more special because it’s not so frequent date-night with your spouse without the kids!

Buy Your Own Special Way at Scrap Bird for $5.00 and get the add-on kit for FREE!


Make sure you enter coupon code lknrj37hdn when you check out!

Add It On For FREE coupon codes for April:
One Step at a Time - kjad4365
Homemade Love - lknd856hn
Because Of You - dkrj25jdh
Your Own Special Way - lknrj37hdn


And one last scrapping note! You can win Laura for free at DST! Click this link and leave a reply. I’ll be selecting 3 responses at random to get the free kit on Wednesday!

Whew! I need more coffee now! LOL Enjoy all the fun stuff and I’ll check back in soon!

Dinner Last Night

Mmmm.... Tasty Groundhog!

I take my dislike of winter VERY SERIOUSLY! ;)

Pitchers and catchers report in 9 days!!

Photoshop Blog Wednesday

Photoshop at it's pure and simple freebies best! ;)



The Next SAS-y Ladies Contest Cast Party

The party officially starts at 12:01 AM Eastern US time, but the freebies will be posted throughout the day!

Friday By Request

Okay folks, Ya gotta help me here! I didn’t have an FBR last week. That’s okay, like I’ve said before, if I don’t have a request for Friday, I don’t do one. But then I mentioned that I didn’t have a request for this Friday at home and David decided that meant he had to come up with SOMETHING.

Now remember, I’ll do any request! Of course, it has to be suitable for all ages and something that can actually be done or displayed on a blog. David has a sense of humor warped in a similar way to my own and he takes the idea of challenge very seriously!

What started as an observation when he came upstairs, “I see a Kaline head and a Baggle tail,” turned into this week’s request. David wants to see what Kaline would look like with Baggle’s head and vice versa. Sort of like if they weren’t both fixed, what their kittens might look like? I just call it...

Frankencats
For David

Bagline

Kalaggle

I just loved Baggle looking at Bagline while this one was under construction. It made me laugh and I wanted to share the full view!

Hope you enjoyed this little request into the bizarre! For next week, send me a new request! As you can see, I’ll accept just about any crazy challenge!