Learn Something New Everyday September 2011

Complete!

Yes my project is finished.
I have my last pages to share with you today.

29th

Shimelle’s prompt this morning talks about doing something to bring a smile to someone’s face.
Now today the doing would be hers and the smile would be mine! I noticed a picture of a spider’s web on one of her page examples and thought Ooh someone else can’t resist a spider’s web hung with morning dew. On closer inspection it was my page!
I can be a bit shy about a ‘Random act of Kindness’. Lets see if I can alter that over the coming months.

The lesson I wanted to learn from this day 2010 was to take my camera out with me every day. I started with a photo a day during October. Apparently if you do something everyday for 30 days it becomes a habit, it worked. My camera is always with me.
Learning Photoshop. Today I learnt about actions and twirling, not the sort you do yourself or with a friend but with actions and filters. Oh roll on my day off and I can play!

30th

This is the last day of Shimelle’s project and as luck would have it, it is my day off. The sun is shining and the birds are singing. Ben is at work and Paul is out with his plane.
It really is the perfect day.
I took these pictures in the garden this afternoon and couldn’t choose just one to include on my page.

Todays weather:
Simply beautiful. Sunshine, blue skies and not a breath of wind. If the traffic and the screaming child (not mine) would disappear I would think I had died and gone to heaven!

Reflection

Once again I have loved doing this project. The size, the format and the same background paper throughout made it quick and easy, as I’d hoped it would.
I haven’t followed all the prompts and I have not joined in on the forum again. I have learnt it is just not me and stop worrying about it.
I decided to post my pages on my blog (as well as Flickr) and have had some really nice comments about them. Thank you!


Thank you for looking x


I took this photo on the 1st September especially for my front cover.


An on-line class by Shimelle Laine

September 2011.

* Keep it simple
* Digital
* 5 x 7 photo paper
* post the pages to Flickr

The pages of my book are here if you would like to look at them. I’m looking forward to seeing it printed. I do love to have paper pages to hold don’t you?

Learn Something New Every Day 22nd – 28th September

I have my pages 22 – 28 to share with you today

22nd

I had the visit from hell today. Actually I thought I had died and gone to the mad house. It severely tested my patience and professionalism and the holding of the tongue.
There was no one in the office today to offload to, so my ‘at home at the moment’ husband got it. Goodness me, my language was not to be admired but obviously when I calmed down I felt as many sympathetic and empathetic feelings as I could possibly muster. Then I wrote it all down. I used to find that the drive home was a great stress reliever (or finding the secret stash of chocolate in my glove box) but the journey today wasn’t long enough. Typing it all out was brilliant. I’ll do that again.
Today I learnt to transfer thoughts from my head to fingers to keyboard to a new document

23rd

Today I was updated on 1st aid in the workplace.
Gosh it was a full on day! We had the same trainer as three years ago, I had forgotten about her!
Probably enough said.
There were nine of us and we did manage to laugh a bit, obviously the bandaging was hysterical.
Nothing much has changed and there is no exam with this one. I always dread going to work the next day and fear (like everyone else on the course) being called upon to put this stuff into practice, am I going to remember what to do? If I don’t feint at the sight of blood my bandaging skills were judged to be very good! Oh and my ‘head management’ during putting someone in the recovery position was ‘excellent’ So if you are bleeding and need a bandage I will be OK but if you are in trouble in Sainsbury’s and they call for a first aider I learnt that they mean one of theirs, not me, so I won’t be seen heading in the direction of the incident, I’ll be lurking ‘round by the chocolate looking for something to reduce my stress levels.

24th

I can hardly believe that it is less than a week to the end of September.
As much as I love doing this project I do find that the days seem to march along. September hardly seems to have started and here we are a week to October.
Today Shimelle is talking about procrastinating, that’s me alright. On my desk I have a night dress that needs new straps, yes I could throw it away as family suggest but I like it. Two weeks ago I bought some black hand towels. I thought I would cut them in half, hem them and give them to my oily rag of a son and ask him not to use my cream towels on his oily rag hands!
I have a gorgeous navy jacket that is too long for me, it needs 6 inches off the bottom and a new hem. I am too embarrassed to say how long ago I said I would do it. Well today I got my sewing machine out and completed two out of the three projects! Thank you Shimelle.
I learnt I can still use my sewing machine.

Day started warm and sunny, no rain until late this evening.

25th

Today I learned about an application called Snagit. (Oh and remembered about Tiny URL)
http://tinyurl.com/68pcb45

I wanted to publish some iPhoto books I had made so that my cousin could see them. The file was so big that no matter what I did I couldn’t send them to her. I installed Snagit and my darling husband taught me how to use it. It enables me to capture the photo’s from the eletronic copy of the book I made and put them on to some new pages I made on my blog. You can see them now as a slide show. Go to my blog, my pages and click on one of the book pages.

Snagit Says It with Screenshots
Use our easy screen capture software to create interesting training documents, collaborative design work, IT bug reports, and more. With its simple screen grab tool and impressive list of image editing features, the possibilities are endless.
It’s so easy, you’ll catch on in a snap.
(I did!)

We had the biggest rain storm I have seen in a long time followed by a lovely warm sunny day.

26th

A real September morning! Beautiful clouds in the sky, spiders busy making webs, rain drops on everything, the washing line looked so beautiful hung with glistening crystal beads of rain. I was out in the garden at 7.30am in my nightdress, (the one with the new straps) with my camera. In old money, I took a whole roll of film! As my eyes don’t work so well in the mornings I hope at least one of them will adorn this page after work this evening. I learned about spiders today. I took the photo of the spider busy making her web and noticed that the leading line of thread was such a long way from the start of the web. Paul & I had a great conversation, about how we thought the spider organized
this. Obviously the conversation then reduced from intelligent to absurd to hysterical. When I got home from work he had sent me a link to a site (there is one for everyone) that made it all clear. I’ll let you learn about it for yourself
http://tinyurl.com/68e4uds
I went out to visit the spider after work in her completed web and took some more photos.

27th

Sunshine and blue skies again this morning. There was also a heavy dewfall, which makes everything in the garden sparkle. I think there is a real sense of the season changing at this time of year. The weather is set to be very warm for a few days. I suspect it is because I wore my gorgeous autumn red jacket yesterday! I’ll have to dust off the lighter one now. We shall see.
I had coffee with my friend this afternoon, I had to jiggle a few things around to get there and after the morning I had at work, it was so worth it. We went to Costa’s, what on earth do they do to make such a meal out of getting you a cup of coffee? So much turning and steaming and wiping and knocking and leveling and this cup and that cup and more jiggling and knocking and scraping and turning and Oh my goodness a person could die of thirst waiting!

28th

I worked in the office today and as I was the only one in I got a huge amount done. For once in a number of weeks I feel almost on top of the paperwork.
Today Shimelle is talking about learning from laughter. I had what I thought was a return to sender letter at work today. I had everyone in another office looking around for an alternative address and landline number for the sender of the letter. I wrote a letter to another department explaining there would be a delay in response until I located the ‘missing gentleman’. Later I was getting down my list of ‘must do’s’ and looked at the envelope again. Yes my envelope had been returned to me, re addressed to me, completed by the gentleman as I had requested! Yes, there was much laughing and Michael taking particularly in view of who I work for! Don’t assume Miriam, Check! I can even remember the name of the boss that told me that when I first started work, oh so long ago.
Still learning, not quite there yet.

I suppose the main topic of conversation today was the weather; It was sooo hot. Even if it was still August it would have been hot, hot, hot.

True Stories

It is Sian’s Story Telling Sunday today

I get the writing prompts from Mama’s Losin’ it each week and rarely do anything with them but for some reason, when I saw this prompt:
When was the first time you saw your mother as more than ‘just mum’
This memory popped into my mind immediately.
The story is from 1975 and my parents are no longer with us.

I think this is the first time I realized that my mother was more than just mum.
I realized she was a woman and a wife, just like me.
My husband & I and my parents had tickets to see ‘The Pearl Fishers’ at the beautiful new Theatre in our hometown.
I had not long been married and thought it was such a nice thing to do, go out with the parents! We had been to a few lovely occasions that summer.
As we walked into the building, dad had gone to the bar with my husband and she said, straight out, no flowery words, no hesitant ‘I have something to tell you’. No, very bluntly she said, “you’re dad is having an affair”
I wanted to feint, I was so shocked and embarrassed. I remember my stomach turning over and my face getting hot. No, this can’t be, they were happily married, had been married for 26 years. They were a good Catholic family. My father had strong opinions about the sanctity of marriage, the importance of the family.
This was the first time in my life that she had ever spoken to me about anything other than day to day mother/daughter things, and it was this bombshell that she choose. Her heart was broken and I was there.
For the first time I saw my mum as a woman, a married women, a wife just like me, a woman who was more than just mum.


This is the rose I planted for her, It is her birthday this month.

There are wonderful stories High in the Sky today.

Dublin An evening in town

Inspired by Amy. Scrapping the everyday


Thursday night we headed into town to the Brazen Head, Dublin’s oldest pub dating back to 1198. We had the most wonderful evening. There was a local band playing traditional Irish music, we had Irish stew to eat and Guinness to drink, what more could you need than chatting, singing, drinking, eating, did I mention drinking? laughing, drinking. Oh and we musn’t forget the couple from Tipperary! They were dairy farmers up from the country to the big city for the weekend. They had a new grandchild, she told me a wonderful story about feeding the hungry city baby on porridge! It certainly was a long way from Tipperary…..

Layout by Amy

A Cow and a Ladder

Has the woman gone mad? Very possibly after the day I’ve had. When I got home I need to chill, the ice cream helped but Kim Klassen’s Thursday challenge did the trick.
She gave us a picture of a cow to download and a challenge to add some of her textures. I used one of Kim’s newer textures called ‘The ladder’
I also used one of her templates.

Feeling relaxed now…..I have tomorrow off & lunch with a friend planned. I hope your weekend is good.