Feeling a little under the weather right now, but had to blog this: I am now an official Graphic Addict!! Woohoo I am having some fun now!

In addition, we are starting our homeschool back up tomorrow. I regret having taken such a long break, and the kids watched WAY too much tv over the last few months, but it is going to be a bit tough to get back into the groove. We are using the Robinson Curriculum which is a self-teaching style - I am modeling the self-teaching thing with my web design. (Fun and a good example - great, now if I can just show a little self-discipline by not sitting here all day!!! We'll call that devotion to responsibility, right? ;-P) WE have already seen this work, but we are not doing all of the no tv, no computer, no sugar route. Maybe we should, but I just don't see it. I do try to limit these things, but I'm not sure they need to be completely eliminated. Boy this turned into a long post - I need to move this over to my homeschool blog. What blog, you say? Well I am planning on starting one. Watch for the link if you are interested. This will be a better managed extension of my homeschool notebook. You can see I am a bit behind on that puppy!

I am so excited! I got my first Amazon Referral Check today. OK - never mind that it took nearly a year to get it. It's just cool to get a check for basically nothing but a couple of cool links that flesh out my homeschool site nicely. I'm smiling. I also came up with a neat unplanned re-do on the graphics section of my domain. Watch for the unveiling soon.

Well I am a big hairy copy cat - Miss Kitty mentioned this in her blog and I thought it sounded like a hoot, so here it is: My very own Rigdonia Cafe Shop (Powered by CafePress.com) Come one come all!

Just a little note to say:

I FIGURED IT OUT!!!!!!!!

Not the meaning of life, but rather how to make a portion of a created graphic transparent in Paint Shop Pro 7. (Almost the meaning of life.) It's so dumb and when you see the set you're gonna say, so where is it?!? It is a very small little touch and for some reason I just couldn't let go of it. But anyway, it was pretty easy, but it did take me what, nearly two days to figure it out? Turns out I knew how to do it all along, but forgot, or rather didn't know how to apply the knowledge to my particular situation. Oh well, in the process, I found some great tutorial links for PSP7. Cool. (I may post these to my website someday. Meanwhile, you'll just have to imagine. :-P )

Oh, and I also figured out how to add a border to a graphic. Simple. In Microsoft Image Composer, I had to create a box (X) pixels smaller than I wanted, where X is equal to the border size times 4
(times 2 for the x and y axis). Then I would apply a border effect and hope I did the math correct. Even then, the msic couldn't manage to fill in the corners and I had to do that myself! I was feeling like Fred Flintstone, carving out my graphics with a hammer and chisel! Yaba-daba-doo. Wilma, where's my brontosaurus burger?

Love the Little Sailor sweater!!!!The Creative Cottage -- Little Boys Winter is coming - maybe I'll grab one of these for Ian - probably a 1-2? Anyway, when I see adorable sweaters like this, I miss the cold winters of Connecticut. How did I end up in the desert? All my cozy sweaters just sit in a drawer. We can only wear them maybe one or two months out of the year. The upside? They last forever!

Omugosh - I am having such a terrible case of the wants! Either a celestial painting from Zee, or this: Amazon.com: buying info: Wacom Graphire2 Pen, Mouse & Tablet Set (Steel-Blue) I don't have any cashola to spend, so it doesn't matter anyway. Why oh why do I window shop? Anyway, if you want to see some beauty-full stuff made with a Wacom pad, go see Smalltown Artworks What beautiful work! I wanna be an artist. Waahhhh.

Squeezed in another set - Remember When - what a cutiepie!

I just have to blog this: Kids are into Star Wars today. So we have some 1/2" dowels that the kids have been pretending are light sabers. Today, they decided to paint them, so we have light sabers tearing up the living room and paint dripping from everything [editors prerogative to exaggerate]. Then dd comes to me with her blanket - "Tie this mom, I'm Darf Vader!" So I find a way to clip it gently around her. Later, she comes to me with a dixie cup and says, "Mom, make me a pig nose so I can be Pig Vader!" As I live an breathe, my daughter is in the living room, watching star wars, wearing her blanket and a dixie cup/pipe cleaner/shaprie augmented pig nose! LOL! LOL! LOL! This is especially funny because she has a cold and sounds like Elmer Fudd. Oink oink. Oh no . . . Now she's Pig Solo. I am not going to get any work done today, I can tell. =~D

I have super momma news that I am going to cross post to both of my blogs: Ian is sleeping in six and seven hour intervals! Wahooo! Neither of the other two kids did that until they were much older. What a welcome break. I swear he's bigger every time he wakes up! My little chubba bubba. He took a nap yesterday from 2 until 7:30, went back to bed at 9:30, slept until 2:30, waking only for a feeding and back to sleep until . . . well, he's still sleeping and it is 9 am! Yes, I have checked to see if he is breathing - several times, in fact!

All this baby sleeping enabled me to get caught up on my blog list - and noticed that Sandra added me to her blog list. Kewl! Me too, Sandra! I have been lazy and surfing to your blog and some others via Jenn's Journal and /or Random Rantings! I guess I'd better update my own reads list, eh? I need to redo this blog in a few weeks and I'll do it then, I suppose. (Thanks for the suggestions re: page loading!)

I also have been loving Kitty's Art Reviews - I especially love Claire Robinson and Kerri Smith. I rec'd as graphic payment Kerri's Story in a Box: The Princess and the Pea- VERY cute! "I had it on my wishlist for Kaitlin," I told myself, but guess what?! I think I like it more! LOL.

Thanks for your support, Rose and Jenn! I have been a really boring blogger lately, but decided instead of whining about not feeling so great or going without sleep etc \;-P that I'll just be quiet!

I have been a little obsesso about the homeschool site and to that end, anyone notice if the pages seemed slow to load? I'll gladly pay someone with 28.8 to check out my page loading speeds! Front page says it takes 93 seconds at 28.8 to download the page. Doesn't that seem a bit slow? Here I thought simplifying the graphics would help, but it increased by 50 seconds, according to FP! Bummer. Of course, I can't tell all of this because I have DSL and it is pretty quick. I am so spoiled. It got so hot today that I didn't even sit at the computer and we stayed home from church! It has been over 100 degrees since last Sunday! I haven't been out of the house since , , , ok I'm whining again. See what I mean? Big Lucy WAHHHH! Oh that feels better now. Thanks. I needed that.