Her Space: My Space challenges are back after a month’s vacation. I’m ready to play again and here is my “entry” for summer. In the northeast there are no open farmer’s market except during the late spring, summer, and early fall. These photos were taken at the very charming Princeton, NJ farm market where you are entertained with live music as you shop.
Shortly after we arrived at my brother’s on Wednesday, Tracy discovered this poor woodchuck who had gotten his head stuck through one of the chain links in the fence. Poor fellow couldn’t get himself out forward or backward.
We weren’t able to help him so we called ASCPA, wildlife rescue, and finally the Hyde Park police who came pretty promptly. The officer’s first suggestion was to pour dishwashing detergent around the woodchuck’s neck to lubricate it. He had rubbed the fur off one spot on his neck so it was pretty unpleasant and we quickly learned that there was no way he was going to extricate himself from the fence.
Fortunately, my brother’s neighbor saw all the activity and arrived with a Have a Heart trap in hand. He also owned a bolt cutter and we were able to cut the chain links and slip the woodchuck into the trap.
After cleaning off the soap—quite the event—we took him to a wooded area and tried to let him loose.
The poor guy was so tuckered out, he didn’t want to leave the trap, but we finally shook him loose and left him in the woods.
Well, maybe. It’s been a busy week and I see the summer slipping through my fingers. Monday Matt and I went to Cornell to look into housing for the fall. We decided an apartment was preferable to a dorm for lots of reasons, took care of his financial aid application, and established his Net ID which will enable him to get all the important emails he needs to read! Tomorrow we’re headed back to Ithaca. We have an appointment to see an apartment Matt feels is the best of the bunch, and hopefully, can arrange to see a few others. At the very least we’ll do some drive bys.
I did get back in the groove in terms of exercise. It had been a month since I’d been to the gym. That hadn’t happened in over a year so I was a little concerned about how my body would react. I’m not as sore as I anticipated but Friday’s yoga class revealed a few muscles I hadn’t thought about in a while.
I finished all my assignments for Jessica Sprague‘s Up & Running class. I am really going to miss this class and will be one of the first to sign up for the next level class. The layouts are all in the Scrapbook album on the sidebar. I put together an ScrapWorks BayBox album of our trip to Kiawah in April today. I love these albums. When there are LOTS of photographs, it makes putting an album together a much more efficient. process, but the end result is very nice. I also caught up with the Photo-a-Day blog on the sidebar. A little cheating there as I’m still posting photos from vacation.
I finished reading Paulette Jile’s Stormy Weather. It’s a good book, but not nearly as good as her earlier novel Enemy Women. Trying to finish Barbara Brown Taylor’s The Preaching Life so I can return it to Sarah and Adam at the end of the month.
Last, but not least, I went out to lunch twice and out to breakfast this morning. It’s so nice to have the time to visit with friends and not have to gulp down your lunch during a 30 minute lunch break when you also have to check email, stop in the school office . . . Summer is much more relaxing!
While the hosts of Her Space: My Space are away, a little challenge is going where comments are posted. Someone posts a word. The next person must take the last letter of the previous word. I found “book” today and knew my photo of Kiawah Island would work. One of our favorite places–and a good place it would be today in the heat. Ah, well.
Chautauqua is a place where unabashed patriotism reigns and it’s the perfect place to be on the Fourth of July. Sunday afternoon we heard the Army Band and Chorus play a concert and last night the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra played a pops concert. Both concerts featured lots of patriotic songs. I am so grateful to live in a country where freedoms abound. Happy 4th of July!!
It’s amazing to me what I’ve accomplished in just three days. I’ve heard four sermons by Nancy Hastings Sehested, attended two lectures on marriage and the family, listened to three great concerts, attended two sessions of an intermediate level class on Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 where I’ve learned a variety of photo correction/enhancement techniques, read A Thousand Splendid Suns, taken about 100 photographs and posted this week’s assignment to my Painting with Light class, and completed my fifth layout for Jessica Sprague’s Up and Running class. There’s never a lack of things to do while at Chautauqua. I’m posting a few of the photos over the next few days in my Photo-a-Day log. Here is the fifth layout for my digital scrapbooking class.
We arrived at Chautauqua Institute this afternoon for a week of lectures, classes, reading, taking photographs, walking, and relaxing. The weather is beautiful, although a bit cool. The charm of this place never wears thin.
I’m caught up with Jessica’s Sprague’s class unless a new assignment shows up in my inbox tomorrow. Now I need to catch up with Amy Sorenson’s Write Now assignments. I love both classes, but the digi scrapping one is more challenging and thus, more appealing. So here’s #4, done without any templates. Had a bit of trouble with the stamp, but thanks to the message board, solved another problem. By the end of this course, I should be pretty familiar with Photoshop Elements. Next week while we’re in Chautauqua I’m signed up for an intermediate course in PSE. I think I’m ready and one of my goals for the summer will be accomplished before mid-July. Awesome.
I’m learning a lot from Jessica Sprague’s Up and Runnning course. Her video tutorials are awesome. Easy to understand, and I love being able to see and listen at the same time. The best part is when the course is over, I’ll still have access to all the videos. I’m afraid I might need them so this is a great feature. This week we started using alphas and brushes–totally new to me. In addition, I’m using an older version of Photoshop Elements so everything doesn’t work quite the same way. Nonetheless, with the help of the message board, I finished this layout this morning.
Here’s today’s food for thought at A Fancy Word for Simple:
Your job is to focus on my personal happiness, she said, & I’ve got big plans, so break time is over.
—Brian Andres, Storypeople
I wonder–especially on Mondays–what it might be like to have a personal assistant. Someone whose job it would be do to all the things I don’t like about my life . . . What tasks would you assign to your personal assistant?
I’m sure there are others but these come most immediately to mind.
I’ve caught up with one of my on-line courses. Here’s my second digital layout. I’m really getting into this!
The last week of school ate up all my time. I fell behind in my on-line courses and on the Her Space: My Space challenges. Here a few to catch up:
6-24
6-23
My Write-On Journal for Amy Sorenson’s journaling course on BPS.
6-21
6-20 Press: my great-grandmother’s iron. I use it as a weight for books/layouts while the adhesive dries.
6-15
I’m taking Jessica Sprague’s online digital scrapbooking course “Up and Running.” I have her book Computer Tricks for Scrapbooking and I read her blog regularly so I was pretty sure I’d learn a lot in the course. I’ve completed my first digital layout (ever) and she made it really easy. Every day we get an email with more tips, kits to download, and midweek assignments. One more day with kids at school, three more days altogether, and then I can concentrate on the fun stuff. Here’s the first layout:
