No tutorial today

I have a tutorial in the works, but the finished photos were not as good as they should be due to the limitations of my camera. More on that later. So here are a few things I have been doing this week.


Beginning on Tuesday, I auditioned different photos or images for the recycled project I'm making for Kathy's birthday. Yep, it's late, but it can't be helped. Originally, I was going to use the horse and sleigh on the left. I wanted it to look good against the background.


Then I picked out an image from the stash that Kathy gave me for my birthday and auditioned it in place. I like the photo, but not the colors of the corrugated cardboard background. Maybe I can fix that.


I got out some cheesecloth, a crafter's best friend and doused it with walnut ink. The first one is in the back by the red mesh bag. I used a lighter hand on the one draped in front because the darker one just blended in with the cardboard. I want to wash some of the cheesecloth in my machine before I use it, so wanted to see if the little red bag would qualify as a mesh bag. Not sure I'll use it, but it's a thought, since I don't have a mesh bag to wash things in.

As I was fiddling with the cheesecloth and admiring the paper towel I dyed in the process, my neighbor Sally called and told me she had just finished her taxes and wanted to celebrate. She invited me to lunch and said it was a surprise.

Off we went to the east side of town to a wonderful place called Sweet Basil. I had never been, so this turned out to be more of a treat for me than Sally, I think.


I can't tell if Sally is smiling because her taxes are finished,


or because the waiter came to greet us at the door with a smile and a dance.


I even caught the reflection of myself in the door.



Inside was the best buffet I have ever had. It was all hot and the quality of the food was unsurpassed.


There was fettuccine and alfredo sauce, four cheese lasagna, and other pastas, one that had sausage in it.


I lived at the fruit and salad bar. The lighting was so low in the place, even during lunch, I couldn't get a decent photo of the watermelon, cantaloupe, and strawberries. It's too bad, too. They were all scrumptious.

When I got back home, I worked on my tutorial project, then called it a day.

The next day was my friend Scott's birthday. We went to Lowe's Home Center and picked out lumber for Scott's new garage. Then we went to lunch and when I told the waitress it was his birthday, they brought him this huge cookie. HUGE. Next it was back to Scott's to unload the trailer. So where are the photos? Well, they are on


this, a Kodak Zi6. It belonged to Scott, but he didn't like it, so he gave it to me. Can you believe he gave ME a gift on HIS birthday!! This is the front, the part with the lens


and this is the back with the LCD screen. I can't get the photos off the camera, though. I tried to follow the instructions on the manual, but something didn't work. In fact, I messed the computer up so badly, it froze up and wouldn't restart until it ran through a complete (about 30 minute) recovery and diagnostic, while I wrung my hands in worry.

Thankfully Dana came by with her camera and took a few glorious photos. Sadly, her card wouldn't fit in any of the FOUR card readers I have. Go figure. So she went home because it was late and promised to send me the photos.


Sadly, this is what she sent me. It's a lovely dessert from a recent meal, but it won't work in the tutorial. Hopefully, I'll figure out what I'm doing wrong before I try to plug my "new" Zi6 camera in again.

Since Earth Day will be here in a week, I want to celebrate by featuring eco-friendly blogs and web sites. Today I am doing just that. In fact, the site, called Modern Eco Homes, rates web sites and blogs by how eco-friendly they are. The link I've provided takes you directly to their ratings page. I see they also list Inhabitat.com, a site I found and featured earlier this month. It's number 4 out of 30, simply confirming what I already knew. Have fun and do something eco-friendly today while I figure out how to not crash my computer by plugging in my camera.