Month: March 2019

Lovely Day, Free Night

Today has really been a beautiful Friday. Unfortunately Craig has to work a 12-hour day, so I saw him off by 10 in the morning and he won’t be home until it least 10 this evening. I feel bad for him having to work so many hours. But soon after he left Angelica and I went to Target and she got to pick out some new clothes. We grabbed some household items while we were there too.

After that we went to Red Lobster for a mommy daughter date. We talked about all sorts of things, but especially monsters and unicorns. Angelica really educated me. There are monsters that are microscopic, and there’s a unicorn on Pikes Peak.

When we were finished eating we went home and it was time to do some serious housework. Angelica decided to be a buddy helper the whole time. She helped me scoop lavender into a new container to make the kitchen smell nice. She helped put away the towels that I folded. She put the detergent in the laundry machine. She put her clothes away in her drawers. She picked stuff up. Angelica was a busy little bee. Angelica wiped down counters with Lysol wipes as well. She helped me take out the trash and the recycling. And this is just a partial list. My buddy helper has been a very good helper today.

We worked on two collages together. I bought a bunch of white poster board awhile back, and gradually I’ve been putting together a collage. Every day or two I add a couple of more materials, whether it is a sticker or a piece of cloth or something. I even have some curling ribbon on there. She helped to add to that one, and then I started a new one that’s going to be just stickers of different kinds. She gave me a hand adding the stickers where they were supposed to go. It was nice to have my little artist-in-residence help me with my projects. One day she won’t be in residence, and I will really miss her.

Part of the afternoon was spent hanging out on the porch swing in the backyard. Now we are unwinding some more and in a little while the babysitter will be here. My Friday night is free and I get to decide what to do with it.

Follow The Path

In many of my photographs I have a serious issue with oversaturating the colors. I just can’t help myself. Either I up the saturation after I take the photo or I use settings or an app to make the photo highly saturated to begin with. Technically this is not what most people would consider to be good photography. Partly because over doing almost anything will mean that the photo you’ve created isn’t a good photo, and partly because more muted and softer seem to be a really big thing right now. All I yearn for is vivid, intense color.

At the end of the day I create images that I enjoy seeing. Maybe others will like them and maybe others won’t, but I can’t stand behind any form of art that I make, whether it is photography or painting or something else, unless I myself enjoy looking at it. If I don’t love it, why create it?

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is difficult. This is especially true if the person you need to forgive isn’t sorry.

Everyone has someone in their lives that they need to forgive, whether it’s for something small or something really big. For me, forgiveness is a struggle for sure.

Some people don’t understand forgiveness, or misuse the very concept for their own benefit. Forgiveness doesn’t mean taking someone back into your life. Forgiveness doesn’t mean trusting them again. Forgiveness doesn’t mean making excuses for them. Forgiveness means that you have chosen to let go of any bitterness or anger, not for their benefit but for yours.

I am on a journey of forgiveness. It’s a process. I’m in therapy to try to work things out and I think that’s helping. If I want to be a disciple of Christ I have to forgive. I don’t have to tolerate abuse. I don’t have to take anyone’s crap. But I do need to find it in my heart to forgive those who have wronged me, who have mistreated me.

Blizzard

Today we are locked inside by a blizzard. There has only been a couple of inches of snow fall, but the wind is really high which makes it a bigger storm. Part of our flagpole snapped off and broke. The wind is blowing so hard that the snowflakes can hardly fall to the ground because they keep being pushed sideways across the land. Angelica’s occupational therapy was canceled because the clinic was shut. She did her speech therapy in a video chat. I had an appointment up near Denver and I had to cancel it.

Craig is sleeping because he works a mid tonight. I’m trying to make the most of this day being shut-in. Truthfully I’m really grateful. I feel like I’ve been on the go so much and I’ve just gotten tired of it. There’s always an appointment or something to go to. Sometimes that’s nice, like earlier in the week I got to get the first massage I’ve had in ages. It was absolutely phenomenal. My body felt so good. I’m going to start going more regularly. Other times the speech therapy, tutoring, occupational therapy, psychiatrist, therapist, and all the other appointments really add up. I just want to recharge at home and have a clear schedule.

Earlier this afternoon I set up an art space on the dining room table for Angelica. She used acrylic ink, her watercolors, and alcohol ink to create some art. I think she had fun and it was good to get her using her creativity. Right now I have a TV show on for her. We lost power for a little bit, and now I’m afraid that the power could go out again at any time. I’m running appliances as much as I can. Laundry and dishes are running. I’ve been charging up my phone and charging up my Kindle, since if the power goes out again light will just get dimmer and dimmer and my Kindle will be the only thing I can read from. And then in between charging my phone and my Kindle I am recharging the charger that charges them. Charge. I just had to say that word one more time.

Anyways, I’m just trying to enjoy electricity as much as possible in case we don’t have it again. That probably won’t be an issue, but I want to make sure that everything chargeable is charged just in case, and that I’ve gotten as much housework as I can finished. That’s why I’m letting Angelica watch TV now. Usually I let her watch a little bit in the evening after a day of playing or making art. However, since it’s a possibility we might be sitting in a dark house later I’ve decided to put it on now.

My little artist!

Photo Editing Programs

I am toying with the notion of learning how to work with multiple layers when I edit photographs. It would be nice to make some collages and other art that way. I have signed up for a Photoshop free trial. I can’t seem to get it to actually work, but I guess I’ll see what happens.

When I was looking around at photo programs I found out that there is one that is trying to compete with Adobe Photoshop now. It’s called Affinity Photo. I’m starting to watch videos to learn some things about it and I’m going to ask around if I can and get some opinions from people. It’s definitely a better price. Photoshop has always been expensive, but once upon a time you could buy the software and then that was it. You owned it. Now you don’t have to front hundreds of dollars straight off the bat, but you never actually own the software. You have to pay for it every month and the first month that you can’t or don’t pay, that software can no longer be used. Whether you have already given them a hundred bucks or you’ve already given them a couple of thousand. It’s a subscription-based service. I really don’t like that. Number one that becomes very expensive. Number two, I like to own things. With this other photo program the initial cost is around $50 from what I’m reading. Maybe it’s gone up. That really isn’t a bad price anyway, and once you put the money up the software is yours.

First I need to find out if Affinity Photo is as powerful as Photoshop. And if it is not as powerful as Photoshop, does it matter for the things I want to do? Then I will need to learn to use a new program if I decide to go with Affinity. It’s been several years since I have really used Photoshop and so I have lost most of the knowledge I had as it is. But this would be a completely different program so I would really be starting from scratch.