Photo and enhancement by Chris Duffy 

This picture was taken while I was in Palm Beach on a business trip with my husband.  I just love bougainvilleas.  So much so, that we planted several of them in our yard in Dallas . . . I know . . . we SHOULD have known better.    We had kind of hoped that the secluded little corner we put them in would be sufficiently shielded from the cold that they could make it.  It's the side yard and it's at a part where it's only about 5 ft wide and is bordered by a fence on two sides and a house on the third side, with the only exposed side being the East side and so we thought they'd survive, but not so.   

Photo by Alice Woodrome . . . . . . . . . . . . Enhancement by Chris Duffy (with Alice's help)

This was one of the very early pictures that I enhanced.   I was at Alice's house for a long week end and she was showing me how to manipulate pictures and had me pick a picture from her hard drive and she walked me through the enhancement process.  This started out as a photo of Alice's backyard, which by the way is no longer her back yard since she's building the new house . . but I digress.   She helped me step by step as I tried to absorb all she was saying.  I'm not sure if I started with the original photo today that I could do it this well again, but at any rate, I now have so much fun "playing" with my own photos and sharing them here on Xanga.  And I have Alice to thank for that.  Aren't sisters WONDERFUL!!!  Don't you think EVERYONE should have one!

A house in Chipping Camden in the Cotswolds               Picture and enhancement by Chris Duffy

I am getting sooooooooo excited about our upcoming trip to England. We've started making hotel reservations, cottage reservations and getting our rental car all lined up.  I thought we were starting a little early, but Mike said we're actually getting a late start on this process.  He was worried that we wouldn't be able to find a cottage available, but we have 12 to choose from.  My only regret is that my sister won't be coming along with us.  I just know she'd love it, but she IS going to go to England . . . someday.   But then if my sister came along I'm afraid my husband would really feel like the odd man out, because Alice and I both LOVE taking pictures with our digital cameras and Mike could care less.  He also doesn't like it when I have him stop the car every ten minutes for another photo opp.  That to me is the PERFECT vacation. . . seeing new places and getting to stop as many times as I like to get wonderful memorable pictures. 

You see, I have such a poor memory, and the pictures help a lot to keep the vacations alive for a long long time. 

Rosemary Verey's Garden                      Picture and Enhancement by Chris Duffy

Here is one of my favorite pictures from the trip my husband and I took to England some years ago.  Many of the larger mansions have gardens that you can pay to go through and this was one such garden.  Come to find out this lady was a gardening guru know the far and wide for some of the gardens she had planned and mapped out for people around the world, including some in our home state of Texas.  Dottie, the wife of the other couple with us, was thrilled to even be in the garden of the famous Rosemary Verey.  We had no thoughts of actually meeting her.  My husband was roaming around looking at other parts of the garden and happened to meet the lady as she sat in her study with the windows and doors wide open.  He talked to her for several moments before he realized that it was . . . Rosemary.  When he came back to us and told us that he'd actually met Rosemary, Dottie didn't believe him.  Was she ever thrilled when we all made our way over that direction and met her herself.  I'm sure Rosemary had more pressing matters to attend to than to visit with some tourists, but she was most gracious and we chatted for about 10 minutes.  Dottie was on cloud nine when we left.    

Cotswolds Cat                                                                         Photo & enhancement by Chris Duffy

Oh, the headaches of picking out wallpaper.  We've wanted to rewallpaper the guest bathroom in our present house ever since we moved in a year and a half ago and we're finally getting around to that project.  But, I can't seem to make up my mind on which paper to choose.  We walk into the wallpaper place and there are several hundred wallpaper books to look through, and who has time to go through them all?  I found a couple patterns that I like, but they're not PERFECT so I keep wondering if one of those other books has just the right pattern in it.  My husband is so impatient, he just wants me to choose one, ANY one.  I thought we were going to spend a couple hours in the store to find the paper, but after 10 minutes, hubby wanted to take two books home and pick one out there.  I knew I shouldn't have agreed to him going along.