This is the latest submission of mine for the Digital Nuts Weekly Nutcracker challenge. It doesn't look anything like I thought it would or at least not anything like I was trying to get it to look, but dog gone it . . . I like it anyway. It will take me months and months to learn Photo Shop, but at least I'm learning which of the many filters I like. There are literally thousands of settings and combinations thereof to boggle the mind. But hey . . . I'm having fun.

This was one of the Digital Nuts challenges this week.  I couldn't upload it, so Alice had to upload it for me. I did a 2nd challenge picture but could not upload it either.  I don't know if something is wrong with my computer or not . . . but . . .  fiddle dee dee, I'll worry about that tomorrow.

Imagine my surprise this morning when the door bell rang and there was a delivery person with flowers for me. Lovely yellow tulips in a beautiful red vase. They were from my son and his wife, although he had said last week not to be surprised if something came from Mike on Valentine's Day. Mike was my late husband, and I guess my son remembers how much Mike had loved to surprise me with small gifts on Valentine's Day.  I think it's sweet.

This is my very favorite picture from our recent trip to the zoo. I did just a bit of work on Photo shop on the background. The tiger I left as is.

As you may already know, Alice, Gill and I went to the zoo on Friday.  We really had a great time and the weather was very cooperative. These are some of my favorite shots.

This is one of the Nutcrackers Challenges for this week. I played around with it in Photo Shop, basically just applying filter after filter until I thought it had had enough filtering. You can see what the original photo looked like here.  I really don't have a clue what I'm doing in PS but I am trying to learn.  

Find of the day: Time Stops at Grand Central Station

It snowed here over night and all morning and stopped sometime after noon. We got about an inch and a half with drifts up to 8 inches. It's kind of exciting. It snows and stays around only a day or two and then it clears up and we get a little warmer weather for a couple weeks and then we start it all over again.  I guess I wouldn't think it was so exciting if I had to drive to work every day, but since I'm retired I tend to think of it in terms of a school child. It's fun.

Here's another picture from our recent Myriad Gardens trip. I really like cacti, but just not in my house. Thorns are not my idea of a friendly house plant.

Alice is trying very hard to teach me Photo Shop. When I run into a snag, the urge is so great  to go back to Paint Shop Pro because that's what I'm familiar with, but I'm really going to fight that urge. Otherwise I fear I'll never learn Photo Shop.  She was trying help me understand resolution and resizing and thinking in pixels instead of inches. I think we made some progress there.

I've been puny since Monday night and today I FINALLY feel like I'm back in the human race again. I didn't want to over do it by going out shopping or anything like that, so I stayed home today and did a "crafty" project. . . I made a pot holder.

I cut two 10" squares of "home spun" material. Cut six 9" squares of the same material and centered three of the 9" pieces on each of the 10" squares. Then I drew a line from corner to corner and single stitched both of them.

Then I stitched 3/8" away from the first line of stitching and kept repeating until I'd covered the entire squares, being sure to back stitch at the beginning and end of each line. Then I took a small pair of sharp scissors and sliced through the top 3 layers only. I then trimmed both squares down to neat 9" squares.

Placing the slit sides on the outside I stitched both squares together with the stitches running in opposite directions and sewed on a contrasting trim and making a hook for hanging up the potholder.

Then I washed it and dried it and VIOLA . . . it turned into a beautiful chenille pot holder. See the close up that shows the chenille like fuzzy surface. It was fun, but it took me 5 hours.

These Canada Geese stick around Oklahoma City each winter . . . they don't fly north OR south when the weather starts getting bad . . . they stick around here and fly from lake to lake and from field to field. That's our subdivision in the background.

Here's a little bit closer view of them as they congregate in the open field just southeast of our subdivision. What I love is when they fly overhead. When I begin to hear honking overhead I look up and see a couple hundred of them in huge V formations. Unfortunately I never have my camera quite at the ready in time to get a movie of them flying overhead . . . but I'll keep trying.