ut oh . . .

All this talk about the size of Bear's feet and his fluffy tail and now the very beginnings of a ruff, are sparking even more comments about being at least part Maine Coon, so what's a girl to do but google. This is the very first shot of a Maine Coon that comes up!!!!!Oh my gosh. When I said there would be more to love, I was talking more cat . . . . you could saddle this beastie. Look at him. He's the size of golden retriever!!!!! Yikes! I think we're going to need a larger pantry!!!

air bones . . .

Since the kittens are rescue animals, we have no idea exactly when they were born or under what circumstances. We are just grateful to have them. The vet is guessing Bear was born in May and Ninja in June, about a month apart. But the original thought was that Bear was much older because of his size. He has paws the envy of a small elephant. Not until they found out how many baby teeth were still intact did she tell me we had a soon to be mamouth beastie on our hands. Sounds good to me . . . more cat to love. Ninja, on the other hand, is neat and petite. Tiny squirrel feet. So why when Bear is more than double her size, does he weigh not much more??? Air Bones. He is rangy with no body mass whatsoever . . . the only possible conclusion is bones made from air. He is light as a feather. You can hear her running . . . clomping . . . down the hall, he wisps past her in single bounds . . . quiet, muffled bounds.

Digi Lesson 2 . . .

this is just crazy fun. When I think of all the hours I sat trying to teach myself PSE4 and wanted nothing more than to throw a well aimed brick through my screen . . . amazing what one can learn with a good teacher. So here is this weeks layout.

We learned how to:

work with two photos

use a digi alphabet for a title and recolor it

use multiple fonts

make bullet points and keep them constrained

add elliptical ovals as accents

load and use brushes.

OK, so we cheated again and used a preplanned background paper that included the stripes, calendar and bottom flourish but the rest is all done in steps . . . albeit it baby steps . . . they are mine and I am learning!!!! Hot diggity dog!

monkeyshines . . .

we are full of rituals here in the cave. Even the cats have rituals. Everyone gets a half a can of cat food bright and early each morning . . . to the tune of much mewing, mirrups, leg rubbings and other such goings on. But from there they differ. All Snoop wants to do is eat in peace. He is a slow eater. He will finish 2/3 of his plate, wander off to see the world and come back and eat the rest at his leisure. Unfortunately, the other beasties, Bear and Ninja, like his wet food better then theirs. Dry food is not the issue. So as soon as Snoop's breakfast plate hits the floor, three vultures attack. Two are immediately air lifted to the privacy of the bedroom to their own plate. Soon Snoop is done with his first course and meanders off asking to be let out on the pool deck for his daily patrol. The babies therefore consider leftovers as fair game.

My first attempt to protect Snoop's vittles was to stick them on top of the cubicles. They were safe there for all of two days until Ninja discovered she could climb onto the desk chair, balance on its back and leap to the top of the cubicles and chow down. Next, I slid Snoop's plate into one of the lower vertical shelves. It was safe until Ninja conned Bear, who is much bigger, into standing like a meerkat and fishing for the plate until it could be brought to the edge and dumped. The only other option was to use a higher shelf and this worked successfully for several weeks . . . until this morning.

In broad daylight right before my eyes, they planned the theft . . . could I not see from across the room??? To regress a moment, both kittens have learned that if they hop onto either desk chair with any velocity, it will scooch under their weight. Keeping this in mind, Ninja managed to move the chair, stationed away from the shelving unit, closer and closer, but being vertically challenged, she needed Bear to actually reach in and snag the object of their affection. So with the chair moved into position and Bear's longer arms, I watched the paper plate being scooched to the edge until it slipped out of place and flipped onto the floor dislodging it's contents into the waiting mouths of two miniature terrorists. Snoop was not at all happy. Nor, must I admit, was I. Now I need a new and more inventive hiding place or Snoop needs to learn to eat while the eating is good. God bless the ingenuity of kittens (and Robbie Mooney).

YAY KATIE!

day 3 of digital . . .

This is so much fun I can't stand it. Here is today's assignment ;

This layout required that we convert a photo to black and white and insert it under the premade background to peek through the window. I added the M accent from today's kit and learned how to match the journaling to the size of the lines in the journaling box. Hooray!!! But we all know I am not big on reading instructions, and so I used a photo that had already been played with, and as a result, the definition wasn't as strong. So I tried again with an untouched photo. Much better.

You might want to skip reading my blog for the next couple of weeks because I am going to be blathering mostly about this month long course. Lovin' it.

happy, happy, happy

now it's not that a lot of you didn't already know this but I am a dork . . . especially when it comes to computer programs . . . specifically PSE4. I bought the program two years ago and I still am fumbling around with it . . . countless times, I have thrown my hands in the air, screamed expletives and come milli-seconds from deleting the entire program. This compounded by a very low frustration tolerance level does not make for a good learning environment and yes, I even bought Scott Kelbey's book.

Ok, so I can fix my teeth, remove 10 years worth of wrinkles, instantly remove the gray hair, but I cannot make a digital layout. Having been a paper scrapper for years, I was curious about digital. I would settle for semi digital . . . hybrid . . a single transparent flourish . . . anything. So when I saw a plug for Jessica Sprague's digital course for beginners, I thought what the heck, what is the worst that can happen . . . can she really expel me? Could I be made to stand in the corner with a dunce cap on? Sent to the principal? I signed up.

Well, good grief . . . one lesson down and I completed a layout. Alright, I admit we started with a predone background but I actually inserted a photo, learned text, added a grunge frame . . . did I mention I love anything grunge? . . . added an element and learned to save it to the web:

Ta da!!!!

This is the coolest thing since sliced bread . . . way cooler. I am giddy . . . doing my tippy tap dance. Will I give up paper . . . no way. Will I forge ahead with digital. Absolutely.