Creating a mirror image in Picasa

 

 

Have you ever worked on a project and

decided that you needed a mirror image

for printing?  Commonly used

for  T-shirt transfers, especially if you

have text in your image.  No one feels like

standing in front of a mirror to read the text

on your T-shirt. 

Good old Photoshop sometimes takes

too long for me to remember how to do

anything, so I use Picasa for the down

and dirty quick stuff, especially on the blog.

 

Mirror mirror on the wall

tell me what my

T-shirt says 

 

For some reason our printer will not print

out a mirror image, or reverse transfer

print.  Great, so after

spending some time on the internet I

learned how easy it is to make a reverse

print.  Open Picasa, choose the image

you wish to reverse, hit Control, Shift H,

or even try Control Shift V. 

H is for horizontal, V is for vertical…now you

know another Picasa trick.

 

I love Picasa…..♥

 

♥….Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

If you can’t find the ocean, make your own waves

 

My longing to visit the ocean is strong

but it’s over 5 hours away, and that trip

isn’t going to happen for awhile.  I knew

that I needed to visit some where there

was lots of water.

 

The North Okanagan is

made up of some of the

most stunning lakes in

Canada.

 

Problem solved. Day trip!

We went to Ellison Provincial park, which is on Okanagan lake,  the views are stunning, the water is beautiful, and the chipmunks ran wild between the trees.

 

 

The waves lapped at the shoreline of red volcanic rock, and the craggy trees reached for the sky tinted so blue it looked unreal.

 

 

And just so you can picture how big Okanagan Lake is, it runs from Vernon, to Penticton.

 

 

That’s a one hour and 47 minute drive, or about 115 kms.  A very long way….what a lake.

 

 

So if you can’t find your ocean, choose the next best thing, a lake. And make it do for now.

 

 

Dog paddling….Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

Half of my heart–the ocean has half of my heart

 

I have always said the ocean has part of

my heart, it always will.  Born by the ocean

grew up by the ocean, the waters lapping

the sandy beach watched as I learned to

walk.  The raging waves soothed my soul

on days when I was a little turbulent myself.

The tang of the salt air, the cries of the gulls.

 

My heart, half of my heart

belongs to the ocean

but the larger half belongs

up here.

 

Those are sounds and scents I will never let leave my heart.  But is it possible to love something, and still be homesick when you live where your heart has decided is your home? 

 

 

This is our home, it’s always felt like we were wrenching ourselves away when we left here to go back to the coast. Our hearts have decided this is where we shall live, and I am at peace with this, it’s what we want.  But part of me is still standing on the West Coast, beside the waves as they crash through the driftwood.

 

 

How can I give my heart to two homes? Can a person live loving two places, this is home but the ocean still has half of my heart. 

The North Okanagan is where we have chosen to live, it’s our home, it’s our desire to live here, but the ocean has the other half of my heart, and I don’t want it to give it up. 

 

 

I do not long for the rain, the crowds, the pollution, just the ocean, all by myself, the breeze laden with salt blowing my hair into tangles…the gulls keening overhead. My camera in my hand, the clouds moody, the sand damp with foam.  It’s no wonder the ocean has half of my heart.

 

 

The other half, the larger half belongs up here, with the farmland, the mountains, the crystal clear streams, the rivers raging, the fields of golden ripening wheat.  The eagles, the crows the wildlife that we see on a daily basis that have replaced the crowds.

 

 

And I don’t know if the ocean will ever give back it’s half of my heart, or if I want it to do so.

Do you long to live in two places, is your heart in pieces?  Or are you living where your heart has decided it should be?

 

Listening to the waves in my heart…..Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

Thunder, sparks, hail, not just another everyday storm

 

 

I apologize for the poor quality of these photos, it was very dark, and rainy, but sometimes a photo IS worth a thousand words.  And yes, that’s hail, and it got even bigger later on.

 

They do it big up here in the Okanagan,

thunderstorms that is…huge, giant

black clouds complete with crashing

thunder, and  lightning that lights up the

sky, gale force winds that whip trees

around, it looked like the photos

of Florida in a hurricane that they show on

the news.

Crashing clouds, flashing skies, 

branches falling onto power lines,

now that

is a thunderstorm.

At first when the sky darkened we thought “oh maybe it will rain a bit” it was hot and muggy just after dinner.  Beautiful, the sun setting, a golden glow through the trees, dark clouds, until suddenly out of nowhere the clouds started to bump into each other like shoppers at a blue light sale.

 

 

Lighting lit up the sky, it was fun to watch, until the rain started, scary, noisy, wet, there was water all over, driving winds pushing the cedar hedges over, and shaking down the giant fir trees that have lived here longer then any of us. 

 

 

Rain cascading down the roof, hitting the windows, and then it turned to hail…big chunks of ice trying it’s best to come through the windows.  The ground white, in town, lesser hail, but still damaging here.

Gardens destroyed beyond anything that should be happening at this time of year, tree branches snapping and falling into the power lines, sparks flashing in the rain.  Even we newcomers understand this is not normal for this time of year.

 

What worries me is that the old timers tell us that they have never seen storms like that last two we have had.

 

 

As a gardener, and as a newbie to this part of the world, I watch the changes in the weather in order to understand our new climate.  It’s hotter, colder, and harsher up here, but I suppose after a few seasons of each we will be old hats at this.

 

Making snowballs from the hail…..Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

Creative cat designs a Zen garden

 

 

Bootsie our cat, is a creative cat

he has to be, otherwise how could

he be fed on demand, take up most of

the bed, and get the best chair in the

house.

Yesterday he decided to build a Zen garden.

 

Creative cat designs and

builds own Zen garden

say’s it’s purr-fect for kitties

 

 

After he came up with the idea he just lay there for a few minutes to let the creative design process purr-culate. 

 

 

A bit of paw shaking to loosen up, and he got into the zone.

 

 

 

A pat here, a paw there, a few purrs as he contemplated the simplicity of the whole Zen idea.

 

 

Move this rock just a little, it’s all very feng shui you know…it must be purr-fectly aligned.

 

 

He felt it was a little furry to worry, so he decided to just go with the purr-fection of his fe-lines.

 

 

 After all when you are a creative cat anything in life is puss-able.

 

 

And there, he is has finished, now to think what cat-agory he will put this latest creation in?

 

 

Purr-fection, that’s it.

 

 

He’s says don’t bother him right now, he is meditating….and doing yoga at the same time, cat on back  ummmmmmmmmmmm.  Because he is so very cat-aple of multi tasking.

 

 

Ummmmmmmm……..Jen [and Bootsie] @ Muddy Boot Dreams,

Garden tours 5 cents

 

Our little back porch is a darling space

slightly crowded out by the BBQ, which

is a big hulking cherished mound of

stainless steel.  [He says how could it

possibly be out in the weather?]

It needed a bit of outdoor decor in my

mind, he thinks the BBQ is perfectly

enough.

 

Garden tours 5 cents, see the

 

butterflies, and the birds.

 

There is more room beyond the porch, if you travel out onto the new patio that we created out of what we had, and a little ingenuity.  It does us well for now, the steps are slight, and easy to negotiate.  But what I wanted most was a sign to hang on the post that holds up the corner of the house….

 

 

It needed to have character, ours is a Cape Cod house, so a slightly traditional look is good. And I love the look of the graphite, and cream colored ASCP gives it a crisp edge.

 

 

Easily customized, I copied the letters out on the printer, and transferred them with pencil shading to the back of the paper. 

 

 

Remember to shade the back of the paper first, and not waste time by tracing it all out without putting the pencil shading on the back.  Did that one over and over….

 

 

Afterwards I distressed it with the sander because I wanted a faded worn look.

 

 

This is one of my favourite places to sit outdoor, we eat our dinner there many nights when it is balmy, it’s like a private cafe with a lovely view of the garden, the Boo, and my turquoise trickling fountain.

 

Delighting in the garden…..Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

Cherries are the pits

I’m sure some bloggers remember

my leaving comments on their blogs

about how I was so looking forward

to canning, and freezing, and growing

everything from scratch when we

moved up here.

It’s harvest day every day,

up here right now.

This is like the fruit capital of Canada or

something….and everyone is trying to give

fruit away to friends and neighbours.

 

 

We get offers from complete strangers who know someone who knows someone who knows us….it’s there for the taking, it’s wonderful, it’s free, and it’s a heck of a lot of work.

 

 

How woefully unprepared I am for doing anything other then the limited amount of freezing that I have done so far.  I have to ask myself as I pit my millionth cherry…who’s great idea was this?  Oh right, this is what I wanted.

 

 

Where are the steamy memories of my Mom wiping the sweat from her brow, as she blanched and peeled yet another peach…plucked green beans till her fingers bled, and canned cherries, plums, apricots and blueberries. Our hot little kitchen just a glowing with the canned fruit, and jams lining up the countertops, all neatly covered in clean tea towels.  The popping sounds would echo through the house all night as the jars cooled, and the lids contracted.

 

 

I remember skipping in with bare feet, dusty legs, and tangled hair, damp after playing in the backyard sprinkler all afternoon, and there was my Mom in the kitchen.  Dishevelled, tired, and so happy that she had once again attacked that mountain of fruits and veg they picked up at the country stands all in order to save her family from starvation that winter.

 

 

Apricots and peaches our favourite, cherries, and blueberries the close second.  We didn’t like the canned plums, those lasted until the next spring, and the masses of peaches were gone by Christmas.

Do you can? Did your Mom can?  Did you live the life of delicious canned fruit for desert in the dead of winter?  I still have those glorious memories of jars of fruit all lined up….

 

Pitting cherries again….Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

Raising money for the muffler fund

 

 

Bless their noisy little hearts but it seems we

have a few obnoxious people

driving back and forth, who need to be given

some money to buy a muffler for their

decrepit old cars.

BBBBBRRRUUUUUUMMMMMMM

Pppppfffffddddddttttttttttttt

That’s the noisy red car.

BREAK MY EARDRUMS

AT 5:31 AM why don’t you?

And then again at 5:59, 7:15, and 9:45, AM and PM. And there goes that black truck that makes so much noise. 

Buddy get some springs…

Why on earth do the noisy ones have to go back and forth all day?  [These are not pics of the noisy ones].

Down on the coast we had a program called Air Care, in which vehicles had to be certified road worthy before being insured, everyone hated it, and it was expensive, but it worked.  None of our little noisemakers would pass up here, we don’t have anything like it here so they have a great time driving old clunkers.

[Just joking] So we, as a neighbourhood are raising funds for a new muffler for the obnoxious people who refuse to spend a pitifully small amount on those noise reducing chunks of metal.

We are going door to door collecting for a good cause, muffler for Mikey, quiet for Kevin, and soundless for Sam.

 

Care to donate?

 

Can’t hear you, I have ear plugs in….Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

Party line blogging

 

If you are of a certain age, ahem…

you will remember party lines.  That’s

when more then one house shared the

same telephone line.  There was a

distinctive ring for each house, but

anyone connected could listen in.

 

What I love about blogging is the comments

and how they just kind of flow back and forth

between the blogger, the reader, and that

sometimes other readers add to the thread. 

To me it’s kind of like having a old fashioned

party line, but everyone’s invited to listen in.

But if you have your comments emailed to you as a blogger then you can become easily confused when the thread takes a jump. 

Let’s say you are blogging about the garden, and a certain flower, but yesterday you mentioned a party that you held.  Although it does tell you which blog post the comment was made on, sometimes in the back and forth things get mixed up, and you forget whom you are talking to and about what.

Reader 1,  great decorations, love the pink

Blogger, thanks got it at the dollar store

Reader 2, which variety is it?

Blogger, the local one just down the street

Reader 3, love the pink

Blogger, oh thanks I like the pink tablecloth too

Reader 3, I meant the flower

Blogger, but I didn’t get them at the dollar store

Reader 2, which variety is that?

Blogger,  the tablecloth, or the flower?

I'm no longer sure….

So if you get weird replies from me regarding something that has nothing to do with the blog post, now you know why.

 

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams