Fotor.com update.

Fotor.com update.

Recently, I posted about the photo editor, fotor.com. Well, when I went back to use it this week, some of the features that were free before, were not available without a fotor watermark on the photo or were black when I tried to save them to another spot. All of this means that is not such a good deal (free) after all. I went ahead and signed up for a year's subscription at $3.33/ month. I guess that's not too bad of a cost, especially since it was late at night and I was trying to get a project done. 

Sorry that I steered you wrong. As I use it more, I'll update you on what I think.

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I am thank for fotor.com.

When I first started blogging, I used the free photo editor Picasa. It worked great.  Besides basic edits, it made collages and blurred things out. Then Google bought Picasa and retired it. After that, I have been on a long search for a replacement. I had PicMonkey for a while, even bought the advanced version, but it was awkward to use and, in my opinion, wasn't worth the cost. Then the other day I found a free version of fotor.com. It's the standard set up. The program offers you basics and you can pay for more advanced features if you want. I was thrilled because with the free version, I found a way to blur out personal things in a photo so I can post it.

So for the free photo editing app, fotor.com, I am thankful.

I am also thankful for my cousins, some of which I saw at my recent family reunion. However because of fotor, you won't be able to see them very well. Just as I had planned. And for that, I am thankful.

And So It Begins

or We're Getting a New Porch

Since we bought our first house years ago, Ward has wanted a place to sit outside and listen to the rain. Let me rephrase that, Ward has wanted a place to sit outside and listen to the rain without getting wet. So when we determined that our 30 year old deck needed to be replaced for safety reasons, we decided it was finally time to get our porch with a roof. 

While we've had a lot of remodeling work done over the years, this is the first time that we are having new construction and I am going to chronicle the process here. 

This is the deck that came with our house. We might have just replaced some of the upper parts, but the posts underneath were rotting at the ground.

The first step was to work with an architect to draw up plans.  This was a multistage process with a dialog about what we wanted (a roof and easy maintenance) and what was possible within a reasonable budget. After we agreed on the plans, we sent them to 5 contractors asking for bids. We picked one and soon thereafter we had a signed contract. 

Next step was clearing the deck to get ready for the workers. Ward took out a section of railing so we could hand things over the side. One of the problems with the old deck was the very narrow ramp onto the deck. That is going away in the new design.

After they finally got the permit, next was the mobilization. They brought in the lumber,

A dumpster,

and a Port a John. Then I knew this was definitely bigger than any project we had been involved in before. We had a Port-a John on site! (BTW, they will empty it weekly or when we call.)

After mobilization, they started with demo day, of course. Now we're committed.

Next up will be the mason who will dig and install the masonry piers. Until next time...

Thankful Sunday, November 3, 2019

I am thankful for leftover Halloween Candy.

I have a sweet tooth. And therein lies the problem. As we all know, a steady diet of sweets is bad for us. Except around Halloween. :)

This Halloween was a bad weather day here. Rain all day, thunderstorms, tornado watches--not the best weather for little ones to go out Trick-or-Treating.  So while we had visits from some little ghosts and goblins, the numbers were down from other years resulting in leftover candy. I have enjoyed at least one piece of this leftover candy every day.  And each piece has been delicious.

So for the enjoyment of this extra Halloween candy, I am thankful. And for the fact that Ward and Theo are saving me from eating all of the candy at once, I am also thankful. 

Thankful Sunday, October 27, 2019

I am thankful that my spell check is fixed.

The old-fashioned spell check my mother used.
I still like to look in it sometimes.

I used to be a good speller. I got 100% on all of my spelling tests in grade school. I was runner up to the school champion at the spelling bee in 8th grade. I really never gave spelling a second thought. It was easy. Just use the phonics spelling rules, learn a few exceptions and that was that.

I was enlightened, when I had kids, that spelling was not so automatic for everyone. When Wally was learning to write, we thought he was just writing gibberish. That was until we got a program that read what he had written. And by golly, it was full of words, sentences, and stories. However, my mind that spelled most things correctly couldn't comprehend Wally's way of spelling. He helped me understand that spelling was something that was easy for some and not for others. But it was easy for me.

Jump ahead a few years to when word processing, including spell check, was widely available. Then I no longer had to remember how to spell everything, but I was still pretty good at it. Spell check was mostly catching my typos.

Leap ahead more years and the "use it or lose it" principle was starting work. I got used to spell check spelling for me and I wasn't so good at spelling anymore. I knew that I just had to approximate the word and spell check would take care of the rest.

And now today, I don't know how to spell most complicated words and especially get mixed up with all of the short vowel sounds in words. Is it an e, i, or a that goes in that syllable? I don't always get it right. I have come to depend on spell check for that.

So when a couple of weeks ago, the spell checker on our email program stopped working, I was at a loss. The checker never found any problems, but I knew that wasn't right. I certainly hadn't sent out a weeks worth of emails without one spelling mistake. After some investigation, I figured out that the dictionary had been deleted. I fixed that and I'm back in business again.

So for the fact that the spell checker on my email program is fixed and I don't have to depend on my poor spelling skills, I am thankful.

Note: There is certainly a lot of discussion to be had about the pros and cons of how technology is changing our brains. Specifically in this case, whether or not it's good that spell check has taken away many of our spelling skills or that it has relieved us of spelling hassles so we can concentrate on other parts of communication. But I'll save that for another time.

(And we won't even go into auto correct, the old grammar rules we are losing with texting, etc.)

Random thoughts

Time for another random post of whatever jumps into my head. Well, not actually that because even I don't think I could make sense of all of the thoughts that bounce around in my head. I guess it would more appropriate to say that this is a post with no theme, no purpose, no main idea. One that would probably fail as an English assignment. But thankfully, those days are behind me, so let me ramble on.

I've had my first cold-weather cold. I could have picked it up anywhere, but I suspect it was the system-wide work meeting I went to last Monday with a couple of hundred other people. I was pretty miserable for a while, but I am on the tail end of it now. Perhaps the hardest part of the whole malady was not going to work for a couple of days. I could have functioned and done what I needed to do at work so it was hard to stay away. But I have finally learned that it is not being fair to my co-workers if I show up sick with something that I can spread to them. And maybe I would have been fooling myself to think that I could have functioned just fine, because I did more daytime sleeping than I ever remember doing while I was home those couple of days.

Last weekend, I acted on impulse and bought a bag of 50 tulip bulbs from Costco. My thinking went something like this. The picture is so pretty on the bag. And I love tulips in the spring. And we don't have any. And it won't take that long to plant them. And the price is good. So into the basket they went. However, there was one detail I forgot about when I was convincing myself that I just had to have them. I didn't have any beds with the right sunlight to plant them in. I was so proud of myself that I got down to business and prepared a new planting spot. But then there was a second problem that reared it's ugly head. The bulbs needed to be planted 6 inches deep and every inch I dug was filled with rocks, some big, some little, but all spade stopping size. I enlisted Ward's help and with a total of 4 man-hours, we planted 39 bulbs. I'm not sure where the other 11 will go, but by golly, the ones that are already planted better come up next spring and be beautiful just like the picture on the bag she says with a sneer instead a twinkle in her eye. It may take another couple of days before I get back to appreciating the time I spent in nature planting some of her wonders. :)

Recently on vacation, Ward and I visited Glade Creek Mill in Babcock State Park in West Virginia. The mill and its surroundings create a very photogenic scene and have been photographed many times. I was happy on this visit that I finally got to take my own picture of it. Lili of Creative Savv suggested that it would make a good jigsaw puzzle and I agreed. I thought it would make a perfect gift for Ward for Christmas since he loves to work puzzles. I have done this before with other pictures we have taken and found that if you get more than a 100 or so pieces, it can be very expensive.  Anyway, as I was researching "homemade" puzzles both on the internet and in our puzzle supply, guess what I found? A 1000 piece puzzle of the Glade Creek Mill. I don't remember having it, but in my defense, Ward is in charge of what is in our puzzle inventory. So I don't think I need to make another puzzle of that scene. I'll cross that one off my list of To Do's before Christmas. Now what am I going to replace that idea with? Think. Think. Think. Nope, I've got nothing.

Last night we had a few family and friends over to celebrate my sister's birthday. It was fairly low key with help from several directions. However, I think was the biggest help to me, was Theo. Because I have been staying away from the kitchen while I've been sick, I told him what we had planned so far and he took care of everything including the shopping and preparing. And for that I am thankful.

Being thankful seems like a good place to end, until next time...