Thankful Sunday, November 10, 2019

I am thankful for a walk in the woods.

Yesterday was a beautiful fall day. Frost in the morning with warming to the 40's in the afternoon. The perfect day for a walk in the woods. While visiting family, the opportunity presented itself for this walk and I gladly accepted. 

So for the quiet and calm walk I took yesterday in the woods, I am thankful.

And a little later...

Note:
There's a great book by Bill Bryson called A Walk in the Woods that chronicles his attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. The book is typical of Bryson who tells the story with humor and an occasional diversion into a lot of facts about a related subject. I have read it twice.

A couple of years ago, Robert Redford starred in a movie made based on the book which I didn't like as well as the book. The movie made a love story a main focus that was only a very small part of the book. I thought the interesting, fun part is his hiking partner and his foibles not to mention what it's like hiking for months on end.

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.)