Home again

What an amazing six weeks I've had...tripping around North America.

Here's a brief overview.
I started with a couple of days in Brisbane, visiting with my Mum, before flying out to San Francisco via Auckland. This was the worst time I'd ever had flying long distances. I guess the lower back problems I'd been experiencing in the past couple of years came back to bug me. I don't think I could have sat another minute on that plane!

My friend, Kathy, was at the airport in S.F. to meet me and we drove back to her place in San Jose. I had a couple of days to catch up with myself and get over the jetlag which wasn't too bad really. Then we packed up the car Kathy rented and headed off on our driving trip through Oregon. I really enjoyed this trip and I was able to take lots of great photos. We headed to Ashland and from there to the coast. The temperatures inland had been really high which induced fog on the coast. I'd really wanted to see lots of lighthouses but some we didn't get to visit because of the fog. Then when we were coming back, Kathy wanted to go to Crater Lake but it was fogged in with practically no visibility so we decided to go to Diamond Lake instead. I loved the Columbia River Gorge and the waterfalls we saw. We took about ten days and then arrived back in San Jose with a couple of days to spare before I flew out again.

My next flight took me from San Fran to Toronto via Calgary. It was an all-nighter, so I was a little tired when I arrived in Toronto at 6 a.m. Sherry and Gary had come to meet me at the airport and then we drove back to their place, quite a distance from the airport. I arranged a visit with Julie and Sherry drove me there the next day (Monday). It was lovely to catch up with Julie and Mike. The next day, Donna was coming up from Michigan to meet me, but she wasn't arriving until later in the afternoon, so Sherry and I went for a drive to Klineburg. I had loved this quaint village on previous visits so I was a bit disappointed to find that things weren't exactly as I remembered. I did do some good shopping there though.

Donna arrived late in the day and after a quick cuppa, we got my luggage loaded in her van and we took off on my second driving adventure. We had decided to visit Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. There was some quite long stretches of driving involved to cover the distances but we managed to fit a lot in and we saw some great places and enjoyed lots of wonderful scenery. We did decide to stop in Quebec to visit the Old City there and we were pleased we did.

Prince Edward Island was lovely and I enjoyed it immensely. Then we crossed by ferry to Nova Scotia and headed up to Cape Breton Island. There we did the Cabot Trail - one of the best scenic drives in the world. After a couple of nights there we drove back down to Nova Scotia where we went to Peggy's Cove. This was surely one of the highlights of our trip. It is such a gorgeous little place with a wonderful (much photographed and painted) lighthouse. It was at Peggy's Cove that I met some more Beale's, orginally from England, and one who is an artist. We wonder if somewhere along the line, they could be related to my late husband.

The day we left Nova Scotia was one of the most miserable as it was wet and windy. We took the ferry across from Digby to Saint John in New Brunswick across the Bay of Fundy. We'd wanted to see the Bay but we didn't much sight of it, given the rainy weather. I think we were starting to get some of the rain from one of the hurricanes in the Gulf. We then drove back towards the U.S through New Brunswick. I liked New Brunswick and then Maine. We followed the coast down and saw covered bridges and cute little seaside towns. Then we crossed into New York State and headed west. It took us about three days then before we arrived back at Donna's home. As they are in the process of moving house - just a couple of miles from their old place, but crossing state borders - I didn't know whether to say they were in Ohio or Michigan.

I had another three days before Donna drove me into Detroit to board my flight to Toronto. I had a couple of hours in Toronto before my flight which took me to Los Angeles. Jim and his daughter, Nicola, were waiting at the airport to welcome me. We met Ingrid at one of their favourite restaurants and had dinner together before we arrived at their home in Orange. I had a wonderful four days with them and Tully, their 6'4" almost 18 yr old son. On Monday September 15, Jim drove me back into LAX for my flight back to Brisbane, via Auckland. I arrived in Brisbane at 8:30 a.m. and my brother, Paul, was able to come and collect me and take me to Mum's for a couple of hours, before driving me back to the domestic terminal for my flight home to Townsville. I arrived in Townsville on Wednesday 17 at 4 p.m. Ben picked me up and brought me home.

It was good to be home again. I quickly unpacked the 'treasures' I'd brought back for my grandkids and drove around to their place for dinner.

I still haven't recovered from this lot of jetlag. My sleep patterns are all out of whack and I'm quite tired. Tomorrow I start back at work. All too quickly routine takes over and my trip becomes a wonderful memory.

The photos and my travel journal will go into digital scrapbooks in due course and I'll be able to relive my memories through them.

Ahh...what a great time I've had. I thank God that I was blessed with safe travel and good health all the way too. (And I only gained 600 grams in six weeks! I am so pleased with that.)

That's my 'catch up' and hopefully, I'll get back into the swing and get blogging again.

A little progress

Today I organised most of the paperwork for my trip, making photocopies etc. Just a little more paperwork to fix up and then I think that side of things will be done.

I've started pulling things out of cupboards and making lists of what not to forget. I've yet to decide which suitcase to take. I'm hoping for the smaller one of two that I have because it's easier to manage. I'm allowed two suitcases so I'm thinking I may buy another one the same size in the States. That's where I got this one so I may even be able to match it.

I was so engrossed in getting the paperwork right today that time slipped by and when I looked at the clock, it was past the time I was supposed to be at work. Needless to say, I was very late and very embarrassed! I worked a little later and managed to get everything done so all was okay in the end.

The other 'news' is that I am upgrading to CS3 for my designing. I got a great deal in the U.S and I will get the software when I arrive (hopefully). Then I'll be on an even steeper learning curve, but I'm so looking foward to being able to do things/create things that I couldn't do in PSE5. I just hope it's not toooo daunting!

I'm almost counting hours now until I leave. Well...I did say 'almost'. Only a few days now to make sure I have everything done at this end. I'm tackling something each day so I think I will
manage it without too much stress.

I think I'll have an earlier night tonight - the last few have been later than I like and I still wake early.

Be back when I have everything done and I can breathe easy.

Can it really be Monday again???

Yep, just checked the calendar...the weeks are just flying by.

There's only a couple of weeks and a couple of days before I'm off to Brisvegas and then the US and Canada. If the past few weeks are anything to go by, I think I'd better not even close my eyes or I'll miss the flash as they whizz past faster than a, than a...what??

During this past week, something exciting that happened for me, was discovering another digi designer living right here in my city! We've made contact and we're going to meet up for coffee next week. How amazing is that!

I've learned how to do some new stuff with the designing too, so that's been a real boost. I'm playing with textures now and I'm seeing 'textures' literally everywhere I look. This is sooo fun!
I'm using my own textures now to create background papers. (I may never have to buy another Commercial Use texture overlay again.)

Not much else to write about just now, except that we had a rainy day last week and we're having another one today. Rainy days just don't happen very often for us here so when they do, they are such a pleasant change! I love them. I love sunny warm winter days too, don't get me wrong, but a rainy winter day - they are fairly rare and provide a great contrast, so I enjoy them too.

Oh and I found some new fonts to buy too...it's just deciding which ones - that is the hard part.

I'm starting to find the limitations in PSE now too, so I think I'm going to have to take a long hard look at whether to purchase PSCS. I know I just can't afford the latest version but maybe I could buy an older version (reduced in price now) and then buy an upgrade down the track. I'm wondering if that would be a good way to go - or not. Just reading what other designers are using and what they are producing in the way of CU stuff, makes me think I have to go down that path sooner or later. (Maybe I need to see what kind of tax refund I'm likely to get...)

Well, that's it for now - probably for another week, if my past performance is anything to go by...LOL

Have a fun week.

Forgot to add...

...this new kit is currently uploading to the store at heaven-sent.com.au and once I've entered the details it will be available for purchase.

It will go into studiostyledesigns.com later.

Have fun...

Hearts and Roses page

Okay, that pic saved okay, so now I'll see if I can get the pic of the page I did to upload.

Here's hoping!

A new kit

I completed another new kit at the weekend. This one is called 'Hearts and Roses' and has lots of red rose photo extractions. I'll post a kit preview here.

I'm rather pleased with the way it came together. It has 18 background papers and 33 embellies so it's quite large - the biggest one I've done to date.

This morning I did a layout using this kit that I'll post in a couple of galleries.

Life has been pretty hectic! I'm in the throes of preparing for my next overseas trip which I'm taking from August 8 after spending a couple of days with my Mum in Brisbane for her 94th birthday.

Blogging is something I'm not very good at - I don't post very often. Maybe I'll become a more regular blogger in time to come. For now - too much else to do!

Enjoy your week.

Tuesday catch up

I am such a hopeless blogger. An entry about once a week seems to be about all I can manage. Oh well, let's not bemoan that little fact and get on with it, now I'm actually here.

We've just had a long weekend, here in Townsville. The annual Show was on over the weekend and Monday was 'People's Day'.

Dee, Ben, the kids, Ben's parents and myself all had a great morning out at the Heritage Tea Rooms up at Herveys Range. We arrived at around 9:30 and enjoyed a lovely brunch. It was a little cooler there as it generally is and eating outdoors proved just a little on the chilly side. The place was really busy and almost every table both inside and outside had a 'Reserved' sign on it. It soon filled up with people and people kept arriving who hadn't made a reservation, but I don't think anyone was turned away. I guess just enough people left in time for those arriving to take their places.

Our time there was really relaxed and it was a great way to spend some time together on the holiday.

This past week I've worked on completing my new kit - this time, a masculine one. It presented quite a few challenges and while I am quite pleased with the way it has turned out, I must say that I enjoy creating 'pretty' kits more. I have it ready to upload into the stores but first I have to wait for my computer to complete its backup. A backup has been overdue and with the death of my PC a couple of weeks ago, it became urgent to dedicate a day to do it. There is sooo much to backup and it does indeed take a full day!

Along with doing backup to an external hard drive, I have been in the process of backing up to a remote location. This is taking for--ev--er! I am only a little of the way through and I think it is going to take MONTHS! LOL This is because of the slow upload speed. Today I had my internet connection checked and it appears that my connection is 'strong', so that's good. I was wondering if there was something wrong with it but that isn't the problem I'm having apparently. The upload speed is just S-l-o-w. It could also be that there is a problem with my ethernet cable and I'm thinking of going wirelss on my PC. I am working on ironing out the problem with why I have problems with smooth transition from one page to another/moving from one site to another on the internet. The whole browsing experience is slow and frustrating. There has to be something that can be fixed. Well, the shift to wireless is something I have to check out. I'll keep posting about progress on that issue.

There's not much else for now. I've just watched the grand final of Australia's Got Talent which was just awesome. My favourite contestant, Smokin' Joe, won. YEEEAAAAHHHH! He is such a fantastic talent. Now The World's Got Talent is on. Don't want to miss it, so I'm signing off...Bye for now.