dinner.

...and catching up with sara. a part of my day I look forward to all day. last night's dinner was especially yummy - salmon ala giada, roasted sweet potatoes and salad with mango.

rosemary beach.

...I am in love with all of it! complete set of photos is here.

so long.

...farewell, and another vacation is history. still thinking about what I want to do with the photos - and honestly, right now, I'm enjoying just having them off my camera and on the computer (the whole set is here)
1. (in the center) at starbucks, 2. last sunset, 3. bud & alleys, 4. another sunset, 5. headed into the water, 6. apres beach, 7. so long, 8. at the pool, 9. best sunset at the end, 10. footprints, 11. quiet, 12. playing in the waves, 13. leftovers

more of the same.

...and that's a very good thing!
1. lunch at george's, 2. waiting for the sunset, 3. sunset, rosemary beach, 4. headed to the beach for the sunset

the first day.

...probably a lot like all the others will be - up early to see the sunrise, a walk, the pool, reading, bikes, good food & wine, the beach, games and plenty of just being together, relaxing...
1.sunrise, 2.mary & sara, 3. beach lunch, 4. riding bikes, 5. puzzle success!, 6. ready for the sunset

here!

here!
Originally uploaded by mere2007

...and loving it!

charlotte.

...I am really glad that I have no more business trips planned. Sure there will be some, but not having any right this second is making me very happy. And not that Charlotte was bad - I got upgraded to first class on the way up because they oversold the plane. Seriously, in 25 years, that has never happened to me! And there's a wine bar at the airport. Which made waiting nearly two hours for my flight home not so bad.
But I had to drive this, kind of a mini-hummer, no? ...and be really grateful the guy from Avis who picked me up thought I might not want the red F150 they had reserved for me. Uh, yeah, right!

even a grey day.

agreyday
Originally uploaded by danske

...in paris would be lovely. these photos show the kind of paris I'm hoping to see next May.

knitting circle.

...continuing what we sort of started at dillard, lydia, karen and I (plus sara, who drove - thanks, sar!) gathered yesterday to cast on our 2nd pair of punk rock socks. the loose nut colorway and a pattern that karen had (quick online search and I couldn't find a link - sorry!) which didn't seem quite as hard as the anastasia's with the provisional cast-on and short row toes. this one is cuff down with a cute picot edge. and we all questioned how "easy" it really was when we cast on once (oops, wrong number of stitches), twice (darn, I have the wrong number of stitches and oops, I lost a few of my cast-on stitches), three times (yes, finally!). we'll see how this one goes once we actually get it started!
before we cast on, we did pause for a group shot of the finished zombies - not that it would be too weird for me or lydia to start another project before we finished anything, but karen is still new at this and the other unfinished pair of socks she has... not sure that pair is ok with her leaving another unfinished object lying around.
many thanks to lydia for hosting us - and the fabulous food (cheese grits, breakfast crepes, sausage casserole, salad with a yummy tomato-basil vinaigrette that sara's trying to copy as I type this and sangria), but the only photo I have is the carrot cake that sara baked for dessert.

relax(?)

...yes, I am now the proud owner of four of ali's digital downloads (these brushes and photo overlays 1, 2, travel).

and maybe I'm just tired* (usually a late lunch at bistro vg will perk me up!) but I think I need A LOT of practice with these new tools to get a result that looks like hers! and if you know me at all, that means I likely won't really be "relaxing" with it!

in other news, the houston trip was good. I co-facilitated (my first time from the train the trainer back in february) a class on managing performance issues. the class was great and my co-lead was a hoot (seriously, one of the participants said this in their evaluation and it's very true!) and it was all just very cool. and I drove around the parking lot twice to try to get all the flags in this parting shot.
*tired look from the first shot? yeah, I didn't get home (thanks to the thunderstorms!) til 1:30 a.m.

just photos won't be all that bad.

...last summer before our beach trip, I had grand plans for a travel journal. and then of course my plans were crushed once we were there because we didn't really travel, as much as just sit back in one place and relax. so a great opportunity for photos, but not so much a journal about what we've seen, ephemera, etc. (just one more reason I was so darned excited about our new york trip this spring). I did make a wonderful album with all those photos and was totally planning on another one this year. until I saw this post - bless ali edwards for coming through ... and with perfect timing! (note she plans a weeklong series of posts about hybrid scrapping). off now to visit ali's collection at digital scrapbooking :-)

playing around in photoshop.

...spent a few minutes here and then tried out the "d" from this new font for the corners. and this font for the type.

next up, I feel like I've figured out colorful text and shapes, and I'm ready to try special effects on the photos themselves. things like filters, adjustment layers, saturation, opacity, colorizing. which means spending more time with this book (and really, just spending more time!)

wordle.

...go here. very fun. this is the output from the mere-et-filles url. (and I tried for a while to get a picture that was bigger and not blurry and I guess my computer skills are just not up to the task). but if you click the picture, you can see it bigger. I am delighted with the results! thank you erin for the link!

so far so (very) good.

...the photo was inspired by my 600 mile goal for 2008. I had been keeping up with the daily mileage in an old notebook and decided to transfer the data to a spreadsheet to add it up. I was shocked and wonderfully surprised at the total. 407.19 miles year-to-date! over two-thirds of that logged on a treadmill (at home, rob's gym or various hotels in orlando, denver, houston), and the rest outside, mostly at hembree park, but a bit on trips to dillard, st augustine and new york. not sure what the final tally will be, but I'm definitely planning to take full advantage of the longer days to make the most of the outside while I can.

when pigs fly (and other news).

...it's been busy, and we have new news and other updates, and I decided not to split it into multiple posts - so bear with me!

first up - marc's pc laptop died a horrible death in the early hours of yesterday. and he's well on his way to being a mac user. (that's the title credit. I even had an email from him already tonight - I told him there was extra credit if he could send me a photo of himself, but I think he decided simply doing email was enough.)
then, not so much pigs flying as pigs all jumping up and down doing their happy dance (like me!) - sara is now a licensed driver. much thanks to marc for cramming lessons on parallel parking and finding the one reservation for a behind-the-wheel test in the state of georgia this week (yes, marc and sara drove to calhoun to take the test - like I said "much thanks to marc".)
and finally (gee - this is almost like reverse order), we had fun with karen and jillian figuring out the beach for this year. since there are only four of us, we get an extra half-foot, but I think we all thought packing lighter was really the right way to go. I am planning to bring my laptop (but not planning to spend too much time on-line). and surely not taking four copies of the latest harry potter book might even create another cubic foot! we all know this year will be much different - karen and I (that's the same), but just two of the girls (both driving!), a new place, and persistent thoughts that this could be the last year for them. karen and I already have a pact we're going to do this forever (and in some strange way, I think we're looking forward to what it might be like to share a small apartment for the week...when we're grandmothers).
we talked about the food (sara signed up for two meals and jillian is planning a yummy dessert for dinner thing), books (everyone has grand plans to read lots), bike rides and the zoo gallery. good times.

why I love the internet.

...well actually just a few of the reasons. there are way too many for me to count.

I can't remember how I found erin's site, but it's been on my daily reads list for a while - there's always something new and interesting. and she's published a few e-zines and now has this very cool magazine. which I downloaded last night and just paged through this morning.

I definitely have to checkout the playlist on page 23. but my favorite is the weekly planner on pp 30-31. designed by jessica gonacha. who just happens to live in atlanta (wow, small world).

she does lovely art and has an etsy shop where you can buy it. how about this one called geogia trees. and I really love all the patterns, too. she has uploaded many of them to flickr (here). and I clicked on a few (how fun is this one) and noticed they were part of a pool called spoonflower fabric designs. hummm...spoonflower?

...so I google and find out spoonflower is a new company that prints fabric with your own designs. you upload your image and they print it on 100% cotton. what a great idea!!