Saturday, December 16, 2006

Coming out of the fog

A thick fog has greeted me when I've opened the door the past few mornings, the kind of fog that softens the hard edges of the world. I've been in a bit of a mental fog, too, recently, but I think it's finally lifting. The past few days have been productive ones.


Work was beginning to get the best of me. Too much paper, too many clients spitting out anger and hostility about the other guy (or gal). The edges of my work world needed to be softened. Fortunately, things were quieter this week. I was able to tie up some loose ends that appeared to be growing and threatening to strangle me.

At home I decluttered a couple of "hot spots" and managed to maintain the clean spaces for a few days. There's a distinct possibility I'll tackle a few more of them before the weekend's over.

There are still Christmas presents to buy, but I've finally decided what I want to do. That'll make the actual shopping much less painful.

I've switched from old-style blogger to the beta version, and the obsessive part of me sat down last night and added labels to all 282 previous posts. It wasn't that it needed to be done; it was that if I were ever to want do it, it would be easier to tackle it right then, before I added one more post.

For months I've wanted PhotoShop Elements, which seems to combine the best features of the other three photo-editing software programs on my computer. I bought it earlier this week and installed it this morning. I had planned to use it to edit these three photos but reverted to an old, familiar program after I realized it would take me longer to learn the new software than it would to crop these the old way.

Apparently, a few vestiges of mental fog remain.

10 comments:

  1. Beautiful photos - I can't imagine how you would have improved them. Carmon

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  2. Carmon, almost anytime I photograph scenery around here, I have to crop out utility lines at the top of the picture. And I frequently have to crop out the steering wheel and dashboard of my car. ;-)

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  3. These are beautiful pictures. Work is almost always the cause of stress and frustration in our lives. I say we all cash it in and move to a commune. Of course then we'd stress over who was supposed to plant the garden...

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  4. Oh cool, you like flylady too. I need to get better about following her principles. It makes life so much easier.

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  5. Ah, Velvet, isn't it wonderful to buy yourself a gift that you want, one that lies in wait for you. You will have a day, a few days, a week, and you will decide you have enough time to learn how to use the new software. And you'll have so much fun with it.

    Merry Christmas.

    annie

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  6. Thanks for the tip Velvet! Actually, blogger "allowed" me to switch to beta today, so I'm hoping this comment goes through.

    Those photos are spectacular! I love those foggy days - so surreal. Makes the driving a little scary, though!

    Thanks for reminding me about FlyLady - I did it a few years ago and definitely need to re-up, LOL.

    Hope you finish your Christmas shopping without too much pain or fuss. I can't even think about Christmas until after hubby's birthday tomorrow.

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  7. Kat, the commune idea is worth further thought. I have no gardening skills; can I sign up for laundry duty?

    Jewellybeano, thanks for visiting my blog. I think Flylady has a wonderful system. Every time I really feel like givng the house a good cleaning, I get online and read Flylady until the feeling passes.;)

    Annie, that's a nice way to look at it, and you're right. It's something to look forward to.

    Sunflower, I'm glad you were able to switch to beta. To me it felt like being forced to leap across a chasm at gunpoint. I was afraid of dropping everything I'd written into some deep, dark, unreachable place, and it was such a relief to get to the other side with everything intact.

    As for Flylady, I can't seem to follow the program for more than a day or two without fizzling out. I wish I could hire a full-time Flylady personal trainer for a month or so to work me into shape.

    Happy birthday to your hubby.

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  8. To be honest, VS, I copied all my posts and comments to a word.doc before switching! Oh, me of little faith, LOL. Of course I didn't have very many to copy.

    I think I quit FlyLady because I spent more time reading her web site than cleaning!

    Will pass on birthday wishes, thanks!

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  9. I have adobe but still use the old program that is 10 years old. I like the fog when I don't have to drive in it and have my own fog which protects me when I am in it.

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  10. I use Paint Shop Pro because that's the first photo editing program I learned, at work. I only use it to crop and resize. I tried removing red-eyes and failed miserably. I've occasionally played around with the other features but can never remember how I did something. Hope you figure out your new software!

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