Janee's Journal Archive

2002 * 2003 * Most Recent Journal

12 December 2002
My how THIS past month has gotten away from me! And what a wonderful month it has been, too.

We had a wonderful visit to see the family in Denver. Many of Michael's relatives were there, such joyous happy people, anyway, and this was an extra-special time. Besides celebrating Hanukkah, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving feast prepared by the talented and loving hands of our niece Michelle, mostly, but with help from Angie, Mitch, and others!

We were lucky that Hannah Meg's baby naming ceremony was that weekend too. This was lovely, a bit like a bris, i understand, but the girl baby is merely fawned over, and suffers no further trauma. <g> Then we also celebrated our nephew Joel's birthday. I still haven't done anything with the pics, but did have a look, and i have some good ones.

The walking (YES, we are still doing our every-day-without-fail walks!) was a little challenging in the mile-high city, but we managed it. I did suffer from headaches during the last two walks. The weather was marvelous, though, and we had a great time!

During the past 3 weeks, i've been working furiously to get three chapters of my latest book finished (title is still a secret!), and this is right on the heels of completing the work for my third, Elements 2: Most Wanted. I am very excited about E2MW. It is going to be out in just a few days and i can't wait to see it. I did some really great work for this book, if i do say so myself.

I finished and submitted the article for SBS Design magazine, which will be published in January. I did a cool article on masking techniques for that.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a curious phone call. It was from Laura Lane, a reporter for the Herald Times, our Bloomington newspaper. She was looking for ideas for people who want to keep their weight down during the holidays. When she tried one number in the phone book and it rang, unanswered, she tried another one close by, which was for Blackberry Hill Dessert Co, my bakery i used to operate, which is now a graphic design business. <g>

Well.. of course i DO have a big bunch of stuff that i've written on Eat to Live Light and Walk to Live Light, here on my site, and i turned her on to that. Well, so she enjoyed talking to me, and asked me if she could put my story into the paper! "Sure," I replied. She kept asking me things, and i could hear her keyboard going, as fast as i talked.

Then the next day, she sent the photographer Chris Howell out to shoot me. On Thanksgiving, then, the article came out! It is great! A life-sized picture of your Goddess, all about how i came to be the Goddess, and, cleverly... a mention that i had all of this bakery equipment for sale! ... hehe....

Well, the phone has rung off the wall, and i have now sold just about everything that reminded me that this used to be a kitchen! I chose to keep one of my stainless steel tables, the one where i did all my work, but the mixer, sink, racks, sheet pans, fridge, freezer, oven... are all gone, and my bank account is full.

I just wrapped up the November Art Challenge, for which we did "Displays of Emotion." This was a lot of fun, seeing what everyone did. I would have loved to have more entries in there, myself, but... gee, i wonder why i didn't? Through it all, i've been trying to keep up with my inbox, "down" to 90 items at this writing.

Today, i'm taking it easy. ;) I am announcing the start of the December Challenge (just set up the gallery page), and printing the holiday cards that i designed yesterday.

Monday, 18 Nov 02

Been work work working doing stuff for you, my site visitors! Over the weekend i did some more linkfixing, adding some new ones, burying some dead ones, and tidying up.

I also posted a NEW tutorial, this one on making a brushstroke that looks like stitching. I call it "A Stitch in Time." Oh, does her creativity EVER slow down? <g>

The November Challenge is undeway! We've gotten a few entries already, but there is still a whole week to go. I intentionally went for a topic that i thought would be *challenging* for us, "A Display of Emotion."

We went walking at McCormick's Creek State Park on Friday afternoon and then again yesterday afternoon. Click here for a map in pdf format (opens in Acrobat). Or HERE for a link to a less-detailed map. Or HERE for some photos!

Now that you know what i'm talking about, We have usually taken trail 5, up around Wolf Cave. Ydy we went on trail 9 around the Water Tower. We walked it twice, once each direction, for our 2 miles. :)

On Saturday, we went to Indy, went walking from the zoo to the Circle Centre and back. Brr! It was 32 and WINDY! After that, we DROVE to the Circle Centre, had a great dinner at Bertollini's and then did a little shopping.

I've been doing some art, too. I have been trying to work up some emotion for the Challenge. In addition, i have done our Hannukah card and also posted the first picture, "War," in my Sketchbook.

Wed, 13 Nov 02
Today i did mostly dog work... weeding out and updating dead links. Also wrote some emails asking to be in people's links lists. I'm so greedy!

Tuesday, 12 November 02
Today i fixed a line in the Capsule tutorial and added 2 new questions to Ask the Goddess. I also did a new Tutorial Description Index, which should be helpful to webmasters who want to link to my tuts.

In addition, I rearranged my photography a little, adding a Photo Gallery Index page. Now i need to remember to add Janee's Photo Gallery to my Galleries Index.

Been crazy busy doing another example for the Elements book. Ohhh.. and, speaking of which, It is now in Amazon, so i guess i can tell you about it! It is Elements 2 Most Wanted. This one is really chock full of great stuff. I can't wait to see it!

Chilly here today! It had gotten quite warm here over the weekend. Michael and i went walking on Friday at McCormick's Creek. I got the pictures processed and they are posted HERE, on this new Places in Indiana page. I also posted the photos there from when we went to Washington IN last weekend. I really like these pics. :)

Wednesday, 6 November 02

Reworked my Jeweled Gold Text tutorial and made it a little more beginner-friendly.

Monday, 4 November 02

I did a bunch of site work this weekend! Check out my new tutorial on how i did my torn edge interface on my main index pages.

Also, I've added the Where am I NOW link to my Journal page and also to the Janeefacts page.

I'm getting set to begin on a new writing project, a magazine article for an important design publication. I'll give you more dets as i get them!

I'm trying to get my mailing lists working again. They have gradually stopped working till now i can't even get my jokes to go anywhere. Duh... does anyone else have these problems? I use Outlook, probably not the most robust contact list management system, but .. sheesh i didn't think that i had THAT big a list! (2000?)

Saturday, 2 November 02

YAYYYYYYYYY Finally i put something new into the Ask the Goddess column!

I have also added two new tutorials, one called Taters: Photo Retouching 2, and the other called "Text Tricks with Custom Brushes," some fun stuff. As always.. i'd love to know what you think! A little late Happy Birthday to Suzanne! And a little early Happy Birthday to Becky!

Thursday, 31 October 02
Chicago was GREAT! Read all about it HERE!

This week, I've been busy working on rewrites for the Elements book, writing some more stuff for it, and putting stuff together for a magazine spread i'm doing.

Also have started putting together THIS SITE for an exciting new teen-tween product.

I added a new tutorial to the mix this week, one called Taters: Photo Retouching 2. It deals with color correction, the patch, and healing tools. It is one that was cut from the Trade Secrets book, because "people don't take pictures of their food." <g> I have some more tuts that are going to come from things that fell to the cutting room floor during these book projects, too. :)

Wednesday, 23 October, 2002

Just one more day of being 45!

I have almost finished my chapter and will have it ready to send to the publisher tomorrow before we go. Have i mentioned yet today how HAPPY i am with this book? If it is half as good as i think it is, well.. i'd buy it!

I still don't know WHERE we are going for my birthday trip! I'll let ya know when i get back. Michael said to pack for cold though.

We are taking Maddy to Barkin' Buddies for boarding. I don't know if it will be working, but their link should take you to a webcam which is operational from 9 to 5, Indiana time (14:00 - 22:00GMT). Ok.. gotta go do some preparations now!

Saturday, 19

October 2002

Yes, I know that it has been too long since i updated you on my doings. Might i just say that i've been too busy DOING, to report on it? <g> Actually, this is pretty close to accurate.

For those of you who know me a little, you know that i have two speeds, go and stop. Well, i've been on GO for the past month! I've been working like a mad fiend to put out the best possible book for you that i can, for the next one.

This will be a book on PS Elements, the sweet little program that is Photoshop's consumer-oriented version. For this one, i'm going to have 5 chapters, plus the work on the book's planning (spec) phase. This has been a huge responsibility and i've taken it to heart, as i always do. Wow.. does it SHOW how full of myself i am, over this work that i've done? <g>

In addition, i put together the October Art Challenge and it went very well. The Message Board was moved right at the beginning of the Challenge, threatening to derail the whole thing, but i was able, through all of this, to get the new version installed on the server and it is working well, for the most part. I just have this one chapter to go on the Elements book and then i'll be leaving on my birthday trip on Thursday!

We have the GPS locator thing back on the air again, after a short time with the antenna on the fritz. You can see my current position anytime at THIS LINK. (Actually, now that i said that, we likely won't be taking the GPS along on our airplane travel this fall. (our trip for my bday, Thanksgiving, or our cruise in January. I'll give more updates on those though as they happen.)

Monday, 30 September, 02

Things are going great from where i sit! Photoshop World was AWESOME! Everyone who is into Photoshop really needs to ... do an extra logo this year.. and GO to this event. Sponsored by the NAPP (National Asso. of PS Professionals) and held twice a year, it is 2 days jam-packed with amazing lectures by many of the "big names" in Photoshop education.

Each of the lectures was done in a ballroom of the convention center in Tampa, FL, so they were big. Nearly all were filled to capacity. The schedule was tight, with only 15 minutes between classes, and, since many of these instructors are long-winded.. <g> just kidding. They just packed a lot into their sessions! I went to these:

Wednesday, 18 September, 02

A few revisions later, the book spec is .. doing well! If i told you more details, i'd have to kill you, and over the internet, that can get really messy!

Photoshop World Conference is TOMORROW! We are flying down tomorrow to arrive too late in the afternoon to do anything much that day, but then it continues on Friday and Saturday. Have i told you how excited i am about this?

I have some shirts that i'm going to take along. This one Dave made for me. I made some others for Michael and me. Also am bringing along a little store of my new business cards. Basically, though, i'm there to soak up information! Yes! I'm a student for this one.

I know that i'm supposed to be hawking my own books, and they are great! But i have to tell you about another one!

Gregory Georges sent me a copy of his 50 Fast PS 7 Techniques and this is a really beautiful book. He is a photographer par excellence, and has included some really stunning work for this book. The effects that he does are exciting and written up in a detailed, though not dry, fashion. I have read his other one, 50 Fast Digital Photo Techniques, and this one is even better! So here is my thank you to Gregory for enhancing my library with this!

Monday, 09 September, 02

I worked all weekend on a spec for the Elements book. If the book ends up anything like the spec, it is gonna be great!

This morning I posted some new photos in my gallery. They are on the Places in Indiana page. The top few rows are all new, taken in the past few weeks.

Friday, 6 September, 02

Another week! Man, what a busy life this is! I've been doing a bit of fixup on my site, working on links and working on getting all of my pages to have my nifty new site interface. :)

I've also been working on gathering and organizing data about what people want to know about PS Elements. This is for a new project i'm working on, of course, highly secret until i come in here and tell you all about it.

My 2nd book is officially "out there," but until i see it, i'm not telling you about it. It should be in my hot li'l hands in the next week or so. I'm getting excited about Photoshop World! The program looks so awesome, all my heroes! I'm trying to come up with suitable business cards and a design to iron onto a shirt!

Ok.. off to bed with me now!

Thursday, 29 August 02

I registered psgoddess.com today! YAY! I have it pointing to myJanee.com so it should be working in a little bit. If there is anything more exciting than seeing a domain that i've been wanting become available, I have yet to discover it. Now i have to decide how/if i'm going to use the URL, or if i'm just gonna sit on it. LOL!

Ydy i worked on a bunch of things: challenge vote tallies, formatting and fixing up tutorials (making them current to version 7), and trying (as usual) to get caught up on the email. I wish that my Inbox were not such a handy place to STORE things!

Tuesday, 27 August 02

I sent 104 emails yesterday. That's 104 different emails to different people.
Always me, Janee

Thursday, 22 August 02

Things are going along with the Challenge for August. I'm taking entries till Monday. Guess i should have MINE done by then, eh?

I've been working on, besides that, some updates for my site, going to some link sites and emailing to ask to be on their link list, and working on my art for the Challenge. Also, i made 2 new banners for people to use on their sites to link to mine. Whatdya think, eh? If you want to use one to link to me, please be my guest! :) (For the bigger one, click here!

Also, if you like my site and think "what could i do to help Janee after all she has done for me.. well, here it is: Go to Photoshop sites (I have a listing of them here.) and email the webmaster and ask them to include my site! Tutorial indexes, same thing. It is a huge job just to get the word out there! Of course, the more people come to my site, the more it COSTS me, since i don't have ads but have to pay for bandwidth! LOL! I seriously do this, though, because i know that people benefit from my materials. I'm pleased and proud that i can offer this to people. And since i have it, they may as well come, right?

Another thing that is cool is site awards. Though i am eternally fighting the broken link thing, and some of the awards programs count off for that, maybe someone will eventually want to award me some worthy prize. And TELL me about broken links! That is a very helpful thing! I do try to get around all of the 350 pages of my site as often as i can, it is still a lot for one li'l girl to handle.

Friday, 16 August 02

Friday already! Eeek! The weeks go so fast. I really love what i do!

I got all moved into my new digs! The bakery equipment is still in here, though it is jammed over to the other side of the room. I'm going to be selling it as soon as i can. Know anyone who needs a commercial Vulcan convection oven? How about a beautiful 20-quart Hobart mixer? I should put the stuff on ebay. Wish i knew more about ebay.

Anyway.. i love my new office space! I was really working in an Altoids can before. It is sweet to have room to spread out. In fact.. here it is!

Sweet setup, eh? The desk setup is from Bush. I have to say that they are really great at building the kits so that when a person builds their desk, everything is there and in the right place. We had no trouble putting all 4 of these pieces together.

This picture was actually taken before i had my scanner and printer hooked up, and before i brought my books out from the other room, but you get an idea. That's my tower you see just the left of my keyboard tray. It is 26" tall, counting the casters. What you can't see well is the 3-drawer cabinet that we built. It is under the desk jutting out there toward you.

Also, today the puter guys from PC Max are coming to install my other HD, my new CD burner, and my new 21" monitor to replace the center one in this picture. (It is a loaner.)

Wednesday, 14 August 02

My desk is all here! It is still being put together. That is.. we still have another evening or two to work on it till it is done. So next is to sell the equipment, the big stuff, at least, and i'll have that room just for my office. I'm hoping to move my puter in there tomorrow. Then i'll take a pic!

I announced the August Challenge today! Still not on my Challenge Mailing list? Email me and i'll put you there! I've been really busy trying to keep up with the email. I wrote 30 ydy (separate emails) and many of them were how-do-i-do-its.

It seems like the work is done for my 2nd book, or at least the editors have not gotten back to me with anymore editing. It is supposed to be out in September! I'll tell you all about it when i am allowed to.

In the meantime, Photoshop 7: Professonal Photographic Techniques is doing well, it seems, ranking 7683 on Amazon right now! (It's rating is currently messed up because one reviewer accidentally gave it 1 star.) (He wrote and told me!) People are really enjoying it, i'm happy to hear. There is so much good stuff in it. I'd be buying it, if they had not sent me a free one! :P

SOON i hope to be caught up enough with "real life" to get my State Fair pics up!

Monday, 12 August 02

I've been a busy li'l bee! The deadline for my edits on one of the chapters for the 2nd book (whose title is still a tighly held secret!) was this morning, which is midnight last night. I worked for the last several days on that. I'm really happy with the work that i've done for this book. and i am sure that the rest of it wil be every bit that good.

I've also been busily trying to organize my new computer and burn stuff onto CD. To complicate matters in that department, my CD burner has fizzled.

In anticipation of my third monitor, another 21", i'm getting a new bigger desk! This necessitates moving my office into the former bakery kitchen. And THAT necessitates selling the bakery equipment off, so that i can have room for the new stuff.

I've put the puter guys off till Friday afternoon, so i have till then to make room for it. I have my corner piece for my desk here and we built it last night. (And we are still married! LOL! Those things are ... well, you don't want to lose the directions, when you are building a desk.

The website for our trip is still online, so feel free to have a look, if you have not seen it yet. Under "Where are we now?" you can still click on that and get our last reported position. Our GPS is now in my car, so you can follow me around. If it is reporting us at 10km W of Bloomington, Indiana, USA, that is my house! Click to see the aerial map. Then click the left arrow and then the down arrow and our house and property are centered on the shot. If you look really closely, you can see me out in the driveway, waving up to the satellite!

I'm still reeling from the crash of my hard drive several weeks ago. One really bad thing is that I had gotten a lot of mail from nice people telling me that they want to know how to get the book, people congratulating me.. people asking PS questions, people asking to be put on my mailing lists.. well i had not gotten to taking care of all of these!

All of those emails, though they were read.. will not be answered. Any additions to my mailing lists in those 2 weeks that i wasn't doing backups .. are gone! So if you wrote anything to me in the past several weeks and have not gotten an answer.. please write again!

Saturday 20 July 02

Hey there!!!  Vacation time! Yes, I got the work done for my latest book and we are getting set to leave on our vacation. I have a few things yet to do on here before we go, though. One is that i'm going to write to everyone on the Website Updates to tell you what i'm about to tell you. :P The website for our trip (such as it is, so far) is online! So we'll see you there!

Some other business: You may know that i had a crash of my main data drive last week. (Read details about it in the Archive.) I've lost a bunch of stuff, but, the good news is that i still HAVE a lot of stuff too! :) One really bad thing is that I had gotten a lot of mail from nice people telling me that they want to know how to get the book, people congratulating me.. people asking PS questions, people asking to be put on my mailing lists.. well i had not gotten to taking care of all of these! All of those emails, though they were read.. will not be answered. Any additions to my mailing lists in those 2 weeks that i wasn't doing backups .. are gone! So if you wrote anything to me in the past 3 weeks and have not gotten an answer.. please write again!

Tuesday 16 July 2002

Well, we can't say that I've been a slacker this time! Last week, during this feverish push to get the chapters put together for my 2nd book project in as many months, and, as i recovered from whooping cough, I had a complete crash of my data drive.

Now, normally this would not be any sort of big deal. Janee backs up routinely, right? Up until 3 weeks ago, I was backing up nightly, with an autobackup program from my data drive (D) onto my C drive, which also houses my programs.

This worked very well until my C drive filled up and decided that my programs didn't have enough space to run. I called my guru who told me that i needed to get rid of something from C, turn off the backup program, and then to call him in a day or so and he would help me set the backup prog up again. So i deleted one big folder from my backup files, My Pictures. No big deal.. just a backup. And then my guy was gonna come and get that going again.

Well, your Janee was busy and so didn't get around to calling him.. and your Janee had been too busy for a long time to burn any CD's. So .. well when your Janee's drive crashed last week, she lost all of her work that had not been backed up in the previous 2 weeks. She also lost all of her photos which were in that folder. That is... all of our photos for the past 2 years, minus the ones from last summer's vacation. (I had miraculously made a separate backup of those!) and also minus the photos that i have on my site. (72 ppi web-quality only)

I had also, miraculously, backed up my book projects onto Michael's computer through our Shared folder in our network, so that wasn't gone. But all of my emails.. all those photos.. my site changes, which i was able to download from the server, happily.

The really bad thing is this: All of the nice people who have written to me in the past 2 weeks telling me that they want to know how to get the book, people congratulating me.. people asking PS questions, people asking to be put on my mailing lists.. well i had not gotten to taking care of all of these! All of those emails, though they were read.. will not be answered. Any additions to my mailing lists in those 2 weeks .. are gone! So if you wrote anything to me in the past 3 weeks and have not gotten an answer.. please write again!

Monday, 1 July 02

SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS!

My first book has hit the presses and should be on the shelves by mid-July! They are finally letting me tell y'all about it! The book is Photoshop 7: Professional Photography Techniques and here are the details from Amazon. The cover is still in layout and will look a little different when they are done with it.

I did 3 chapters for the book and played a part in editing several others. In addition, it looks like some of my photos will be on the cover, including the main lighthouse one! I know you will forgive this unprofessional show of exhuberance, but this book is one that i really feel is NEEDED. Therefore, i'm very proud to be a part of its production!

My chapters are on adding to and subtracting from photos, restorations and repair, and aging and coloring photos. There are some really cool examples here, and some ideas that you will not find elsewhere because.. they were MY ideas! :Þ

During the past 2 months, when i have not been allowed to talk about this book, it seems as if i have gotten 200 letters from people wanting my recommendations for a book on how to do things with photos -- stuff that is very well-covered in this new book!! I've been, of course, going nuts to tell you about my book!

I'll expect to see you all camping outside the Barnes & Noble on the morning of 15 July, awaiting their opening. <g> Honestly though.. i do hope that you will have a look at this. I know that many people have put a lot of good work into this book and, no matter what you want to do with photos, no matter how far along with Photoshop you are, there is something here for you.

In other news... We went to see Melissa Etheridge last night in concert! She is awesome! What an exhuberant and beautiful spirit she is.

We were there as guests of her drummer, Kenny Aronoff, who is Michael's cousin, and his wife Liz, with whom we sat. Before the show, I talked with Nick, Kenny's son, and his friend Andrew. They are both going to be beginning at IU in the fall to study art!

We had backstage passes.. and we were REALLY backstage.. Actually, we were back there and Kenny took us ONTO the stage as the opening act played, and he showed us his drums how he had them all set up. They (and we) were behind a curtain at that point. It was totally cool. (Actually.. it was VERY VERY hot! We went backstage at one point during the concert to get water!) What a fun time we had!

In other news... my SECOND book is progressing well! I'm not allowed to talk about it, though. :P~

Friday, 28 June 02

Things are going swimmingly for my new (2nd) book. I'm loving the work, learning a lot, and giving the people some good stuff. I can't wait till i can tell you ALL about it!

I'm getting some uncommonly good stuff (imnsho) for the July Challenge!

Also added a new gallery to my Gallery Listing. Check out Alan Abel's. Man. He wrote me a really nice note. <swoon> I'm never gonna defrag this drive again! Seriously though, ladies.. go and look at his romance illustrations!

I went to the eye doc ydy for my normal 1 week check, with a bit of a sore L eye. I had a little patch of dryness, well below where they did the cut. I got some new drops to use before bed and i'm to continue with the normal rewetting. She wasn't worried and said that the corneas are healing very well. I told her that i close my eyes to dry my hair and she said that she wished everyone were so careful. I just cannot imagine NOT being careful with one's eyes!

Friday, 21 June 02, First Day of Summer in the NH

Yesterday was my LASIK! I was to be at the Eye Center at noon for some more measurements and a consultation with Dr. Fornefeld (click on surgeon). Then i was gonna be going home for awhile (for lunch) and then return just about 2. Well, they said that they were going to be able to do me sooner, so i just stayed.

I think that the coolest part of the day was when they did the computer topography measurements of my cornea and the inside of my eye. Man! Psychedelic to a maximal degree, here, folks. If you ever get a chance to do this.. do! Nothing like i've ever experienced and .. i can't even draw that in Photoshop!! <g>

After they did that and i had some time to wait. The way the waiting room is set up, you can watch other patients having their LASIK done (if it is ok with them, there is a curtain that they open) both watching the person and doctors through the window and on a TV screen. I watched a couple of the procedures being done and .. well i think that actually helped me a little.

The procedure was just like they had told me that it would be, really very few surprises. No pain at all. Just .. the fear of doing it, and then afterward, the fear to open my eyes!

I didn't open them except just a wee peek till i got home and then.. just whilst eating my supper. (i insisted upon bacon and eggs!) Then I went to bed in my fancy goggles they gave me (NO, you don't get to see a picture of them!!) and awoke this am at 6.

I gradually opened my eyes and took off my goggles.. and .. ! I drove myself to my appointment just to make sure that the corneal flap was nailed down properly and they checked my vision and stuff.. 20/20 with L. 20/20 with R. And 20/15 with both eyes together! And they say that it is going to get BETTER!

Sunday, 16 June 2002

Well, ok, i THOUGHT that last Thursday was to be the "big day" for my eye surgery. They had to cancel it because the air conditioning was out in the procedure room. I was really mad about it because i had to go to Zoobilation with GLASSES on, a first. I couldn't even break out the contacts, because i have to not wear contacts for 3 weeks prior to the surgery. I'm rescheduled for this coming Thursday. Gives me another week to be.. um.. scared witless! <chuckle> Anyway, i got a very nice and sincere letter from the patient education woman at the Eye Center and defused my impatience.

I'm still working on editing for my chapters. The last one is in my hands now. I don't know if i'll have another go at them again before they go to the layout people or what. Not sure what the process is. Very exciting stuff. I do know that i learned a great deal myself, as i was writing this. There are things that you .. KNOW.. you just have to REALLY know it in order to explain it, make sure that it is technically accurate, and at the same time build the foundation necessary for the student to get it. I think that i've done a good job with this, and i'm not just saying that! :P~

Zoobilation was a hoot! I have some pictures posted under my showoff page and also on Michael's page. We narrowly escaped a huge ugly-looking storm. It WAS, however FREEZING cold. I wore a tiny black jacket which did a little, but it was the sort of weather that .. my fingers and toes were cold!

Thursday, 13 June 02

Yes.. big day today! .... Except that they cancelled my surgery! Yesterday i got the call; the air conditioning for that procedure room is out and so... do I CARE that the room won't be air conditioned? Well, maybe the laser needs a certain temperature. And i certainly want Dr. Fornefeld to be comfortable, don't i? <chuckle> So they are doing it NEXT Thursday.

And, since i can't wear contacts for the 3 weeks prior to the surgery, i will be wearing ... GLASSES for Zoobilation tomorrow. Urf! Well.. i'll take them off and Photoshop out the nose indentations, so you won't be able to tell. :Þ~ They had told me that i couldn't wear eye makeup for a week afterwards, so i was planning to Photoshop IN eye makeup anyway. LOL! Never believe anything you see in a photo. And you probably thought i'm a WOMAN! <g> Well.. ok.. you CAN believe that!

I have gotten good wishes from afar and, even if you are just ThINKING good wishes, i thank you! I'll pack all of these wishes away for another week and bring them out NEXT Thursday.

Wed 12 June 02

Ok.. I'm really .. scared about the Lasik, to be frank. I mean.. ok i know that they have done this thousands of times and the results are amazing and they change people's lives. And i know that they are going to have enough Valium on board that i'm not gonna give a damn what they do..

But i've been thinking about stuff like.. ydy in the storm i thought, "Wonder what would happen if the power went off???" Urf! I'm sure that they have some sort of contingency plan. Or maybe i'm the first one to think of this! LOL! And then i think about the actual procedure.. having someone there.. cutting a little piece of my eye away as i ... watch? Uh.. and i'm gonna DO this? :D I'm just having trouble uh.. visualizing this.

Anyway.. it is tomorrow 13 June at 12 noon, so y'all be sending good thoughts my way!

The book project is moving along swimmingly. Still in the editing process. I'm really loving doing this. Of course there are the moments when i'm ready to tear my head (or someone else's head) off, but overall... nothing but good!

My name on the cover is going to be just "Janee", so you'll recognize me. Always me, Janee, yanno! :P Actually.. i'll be able to announce the title.. soon! I know that this is a book that is going to be useful and fun. I know that this is a book that I would be wanting to buy, if they weren't already giving me one! <g>

Sunday, 9 June 2002

I've wrapped up another successful Art Challenge! 21 artists and .. lots of cool stuff! I won for my solid granite Vision. :)

On the site.. I'm working on a new interface design! I have done the main myJanee.com page and i'm doing indexes off of that page and those are done. Now i'm working on a header interface for each of the other pages. I'm gonna have a "breadcrumb trail navigation" bar under the main one on each page, too. I guess you will just have to see it, if you don't know what i mean! :P~

My PS book will be coming out in July, they say. I am sooo eager to have this happen. It seems like i'm getting more and more letters from EXACTLY the people for whom this book was written, asking EXACTLY the questions that this book will answer so aptly. And I'm not permitted to say more about it! Eeeek! <holding gag tightly to her own mouth>

Countdown is on for how many times i have to clean my glasses! If i clean them once a day, in the morning, then i have just 4 more times! My LASIK surgery is Thursday!

Friday 31 May 02

Last day of MAY already! The May Text Effects Challenge is going very well. So far we have 24 entries in 2 categories, and the weekend yet to go!

Let's see.. what have i done this week? Mmmm well i have immersed myself in some art for some hours out of a few days. That is one thing that i love about this Challenge; it is sort of like i "have to" do art, with a deadline, so that i can do it and have fun with it and not feel like i'm spending my time frivolously.

I've been keeping up pretty well with my emails. If i still have not answered yours, well, i'm getting down to it. ;) The new PS 7 Brushes Tutorial is up now. It is a marathon, with several satellite tuts which have come from it. I am getting good reviews on this one. I, of course, love it!

Monday, 27

May 02 Memorial Day

We took a nice walk on the IU campus today. We took Maddy and walked from Kirkwood to the old School of Ed, up to the new School of Ed, back through the Arboretum and the Old Crescent, down through Dunn's Woods and then back. Great walk. Michael brought the new GPS unit and figured out how to work it. It said that we walked 2.47 miles.

Then on the way home, got to Cave Road and i ran over a long black thing.. thought it was a strip of rubber. Michael said, when it was too late, that it was a snake. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw him writhing. <shudder> I sobbed the rest of the way home. I can't stand that!

Worked on email and did some newsgroup reading, slow day. Then this evening, worked on rearranging my tutorial icon index page.

Friday, 24 May 2002

It only seems like i've been lazy. Actually, I've been hard at work on a special project which i'm not allowed to talk about. It does involve ink and pages though, and it is gonna majorly cool. I'm very happy with the work that i've done and i am confident that YOU will be too! Ok, that's all i can say. :Þ~

Getting ready for the next Art Challenge! Since i took May off for this other work, people are champing at the bit. I hope that we get a good turnout.

Also, i'm planning within the next few days to get my new tutorial on PS 7 brushes live.

I'm gonna have LASIK eye surgery! I'm having it done on June 13 at the Eye Center here in Bloomington. They are very good at it and have excellent results. I just went for my consultation today. Very exciting! I've worn glasses since i was 8! It is just under $4,000.

Sunday, 28 April 02

I've been a SLACKER about writing in here! I have the Challenge as an excuse though; that always keeps me pretty busy. Awards just went out Friday. I won one for my umbrella in the corner. Also won for my "Le Soleil" weather icon. I made myself as a Goddess for my acceptance picture.

Some other exciting things going on, as well. I've added some new links to PSRL. I've added an inspiring weight-loss story to LiveLight.

I've been working on a new PS tut on the new painting tools in PS 7. Exciting stuff, indeed, and lots to learn!

Monday, 22 April 02

Posted the last of the Challenge entries and made all the announcements about voting. Well.. i still have to write to the Blue Ribbon Judges. Guess i'll do that next!

I did a little tidying of the Gel Text Tutorial, mostly cosmetic. Getting set to do some more writing, but not sure yet what that will entail.

The walk today was COLD and windy! I'm not sure where this blast of Arctic air came from.. well, perhaps, the Arctic!

Saturday, 20 April 02

April's Weather Challenge is underway and we are getting some really nice entries so far. Check these out!

I continue to work on art for this Challenge. I'm liking PS7, but, as with anything new, there are things to get used to. For me, it is the paintbrushes. They now have the airbrush and paintbrush .. somehow in the same brush, but i have not figures out quite how this works.. brush dynamics or something. Guess i'm gonna have to write a tutorial on this, eh?

It turned into SPRING this week. All of a sudden we have flowers blooming from the ground and from the trees! Next sunny day i'm gonna take the cam out.

Michael was doing some outdoor get-ready-for-spring cleaning today and playing with Maddy in the hose. She was biting at the water and if there is anything cuter in the world, i don't know what it is.

Thursday, 18 April 02

April's Weather Challenge is underway and we are getting some really nice entries so far.

I have been working on art for this Challenge, updating and adding some links to PSRL. This includes an exciting site that i added to both the Photography page and the Gallery listing, one called Photo Critique Forum. I've also been fielding a lot of email, some really interesting stuff!

Went to the Pacers game last night in Indy and I was on the dance cam! :D

But the BIG news is that i just NOW got my new PS 7 upgrade and so i'm gonna go install this now!

Monday, 15 April, 02

Well.. just got back last night from our trip! What fun! I'm still working on the write-up and putting the pix in order, but my pix are all online now HERE. It was a great trip.

We picked Maddy up this am and she is a little puny today. I am thinking that it is just stressful for her to board. They didn't feed the food that we sent along, so that might have something to do with it too. The food they fed is Eukanuba which is richer than the Iams that we always feed. Well.. i'm sure that she will be fine in another day.

HOT today here, in the 80's! I think that it is hotter here than it was in Fla! It is good to be home, though, to see all my online friends, and get back into "real life."

Getting ready to dive headfirst into the April Challenge which starts tomorrow. That and getting these photos all edited and posted have kept me busy all day.

Monday, 8 April 02

Gray rainy ol' day today, but not too cold at least. I am hoping for nice weather when we go to Orlando this weekend!

I'm also hoping for nice weather for our neighbors the Barkers. Their farm equipment is going up for auction this weekend. Another small family farm going. :/

Today i did a bunch of email and made a banner for the Walking Message Board. I also added a gallery link to digitalart.org, a really nice site, i'm thinking about joining. AND.. i did some work on one of my paintings for the April Whatever the Weather Art Challenge!

Tuesday, 9 April 02

Added some links to Courses in PSRL. Added a new tribute! Did some work on my Challenge entries. I'm having trouble visualizing flying to Florida this weekend, but i know that it is gonna happen. I have to like... think of what to take along and stuff. Urf! Summer clothes?

Saturday, 6 April 02

Wow.. lots of news today! First off, the site. I added another page to the Event Photos in my Photoalbum, the tale of my YMCA 5K Racewalk today! Some pretty funny pics. I tell you all about this racewalk on that page too.

Today was also the funeral for Michael's partner's mother. It was a beautiful ceremony with roses everywhere. She loved to grow roses and often brought them to Michael and Bob's office. They were the sweetest roses i'd ever sniffed, and she was a sweet lady too.

Yesterday, after Michael and I walked on the trail, we were headed west on Tapp Road, on the way back home when we were hit from behind as we waited to turn right (north) onto 37.

We were in MY car, the brand new one. We had just picked it up the day before from getting its 3000 mile service! The back door was completely wrecked. The glass shattered, but Maddy, who was in the back in her crate (thank goodness!) was unhurt, as were we and the guy who hit us. Flippin' poor thing to have happen, but, oh well.. We all have lapses. At least the guy who hit us was nice about it, and he is insured. :)

Big news though, is the Racewalk! Man, i feel great about having done this!

Friday, 5 April 02

Wed I did a bunch of work on Livelight, including some more graphics, more photos added, and did a bit of writing. I'm really starting to like this!

We went and bought Michael a suit Wed evening.

Thursday, I just sent out 13 emails, though it felt like more (Most were long-winded how-to's), but I also did a bunch of other stuff too, mostly working on newsgroups and doing some more (!) cosmetic work on Livelight. Did write a teensy bit though, and separated the Eat "Honesty" page into 2 pages, "Honesty" and "Quitting."

Lunchtime I went with hub to pick up my car and drop his off for service. Then I took him back to the office.

At 5, I took the dog and went to pick him up. He had changed into walking duds and we drove to the walking trail and did our 2 miles. Then we stopped off at a new boarding facility we are going to use next week, to check it out.

Then we went home and changed out of our clothes, fed the dog, fed the cats, and headed out again. Drove over to the eastside to the mall. Had dinner and then picked up M's suit. Then, went to Maggie Moo's for ice cream. :) Came home and "worked" till nearly midnight.

Tuesday, 2 April 2002

Ydy I added a nice letter with pictures to Ask the Goddess. Added some stuff to PSRL and made some corrections. Worked on some pics of Maddy from ydy.

Today put in a new tribute! Added Links page to LiveLight. Did a new Live Light icon graphic & uploaded it. Answered a bunch of email.

Sunday, 31 March 02

This has seemed like the longest month! Happy Easter to you, if you celebrate it! Today i made this Easter greeting. (Click to enlarge.)

Saturday, 30 Mar 02

Today I did a bunch of email, including writing to all of the wonderful people who have written in my Guestbook for the past week or so. And, yes, i write personal notes to everyone! I think that i surely keyboard faster than anyone else on the planet! I fixed the pager on my Ask the Goddess page and added one to this page!

I also did some ng posting including a long one in the walking ng. I do wish that people would like.. notice.. my LiveLight forums in the MB.

Tonight is the IU Final Four basketball game against Oklahoma. We are gonna go have pizza with Carla and Roy to watch it.

Thursday, 28 March 02

I did a bunch of work today on email, did some art, newsgroups. I set up some forums for the HealthWalkers site and i hope that i get some use for it.

Wednesday, 27 March 02

Day 250 for me! 250 days in a row of walking 2 miles per day. 500 miles! And what a pretty morning it was to walk. In the aftermath of the ice storm, the tree branches were sparkling in the sun! I got a few photos which i have in the top row on my Woodlands page.

I worked on more formatting for my Walk/Eat to Live Light pages, taking out the danged frames. I decided i don't like them, after all.

Maddy's graduation was last night and.. the cutest pictures that i took, Maddy and all of the other dogs in their li'l graduation hats... all for naught. The card was blank. Must be something just wrong with that particular card. I was fit to be tied. Anyway, the class was fun. Our trainer, Lisa, had cupcakes for us and dog cookies for each dog. :)

Tuesday, 26 March 02

I VOW to go out at some point today and take pics of the trees after this ice storm!

I did some writing for "Walk to Live Light" last night and this morning i did some art for it. Check it out. :) I went ahead and linked what i have to my Sitemap. I really think that this work might be useful to someone.

I joined a walking club online at www.healthwalkers.com and it looks like a fun thing. Ok.. off to do the walking thing now. I'm going to do it on the Nordic Track today because of the ice!

Monday, 2

5 March 02

On Sunday I fixed some links in More Links and set all the links so that they open in a new browser. Updated some PSRL. Went to Pacers game in the afternoon and then watched the Oscars that evening.

Monday did THIS art.. answered a bunch of email. Cold and rainy today.

Saturday, 23 March 02

Well, I've been busy doing something. Let's see if i can piece it together.

I have redone the contests page in PSRL. I added a whole new page to my site! I guess this is a big deal, actually. It is a page for photography links and is part of my PSRL.

I have written to some sites to get into their links lists. Been answering a ton of email, but i have not given any answers that seemed inspired enough to add them to Ask the Goddess.

We went to see the Buddy Holly Story at the IU Auditorium on Thursday night. Amazing show! They really had the guy nailed, the whole era, really. The costumes were wonderful; the music superb. Even in the crappy acoustics of the IU Aud, the sound was wonderful.

At the same time we were being awed by that, IU was awing the rest of the country by beating DUKE for a berth in the "Elite 8" in the NCAA Basketball tourney. Tonight's game is for a place in the Final Four.

Wednesday, 20 March 02

Worked some more ydy on putting together parameters for the April Challenge! The topic for this one is "Whatever the Weather." We will be doing 3 categories: Photographic, Drawings/Paintings, and weather icons. I'm excited!

I added a couple of sites to my PSRL, did some posting in the newsgroups and in the Message Board.

Rainy old day. Today is rainy and chilly, though.. March-like at about 45°. I did my walking at the mall, 2 miles very fast.

Afterwards, there were people taking blood pressures and blood sugar readings there. I had my bp taken -- I told them that my blood is ALL sugar! -- and it was 118/72. This was when i was hot and sweaty right after my power walk. I wonder if that is good for a 45 yr-young chickie.

Always me,

Monday, 18 March 02

Today i started out by getting off my track. I decided that i needed to redo my Burned Edges tutorial and so i did that before even finishing my email!

Answered a flame in the PS newsgroup, some more email, worked on my travel pages some more, some more email, wrote to everyone who had signed my guestbook, and then tonight...

I announced the April Challenge! The topic for this one is "Whatever the Weather." We will be doing 3 categories: Photographic, Drawings/Paintings, and weather icons. I'm excited!

Friday, 15 March 02

Man.. this has been a very busy week! I've kept up nicely with the email, adding several interesting Q & A's to my Ask the Goddess column.

Yesterday i was working hard on reorganizing the directories in my Travel section. I'm still not done with that so i have some broken links remaining.

I've added some new links to PSRL.

Oh.. the photos from Maddy's class on Tuesday turned out .. not great at all, but you can see them anyway HERE.

Weather has been great for walking. Today promises rain later so i'm going to walk this morning pretty soon.

Tuesday 12 March 02

Took a day away from the computer.. well, most of the day, anyway, though i have fixed several broken links and written and sent 11 emails since i got home an hour ago!

Suzanne and I went to the Flower and Patio Show in Indianapolis today. Great fun and we saw some really beautiful floral and landscaping displays. I took a bunch of pictures and HERE THEY ARE!

Then tonight we took Maddy to her school. I took the cam to class too, and shot some megs. :) Maddy had a little bladder-infection-type accident last night, necessitating a bath this am, but she seems fine now. I think that she just wanted to have a bath so that she would smell sweet for the other dogs in the class.

Sunday 10 March 02

I've been sick for the past few days. It started as a little cough and then grew into.. a BIGGER cough! I had a little fever ydy, but today am feeling better.

Michael and i went walking at the Mall ydy and today. Ydy it was pouring rain and then today, though it is beautiful and sunny, it is pretty cold. Michael prefers it 70° and sunny to walk. <g> Actually, i enjoy walking the mall, too.

I've been working on keeping up with the email and the MB and newsgroups (some more letters in Ask the Goddess!) and have gotten a bit written in "Walk to Live Light."

I found out how to do the graphics for my MB and .. well i will likely be doing it a bit at a time, as it seems like a big job. I'm thinking about the design for the graphics. I would like to have something a bit ... techno.. but somehow incorporating the wood and vines and the CCCCFF background color, which doesn't seem to lend itself to techno. I'll work on it.

Thursday, 7 March 02

Great day today! I think that everything i did worked! I added the weather magnet over to the right here. Also i made the map with my location :). I have used wunderground's temperature stickers for years, but they no longer give you both Celsius and Fahrenheit, and, with my international audience, i wanted both. So YAY!

As you can see if you are looking at this weather thing NOW, it is 67° here today, a beautiful day for my walk! Still having some shinsplints, but not as bad today, i don't think.

I sent all my tut links to About.com and to rainworld and so they will be soon updated.

Worked more on the links and am feeling pretty good about the state of my site. Tomorrow i will work on Message Board graphics!

Wednesday, 6 March 02

Busy busy busy! That's what i've been with continuing the update of my site, moving the Challenge pages, getting all my links fixed. I still have a few more tuts to reformat before i can check off "finish reformatting the worst-formatted of my tuts" but i did a bunch this morning.

I did some art yesterday! YAY! This is posted HERE. The first row is all new stuff. I did these with repeated transformations in PS. VERY fun stuff and its application to Fibonacci-style iterations was an exciting revelation to me!

Gorgeous day today for my walk. It is 60°!

Maddy did great in her class last night. Again, i forgot the camera. She came in first in the "down" elimination contest. We were proud parents indeed!

Sunday, 3 March 02

Huge weekend for me with my site! I worked at getting all of my links fixed, making my new custom 404 page, and then deleting redundant links. The link-fixing will be ongoing for awhile, but at least i think that it is a project that will have finite length. Already i am loving having my files in folders!

I went ahead and bought CuteFTP for uploading. GoLive is fine for uploading small amounts and normal stuff, but for the fancier stuff, CuteFTP is the way to go, i'm learning.

Maddy was into breaking things today. Today she broke one of the cats' food dishes (corelle is supposed to be UNBREAKABLE) and she dragged a brand new GALLON of water off the counter and it burst when it hit the floor! A gallon is a lot when it is on your floor!

Friday, 1 March 02

The snow melted fast! Though it was cold and windy yesterday, it warmed up into the 40's today, making our walk on the Clear Creek Trail quite pleasant!

My site project got suddenly BIG yesterday, when i moved my tutorials all into new directories with their accompanying images. I thought that the transition would be seamless, but this move required more of me than i thought, so there was some time when my tuts were either not there or missing images! eeek! (Yes, i did hear about it!)

I crossed off fixing all the links in the sitemap and hobbies and writings, but .. the other stuff i have yet to work on. Anyway, big doings!

Went to an awesome lecture last night at the Medical Society meeting. (Not the place to get an awesome lecture, usually!) It was Glenn Gass who lectured on the history of rock-and-roll from R&B -> the Beatles. He was incredibly entertaining and it is easy to see why he teaches the most requested class at IU!

Tonight was the Tornado Spotters meeting, and that is always interesting.

Wednesday, 27 Feb 02

We got 6" of snow last night and ydy! Very pretty but very cold, and i didn't feel like walking. But i DID! YAY, my streak lives on!

I have not accomplished anything on my To-Do list in the past 2 days. I HAVE, however, gotten a bunch of stuff done. Most of it is behind-the-scenes site maintenance stuff that it is amazing that i had been able to get by without doing for this long.

I've finally made FOLDERS to organize my pages on my local site. I think that i'll be able to publish updates to the directory system that i have set up on the server, without having to redo all of that, too, but we shall see. I'm getting all my pictures into the proper folders and stuff. 20,000 files. I guess it is time that i organized them. <chuckle>

We drove in the snowstorm to Maddy's school last night and it was fun. This was her first class since her spaying, but she did fine. She is a little more... excited.. than the other dogs, but she does ok.

Michael WAS able to get her stitches out on Monday evening. I had a treat in my hand as she lay on her back and licked at my hand while Michael snip-snipped! There were just 2 stitches, but i didn't think that we would be able to keep her from wiggling enough to get them out.

25 Feb 02

I'm so proud of myself! I learned how to make frames for my site! YAY! In the process, i've also completely redone my Eat to Live Light article. If you have not read this yet, I hope that you will. It is really pretty funny and can help you to get on a different way of thinking about food. You can find it through my Writings link above or you can just go HERE.

I still want to do some illustrations for it. I just did a new logo graphic and posted that with it. Anyway... do check out those FRAMES too!

Had a good weekend, rested some and got a bunch of work done too. Maybe next i'll work on the rework for that antique gold tutorial! (Yeah i know.. i've been talking about reworking that for a month! <chuckle>

Maddy is going to get her stitches out either today or tomorrow. It will be tomorrow if Michael is unable to get the squirmer to hold still. She is doing GREAT. She had a case of really serious goonies last evening, going around and around the living room. Good thing we don't have any reasonably good furniture!

23 Feb 02

February is moving right along! I can't believe how mild this winter has been here in beautiful southern Indiana.

Well, i've been busy busy busy, working on links and reworking pages in my site. I redid several of my hobby pages ydy.

I emailed Aplushosting re my mail forwarder. I hope that switch is seamless and i don't miss any email!

I do have to work on Livelight.. Hrm.. Added some more links to my PSRL including a site which is really cool but i just didn't know about, www.webgraphicworks.com.

And here is a cool bit of news! I got an email from a guy at NASA who wants to use my protractor for a poster to be sent free to educators! YOU BET I granted permission!

Friday, 22 Feb 02

Got a BUNCH of stuff done yesterday and already this morning including moving all my stuff off my ATT pages (except my main tutorial index page which gets so many hits that i have to have it on free space because of bandwidth concerns). MAJOR move.

Many of my links are not working this morning, but i'll be getting that fixed in the next few days. I'm pretty sure that the Photoshop links within my site, at least, are still going. I appreciate any nudges about PS links being wacko, but hold off for a few days on the personal stuff on my site being unlinked. Ok? :)

Added a link to another fun PS tutorial site in my PSRL, from Sue Chastain, the About.com PS Guru. Thanks, Sue, for your gentle nudge. I can't believe that i didn't have that one up. <banging head on desk> Sue is also taking care of putting all of my tutorial writeups put into her PS tutorial list on About.com. YAY! Hey.. a Goddess has to promote! Now to do the same thing on Rainworld.

Thursday, 21 Feb 02
Wow! busy few days, but not a lot of TANGIBLE results to show you. I guess the biggest thing that i have done is to move my tutorials all in to a new directory /tutorials/. This shouldn't look any different to you tutorials users. I THINK all of the links are working and images are showing. I am, as always, wide open to nudges about errors.

We do have more acceptance speeches and pictures up in the February LOVE Challenge Awards Ceremony!

Maddy did great with her spaying operation. She is just taking it easy today, the easiest i've ever seen her in the 6 months we have had her. She lept up into the back of the CRV when we took her out of there so i guess that is a good sign!

Gray here today, but it isn't pouring down rain as it was for my walk ydy! Fill in the blank: "I will walk every day except ___." Anything in the blank? Then you are not gonna stick with it. If there is one excuse, then there are a hundred. I need to write this up in a fashion like my Eat to Live Light. Urf! I just visited "Eat" to get the URL and i need to update some stuff!

Monday, 18 Feb 02

I feel like i have done some pretty good work with the 3 new tutorials that i just posted over the last few days. These are on "Postcard text," you know.. the kind of text that is big and bold and has pictures in it? In these tuts i go through three different ways to make this text, including "brute force," using a clipping group, and using "paste into."

All of the tuts are now linked to my tut index page (note to self: put icons for new tuts on icons page.) and to each other. I even put in all my alt tags! (The text labels that you see when you hover over a picture.) I'm looking for comments on these new tutorials. (Note to self: Tell newsgroups and Message Board about new tuts!)

Added a new letter to the Ask the Goddess page. I promise to get better at posting my better questions to this page.

Today we got our little switcheroo from @home cable to insigntbb.com. This changes my "behind the scenes" email, but you will still be able to get me from janee@myjanee.com. (Note to self: Change mail forwarder!)

Tomorrow we are taking our doggy Maddy to have her spayed. She will be in the Animal Hospital overnight, but she should come home on Wednesday late afternoon. No food after 9 tonight.. Tomorrow night we will go to her training class without her, but we will be able to work with our trainer's dog (a lab!) so we will hopefully learn the moves!

I put up a new pic of me in About Janee. Check it out if you wanna see what my desk looks like. :)

Thursday, Valentine's Day, 14 Feb 02

Today started busy for me with counting up the last of the ballots for the LOVE Challenge and then readying the Awards Ceremony page and notifying the Award-winners! It was a great Challenge with some really nice work displayed. There were many artists who were new to this Challenge and some who are even new to Photoshop, and i'm always happy to welcome them into the myJanee.com fold!

I'm working on a new tutorial, started it last night, on "Postcard text." I have its beginnings up now HERE.

Maddy's training class went well on Tuesday evening, except for one thing: I'd taken my camera and took some cute pictures, or so i thought. Actually i must not have had the memory card put in right because upon arriving home, it was BLANK. :/

Tonight, for Valentine's Day, went out to Gratzi for dinner and then went to see A Beautiful Mind for the 2nd time. If if doesn't get some Academy Awards, especially Best Aactor (Russell Crowe) and Best Director (Ron Howard), then i wanna see whatever movie beats it.

Put up a new pic of me in About Janee. Check it out if you wanna see what my desk looks like. :)

Tuesday, 12 February, 2002

Ok! well all the entries are in for the February Love Challenge and now i'm taking votes from the participants to decide on the Awards! Excitement at myJanee.com central! <g>

I've made some additions to my Photoshop Resource Links pages, adding a few Perspective links at the bottom of my Artlinks page.

Tonight is Maddy's first day of school! She is gonna learn manners and getting along with other dogs and other people. We will go once a week for 8 weeks. She is getting spayed next week, but the trainer said she can make up that class.

Wednesday, 6 February 02

Whew! Trying to keep up with the Challenge entries today and get a little bit of my own work done too (for the Challenge, of course!)

And then my email is acting up today, only sending email when it feels like it, the rest of the time asking me for my password and telling me i'm an invalid user. Hrmmfff! I just can't wait to see the mess that this all becomes just after Valentine's Day when my @home service switches to some other thing.

Chilly today for my walk, but i did not make the mistake of overdressing. Maddy did well with her new "Gentle Leader" collar. It is a device that looks cruel because it fits over the dog's snout and behind her skull, but actually it is a lot more humane than normal collars. Not only that, but now i can walk her without using upper body strength that i didn't know i had. In other words.. she walks WELL on it. We went for our first training class last night at Petsmart. (no dogs for this one) and are excited about getting her some ... socialization!

Aside from the Challenge, i have not uploaded anything to the site for a couple of days. My main area of focus is next going to be my tutorials, getting them into Netscapable format and, i hope, finally getting the rest of them into pdf format!

Saturday, Groundhog's Day, 02 / 02 / 02

Notice today's very cool date!

Went to the Pacer game in Indianapolis (Indiana, USA) last night with Michael and our friend Suzanne. We went shopping beforehand and had a yummy dinner at Bertollini's at Circle Centre Mall.

I have finally gotten the Message Board so that it seems to be functioning ok. Challenge entries are coming in fast and furious. Questions about how to do stuff in Photoshop and other things, comments on my tutorials, and .. well i'm getting lots of email. Not that i don't like email, mind you. It is just a bit overwhelming to me right now.

I'm hoping to get some people enlisted to help me in moderating the Message Board and i'm going to try funneling some of the email questions into the Message Board. That way, I can answer them.. and OTHER people can too. People will still be able to write to me, but maybe i will be able to have a bit of time to do MY art, too.

Yet, even when i'm overwhelmed, i remain...

Tuesday 29 January 2002

Ok.. now NO one can say that i'm lazy or that i'm not persistent or that i don't work very hard for the good of this site and its visitors! I have, over the past 3 days, worked and worked and i've finally.. at long last.. gotten the NEW version of the Message Board INSTALLED. I think that it is all linked from my site, now, too, but if you find a link that doesn't work, please let me know!

This installation was no mean feat. Both times when i've installed the board before, i had other people to do it for me. This time, i was reticent to hit up those kind guys again. So i put my head down, got myself an FTP program, learned to use it, found out all of the paths of my cgi stuff, made directories on my remote server, changed permissions for those directories, uploaded files into those directories (some in ascii mode and some in binary) and changed permissions on those, and then troubleshot till i could get the installation to finally WORK! Then i moved us all into the new board, moved the categories, forums, and topics and posts.

It is rough yet, as i don't have my own colors in and the avatars are not installed, but i think that just about everything else is ready to go. I'm so flippin' proud of myself that it is unnatural! YAY!

Sunday,

January 28,

2002

It has been a very busy few days with trying to do another tutorial and keep up with the email. But FINALLY I am ready to unveil "Get into Shape" my tutorial on the use of the Shape tool in Photoshop 6. I probably love this tutorial mostly because of the love i put into it, but .. well, i just think it is a really good one, besides. Or maybe that's just me! I hope that my readers will let me know their honest opinions of it, now that i'm going to announce its existence.

Michael and I went to the Louisville RV & Boat show yesterday and we tromped around in some really pretty boats and RV's. Don't anyone worry though. We are not gonna be getting a BOAT anytime soon. I'm about ready for a new RV though, after having our current one for 10 yrs.

Wanna see some travel photos?

Wednesday, 23 January

Yesterday and today have been productive days for me. I uploaded some new drawings to my Gallery, for one thing. This includes my Zodiac series that i did for the January Challenge, but they were really teensy for the Challenge. Click on the text link under the scorpio on the Drawings page to see the Zodiac Gallery.

Monday i uploaded a new "tribute." Check this out! :) And where is YOURS? <g> Also, I uploaded a new "games" site to my Art Games page!

I also have worked up a new tutorial! This is now unveiled HERE. I am calling for any eager Photoshoppers to beta-test this for me and let me know what you think.

Monday, I think it is, I made a big posting to the Announcements in the Message Board about my philosophies and feelings about the Challenge.  This is in response to a personal attack that i got in email. I just wanted to clarify some things.

Oh! And i got new walking shoes! My old ones had 370 miles on them: 2 miles a day since July 20, 2001! Oh, i amaze myself! <g>

Sunday, 20 January 02

Today marks my 6-month anniversary of my walking streak! Six months without missing a day, that is! 180 days @ 2 miles a day ... that's 360 miles!

Today on myJanee.com, did this journal entry and I added a letter to the Ask the Goddess column. I also updated some links in my gallery listing section, taking out some dead ones, adding a couple of new ones, and writing to some that i found that really needed to have MY site in their links listings. Hey, i'm not pushy. I don't insist upon reciprocal links, like lots of these places do. I won't put anything in my links, though, unless I have visited and deem the site worthy and interesting in content.

Catching my breath a bit after the results announcement for the January Zodiac Challenge. I spent several hours on my own acceptance pic in the Awards Ceremony. Check it out! I have not chosen a topic for the February Challenge yet, but i'm working on it! Slow day for emails today; I've only sent 8 so far.

I wrote a LONG note in the Announcements forum of the Message board (Click the board to the left.) explaining some of my philosopy behind my Challenge. Yanno.. if you try to make everyone happy, you are sure to piss someone off, even if it is just someone who is pissed off because everyone else is happy!

Wednesday, 16 January 02

Today I'm getting and tallying votes for the Challenge!. Check out what we have done!

I'm still wondering if anyone is reading the "Ask the Goddess" page . <g> I set up an "Archives" page for it as well as for this Journal.

Today I'm still resting a bit and trying to get my email inbox cleaned out a little. I'm up to 140 in the INBOX.

Cold today so i'll need to bundle up for my walk.... Just DO IT!

Tuesday, 15 January 02

I closed entries for the Challenge today at 15:00. Check out what we have done!

I'm still wondering if anyone is reading the "Ask the Goddess" page . <g> I set up an "Archives" page for it as well as for this Journal.

Today I'm resting a bit after the hectic 2 weeks of working on my own entries for the Challenge, getting everyone else's posted, and writing emails.

Ooooh! I just looked out and saw what looked like the woods moving; it was a small herd of whitetail deer! They live around here alll the time but it is easier to see them in the winter, of course. Two in this herd have big antler racks! No matter how many times i see them i'm always amazed by the beauty of these creatures upon whose land we live.

Well, i think i'll go on my walk now. Still have not missed a day since July 20! YAY!

Always me,
Janee

Saturday, 12 January 02

Added another question to my"Ask the Goddess" page . I am hopeful that the person who sent this email sees it because my letter was returned to me because his mailbox is full. :/

I've gotten some cool new entries to the Challenge. Have I said yet today how much I love doing this? Check out what we have done!

Today is our puppy's 6 month birthday and we took her on a long ride to celebrate down to Washington IN where she was born. Her real mother was there and one of her brothers. Wow! Those dogs are... bigger than Maddy! Maddy got really submissive, lying on her back and letting the others have their sniffs.

We had a great lunch/supper at the Black Buggy Restaurant there in Washington. Mmmmm!

Always me, Janee