it's all in the editing

For those that have asked about some of my 'larger than life' photos, rest assured that it's not because my camera is super-expensive or has special powers :) It's all in the post-editing.

I took these 11 photos of a huge tree beside a building (yes, I repeated one to fill in the small squares of the mosaic) and used autostitch to combine them into one beautiful scene. Click here for the autostitch download.and/or more information. *EDIT* The mosaic was done in photoscape, too.

Of course, the finished scene is not perfect, so I cropped the shot to include what I want to have in the final photo.

Then I used the clone brush in photoscape to fill in the edges. Click here for the photoscape download and more information.

And...voile!!

Of course, sometimes, I just can't leave well enough alone, so I used the 'threshold' button on photoscape to create this:

Please feel free to ask any questions about any of these processes in a comment or email me at tenfootheart (at) gmail (dot) com.

The end is near!

I was always perplexed about the prophecy in Daniel and how it related to the prophecy in Revelation. I only knew what I was told by pastors and theology students and didn't really know what resources to used to figure out for myself what it really meant.

I learned about this book, The end is Near! from one of my bloggy friends, Belle, over at Good Morning, God as she  posted the book a chapter at a time. 

I was very impressed at how somebody like me--who has trouble thinking 'outside the box'--could instantly see what was going on.

It was written by her sister, Elizabeth, and is published on 'Lulu', a self-publishing site that I didn't know existed. 

I bought the ebook for less than $4.00 and now, I feel like I actually understand those two prophetic books a whole lot more!

Thanks, Belle, for telling us about the book and thanks, Elizabeth, for writing it!

http://www.lulu.com/ca/en/shop/e-a-james/the-end-is-near/paperback/product-2992242.html

R.I.P. Wheelie

Our street only has 3 houses on each side and connects to a dead-end street at one end. So, we don't have a lot of traffic at all. Just now and then somebody is driving by to the main road.

Yesterday, I was watching Wheelie, our second cat, as she skulked around outside the neighbor's house across the street. They have a cat that is about the same age and coloring as Wheelie and I know they have met before (the neighbor said that Wheelie has mad herself at home inside!) but I've never seen them interact.

They never did see each other and when Wheelie decided to dart back home, I was horrified to see her get run over by the only car I saw in two hours. I'm sure I saw both front wheels hit her tiny body, but she got up and ran under the porch (her safe place) like she was just fine.

I yelled to Hubby and he went to find her. After quite a few minutes, Hubby ended up prying some boards off to drag her out. When he brought her into the house, I knew something terrible was wrong.

My brave Hubby called the vet and took her in, only to find that she had too many internal problems to survive.

We only got her in January (click here for her introduction and here for some pictures) but I think we gave her a good home for that short time.

Rest in peace, Wheelie.

are we the last to have this?

For a few weeks now we have had tv ads from Coke about 'share a coke' campaign. And, of course, there are huge banners and ads at the stores, too.

Have you seen these in your part of the world? If you have, how long have they been around? I'd really love to know, so if you'd tell me in a comment, I'd appreciate it so much!

Everybody talks about the weather....

Even though I live on an island in the South Pacific, it's a bit farther south than the image that comes to mind when you hear the words 'South Pacific'. But that's ok because it's about the same distance from the equator as the state of Kansas, and I found that the weather isn't usually drastic one way or the other except for the fact that that living with a mountain between us and the ocean causes us to have a lot of rain.

But, it was a good surprise to find that most of the weather is very tolerable, even for someone like me, who doesn't like to be cold, cool, or anything but warm at any time. That being said, I still find it a bit chilly at night, every night, even in the summer and I usually turn on my side of the electric blanket for a while each night because I cannot sleep when I'm not warm.

So, you can understand my confusion when, last night, just being well into spring, I was still in shorts with the windows open at 11 o'clock at night and didn't have to turn on any heat at all to sleep until about 5am. I was ecstatic and terribly hopeful. It seems so wonderful and I thought it might be a good sign of the weather turning really, really nice for a change.

Alas, today, we awoke to the normal spring weather, rainy and nippy. But, I'm still hoping that maybe this year's weather will bring me a few more nice, warm surprises.