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Tell me what you think :) |

Hmm...it seems se7en was right after all. Not that I doubted, but it took quite some time for me to go from this:

to this:

I wanted just the can, so I printed out the first pic, then traced it and got this:

I forget whether I used the Open office draw to put colored lines in, I think I did. Note that the size of this pic is 25% of what I actually worked with. I found that the draw program does not work like Corel draw as I thought it might, never having played with it before. Oh well. I still managed to get the lines in the scanned pencil tracing that didn't show.

I used Photoshop to trace/fill the colors in to get this:

This is also resized to 25%. I essentially traced it with the colors and filled in. Took a lot of expirimenting, but it worked. However photoshop wouldn't do exactly what I wanted so I messed with Ulead and managed to do some stuff. Then photoshopping again to do the pretty little effect on the can. (the first picture). Then I merged the 2 layers and am now expirimenting on what to actually write on the button, as I'm not really satisfied with the font nor the writing itself on the original button I made. You'll find the original over at Trash's on the sidebar.
I don't think I'll be making the can move this time, I'm gonna do something with the lettering. Which only my Ulead can do for me. Can't get the animator with photoshop to do what I want with the text. We'll see. |

Yesterday we traveled to Branson, where we attended the Lynrd Skynrd concert. It was great. Some music just isn't very good unless it's played at the proper volume. See, normally my hearing is very acute and I cannot be in noisy places without coming out with an earache. For example: the Chiefs games. Something about music really loud doesn't bother me. My left ear did hurt half the night though, as the guy in the seat next to me had an ear piercing whistle he used next to my ear before the opening band even started playing. Needless to say, I switched seats with hubby as we had aisle seats. They played a song called 'red white and blue', which I don't think I've heard before. They said they recently played for the troops in Iraq. I remember hearing that the USO is having trouble getting any performers to play for the troops. Kinda shows who has moral character. I'll be finding and posting the lyrics for that at a later date. I got a nice t-shirt and a different one for Sweetpea, who watched my kids for me. I got her the 'girly' one as she would look nice in it. When killing time yesterday, we went to the Branson Mall, which is very small, and there was an 'indian' shop, you know what I mean. They had there, 4 very nice paintings on their wall. If I thought I could find it, I'd direct it to you online but I don't remember the artist's name. It was awesome. If I had that kind of money to spare... I also got some nice charms for necklaces. I'll have to snip them off the earrings, but you gotta do what ya gotta do.
When we got home, my new bra had come in the mail yesterday. Too bad we left early yesterday. It's really comfy and I've never had a bra that supported the weight but didn't pull the back up or dig into my shoulders. Any woman with C or larger knows what I mean. It's an IPEX wireless you can get at Victoria's Secret. If you have a catalog, you can get $10 off each one, that makes the cost on par with a decent walmart or target one. I tell ya, no digging into the ribs or shoulders is priceless!
Kids are running around, happy as you please, with their glow-sticks we got at the concert yesterday. Colds and all. Of course not much phases them, even when Steven had the flu on his first birthday, he was laughing and giggling between the throwing up episodes.

That's all for now. See ya'll later. |

Today we will be attending the show in Branson, it's gonna be fun! Kids are going to Aunt Sweetpea's. Steven just said she's his favorite (insert real name here). We will be staying in a hotel room, no kids after the concert. Hmm...possibilities! I'll tell you about it, maybe. The show. I mixed 4 cds of my music the other day, well 5 but one is country. With the car having a 4cd changer, it'll be a fun trip. 2 of them are pure bon jovi, another one is ½ bon jovi and the rest is various metal/hard rock. Makes me wish I had the Metallica Black cd. I only have the tape, and I do believe I lost it again. I think that makes 3 or 4 of them.

See ya'll later. |

Took the boys to the doctor today. Mikel is 47.9 lbs and 46 inches (almost 4 feet). I was wondering if he was 50lb yet, it's hard to pick him up anymore. Skinny as a rail too. Kindergarten in the fall, so he had to have 3 shots for that, plus I went ahead and did the Hep A. It's not a requirement yet, but when I asked the nurse said it may be soon enough. Steven had his shot first and just looked at the nurse curiously the whole time, no noise and a smile. Mikel screamed for all 4. Steven is 32lb and 37.5 inches. For some reason Steven was scared of the blood pressure cuff. That's the first time anything has fazed that boy. He's 3 for anyone who doesn't know.

Bill is 38 today. We chose some ice cream at the store for him. I have to make a cake; no frosting. I also have to shampoo the hell out of the boys' carpet again. *shakes head* Eventually we'll figure out what punishment will work for them. One day...

See ya'll later. |

I know, it's early yet, but I didn't really wanna leave the 'I'm depressed' post up. I really wasn't anyway. Prepare for lots of weird twists and turns as my fingers try to keep up with my brain ;)

Little Miss Anonymous, girl you gotta put a name in. I almost didn't know who you was. Good thing I know only one person who refers to Darryl. Just don't tell him cabbage is in there, once it's cooked you can't taste it anyway. I have 2 graphics programs and a very good photo editor. You will have to visit to have access as 2 are paid ones I can't transfer to ya. I think I did put the photo one on your hard drive though. I also have a scanner so we can resize and whatnot. Remind me to give you that website, there are many graduating years ppl there. What year are you anyways? Should probably tell Mouse too.

Speaking of reunions, I haven't done very much on the family one. Damn ppl won't tell me what they want. They're gonna get stuck with whatever the hell I tell them to do. AND LIKE IT!
Apparently thinking about class reunions, Hubby's 20th is this year. Class of 1986. We should be getting an invite for that he says. I can only assume it'll be during summer, I should probably look into that. There's talk of doing our 10th that was supposed to be last year this year. Class of 1995. Apparently the 'powers that be' who have control over that don't know where half the ppl are. *shakes head* I can open my phone book and find half of them. Or run into them in the store. You know, most ppl don't really leave home or they come back. I wonder why that is. Any ideas?

Some of the ppl from that website I was talking about came by, but didn't stay long with my 'memory lane' post. Can't say as I blame them, it wasn't fun. My life is pretty much an open book to anyone who asks, so I don't mind if ppl who may know me or see me in the future read my 'diary' so to speak. Hell my sisters do.

I did get to wondering though, what is a mother? I never really had one. Stumbling through motherhood on my own and that isn't easy. I was also thinking I don't really know what it means to be a girl. No examples there either. We were all girls, but we weren't really raised that way. Just some weird thoughts there.

Got a new bra today. Victoria's Secret has a new bra with no wires. We'll see when it's delivered. If it's a good one, I'll recommend it. I must say I look forward to one that won't dig into my ribs. It's a woman thing boys, don't worry.

Did I tell ya'll hubby got a new Dakota. New as in new to us. It's a quad cab. All that means to me is that the kids' car seats fit in the back.

Lynrd Skynrd is gonna be in Branson next weekend. What sucks about that is if we would be able to go it would have to be Saturday and we can't get tickets online. If I'm lucky someone will answer the 1800 number tomorrow and we can get tickets. I've never been to a concert before, they'd be a good band to see. We have a concert type hall thingie here, but no one owns it. Atleast at this time. Some friends of hubby's may be buying it. If they do, I am soooo gonna ask them for decent bands. And no I don't mean the shit they play on the radio, that stuff they pretend is music.

Numb3ers was great tonight. I have a little poll, who do you like better: Charlie or his brother? My vote's for Charlie, but sometimes I look at the brother and like him too. Charlie beat out the psychic tonight, it was a good showdown.

That's it for now, I'll tell you about the cartoons some time after Full Metal Alchemist and that other weird one are over if I watch them. I think I will be. Oh and Naruto is shaping up to be a nice cartoon too, check it out. |

Well, I lay in bed for about an hour and my brain didn't want to shut off. I went by classmates today for some weird reason, they sent me some junk mail from when I had registered long ago there, didn't even remember a password or anything. Found a connection where ppl actually go there to speak. (Waves to ppl coming by from that place. Oh, how I love my statcounter!) Long story. So I got to thinking bout what was supposed to be our 10 year reunion last year. I had wondered, but it seems that it never happened and some may attempt to try for this year. Half our graduating class lives here still. Who do I really know from back then? Not many, I knew who most everyone was, but you know how that is. So, in hopes of shutting my brain off we are taking a trip down Memory Lane.

Ever since I can remember we never had any kind of 'outside' communication devices. The radio only played tapes and I have a memory of being very little and watching my father throw the tv out the front door. From where we were living, I can conclude that most likely I wasn't even in school yet. Hence ya'll get some kind of idea why I so love my cartoons now. Can you imagine how hard it was to do current even type things in school? The librarian wouldn't let me cut the newspapers, oh well. I guess I forgot to mention we never had a tv since then either. I think it was summer before 3rd grade my mom left my father, then we lived in a motel I think, then lived in a not so nice place to be, then my mother gave us up because, and I quote directly, "God told me to". Let's see, that summer we went to NE for the annual family reunion and came back to the step-bitch living with us. Technically we were told she and her kids was watching our house for us. She never left. So, on one hand we have a biological mother who we only exist for if we are actually right in front of her, and stepbitch who is in love with only herself and somewhat her oldest daughter and her son. Note here, that she actually has 3 children. Poor Mouse, I don't know which of us had it worse, my mother ignored us but hers did it right in front of her. You can kinda see why in my story a while back, I never tolerated anyone giving her shit. Stepbitch was technically a housewife, and I do use the broadest sense of the term: she didn't have a job nor did she work. I can't remember how old I was, but it may have been 4th or 5th grade. Let's see, no tv, no radio, no way to get anywhere and 7 kids 2 adults, and I use adults in somewhat broader terms than most. My days in this household....get up at I think 5:30 am (nightowl can't sleep til after 11 or so). Get dressed, feed and water the animals. Animals you say? Morning was the rabbits, chickens(not my chore), the dog, the pigs and we had quail once too, oh and a goat. Just so you know, the pigs were at the top of the hill, there were 2 5gal buckets of water to be carried up there every day before school. And yes, this was my chore except for the chickens. Mouse had to help too. By 6:30 we usually managed to have it done. Then there was, if you were lucky, time to actually fix and eat breakfast. If you didn't have my father's breakfast done perfectly hot and on the table at 7am sharp, there were consequences that weren't pretty. In the middle of it all was trying to atleast somewhat clean the kitchen, there was hell to pay for that too. 7am run down to the bus stop. Damn bus driver was an asshole. That man learned to wait for our stop until 7:15am, I taught his ass that. Maybe he noticed I wasn't gonna take more of his shit. Then was the hellish bus ride. I never did understand why most guys went out of there way to make us feel like shit. But, they did learn, the hard way. Jess was the only one stupid enought to wait until he had quite a few bruises. If I ever see Luke again, I may just kick his ass for the fun of it. Then there was school. Oh, did I tell you what my wardrobe was like? Mostly it was stuff for working in, chores. So before every school year I got maybe 2 or 3 new shirts and if I was really lucky I got 2 pair of jeans. I was not allowed to wear any of my 'school' clothes just once before washing them, but we'll get to that part in a bit. I did get new shoes too, my feet were growing. Before school was spent avoiding mean ppl, so what that really meant to me was running with the so called 'bad' crowd. Didn't fight, didn't have to. No, didn't do drugs, smoke or drink, I wasn't like that just ran with 'em. Classes were boring. Too many teachers spent too much time teaching while I needed to use the time for homework, we'll get to why later. Then the hellish bus ride home. When we get home we have to feed and water the animals again and start dinner which gets us short on time, cuz we get home at 4pm and there's hell to pay if dinner isn't on the table by 5pm. No more than 30 minutes allowed at the dinner table. While we are doing dinner and feeding the animals there is expected to be 2 loads of laundry washed and hung to dry on the closeline. Did I mention it's after 4pm now? Then, if no one (me) is grounded there's dishes, cleaning the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, vacuuming. Oh yeah, and making their bed too, cleaning THEIR room. Pretty much me and mouse doing that, and that's only if we haven't done something to piss stepbitch or Missy off. That's where most of our grounding came from. We really didn't have time to get in trouble. Oh, yeah after that we had time to do homework. After a year of that is when I decided that if it didn't get done in the classroom I wasn't doing it. Not to mention the REQUIREMENT of having a job at 14. Atleast a couple nights during the week and the whole weekend. It wasn't optional. Yes, chores were to be completed before work or you didn't go, where you would be fired and punished for not having the job. No, they didn't take our money damn good thing too. You starting to notice yet that stepbitch really didn't work? Yes, this went on til I left home, which I did before my senior year in HS. Lets see, what was expected from me in school was I was not allowed to bring home a grade lower than a C(M). I was damn lucky I'm smart. If I couldn't ace any test put in front of me, I'd have been screwed, I did no homework again no time.
Well, what did you do if you were grounded you ask? Well, I dug under the house with a hammer in the winter. I dug a pond up the hill during the summer. Cut the grass with a pair of scissors. I'd say weed the garden, but that was a requirement for weekends, if you were grounded you did it by yourself. I still won't clean my bathroom. I had that job for months on end, everytime I had it spotless, one of the kids would mess it up more often than not on purpose. Oh and food while grounded was scrumptious. I don't think I ever told ya'll this. Every meal while at home when grounded was green. That frozen in the box shit. Broccoli, brussel sprouts and okra. Little trick: after heating the okra rinse it off while they aren't looking it won't be slimy anymore. You had 20 minutes to eat it and get your happy ass back outside to work(read: dig), if you ate within the alloted time you could have what was on the table within your 20 minutes. To this day I eat a plate full of food in 10 minutes or less. That and I'll eat anything but cranberry jelly. That stepbitch was so disappointed I would eat anything she finally noticed I wouldn't eat that shit at holidays. Damn near puked and I do get dry heaves just smelling it. Can you imagine a can of that for a meal?
Of course there were other chores that came most days but weren't constant. 5 gallon bucket fulls of crappy mostly. I don't allow that shit in my house, hubby goes fishing he don't bring it home. Scale and fillet, usually 2 buckets. Atleast 3 times a week. Kill, skin, clean and cook rabbits atleast once a week. Skin, clean and cook squirrels all squirell season long. Skin, clean, butcher and cook the 2 or 3 deer a year. I can dress, skin and butcher a deer quicker than most men. Gotta do it fast enough and with very little error if you don't want a foot up your ass, steel-toed no less.
Summer chores were construction work with my father all day, plus the every day chores, plus your own job. Gardening, including tilling, manuring and other things included for a garden. Lawn care also. Can you say lawnmower has no engine and never did. I tell you it was very rare for my father to pay any money for a lawnmower that actually had an engine in it. Most of the time it was a weed wacker, no it didn't haven an engine either, think schythe but the blade at a different angle and a very old fashioned rolly blade looking thing that was a lawn mower in the old days. Of course there was the one time with the scissors.
Let's get to the part where you're told you are 'stupid, worthless and can't do anything worth a shit' over and over damn near anytime you get anywhere near your so-called parents. These are the people who are supposed do the unconditional love thing. Is it any wonder I am a very shy and withdrawn person. I don't trust people. I say it with my oldest a lot, it's a miracle we turned out sane. Notice I make no mention of my biological mother here. She wasn't there. EVER. We had a phone, an address, everything like that. She lived in town. We never moved, same place always. Can anyone say unwanted?
Then you have jr high and high school. Kids are mean. Not all were. I didn't associate with anyone who even looked like they might be thinking of saying what my parents did. However there are quite a few ppl I wouldn't mind seeing again.

After all that, I think I may tell you the story of my first 'love' and the losing of the virginity thing. I have some questions for ya'll bout that. Later! |

As you can see, I have gotten rather fond of turqouise. That stems from my beading really, I have lots of them. That and little dragonflys. For the curious, the actual text color is #00ffff. I also chose one of the tiny background buttons made for websites for a little 'box' for my banners. Don't forget to watch the dragon change on the BGW banner. It's new, had to go by the site to figure out what to put on that would fit. I am sooooo bad! Don't forget to watch the header, it's got a surprise! (snicker) I really have to figure out something nice and maybe unique-ish for it. I am rather fond of the animating though. I may redo the trash for prez button soon. It wasn't the best, but I've had more practice now. I think I may have done that on a different program anyway.

If anyone comes by, I may post in a few days.

Cabbage burgers: Roughly 1lb. hamburger (80/20) browned. Throw in a package of already shredded cabbage, you get that in the fresh veggie aisle. Put in bread dough squares. Assuming you already made the dough and let it rise, or bought it out of the freezer aisle of a store and let it rise. 1 batch should do it, also just 1 'loaf' out of the frozen bag. I like to put chz in there too, but it usually leaks slightly. 350°F for however long it takes to bake. Check the bottom, like tap it and if hollow and browned, you are usually done. Careful about the folding part though, you could end up with lots of extra dough on the bottom. Do NOT forget to butter them when done, and again before eating (slice in middle and butter). I use brummel & brown, it's my favorite.
Bring me the stuff and I will fix it, however I don't make bread dough (wink, wink) |

...and life goes on. Virtually no one's been by here anyway. I can't believe I didn't write anything for the whole month of February. Not much goes on here anyway. I got my Bon Jovi cd's back. I got some new books, they're very good. I'm doing lots better at keeping my house semi-clean.
Spring is in the air here. Had to open the house yesterday, got to 77°. Paid for it this morning, it wasn't pretty. Still gets cold at night, wonder how long that'll last. Today it seems that summer's gonna be early and last a long time. I really dislike summer. Pollen from hell, humid, and hot. Guess it's a good thing we don't live farther south.
Soon as I talk hubby into letting me get my favorite graphics program, I'll be doing a facelift. Got all kinds of nifty graphics to put in the header. We'll see.

Later... |