Daisy blooms France

In a couple of days my babies will leave home again.  This time not to fly off around the world, but to start living the independent life in a rental house we have in town.  It is wonderful and it is sad, I'll miss them and I am glad for them.  It's a good safe way to take those first steps of real independence.  They will have much more freedom to make the house theirs, hanging pictures and mucking round in the garden, changing the curtains and colour scheme within reason if they want to, than they would if they were renting from strangers.

Reflection pond at the military cemetary at Normandy France

I am interested to see how they grow and change during this experience.  Of course they have been away from home before, but that was holidaying.  They worked I know but really, and they tell me the same, it was not the same as the work they are doing here.  Working in a hotel and living with your co-workers is not the same as being the face at the door of a huge mining company or an accountant financial advisor.  They really have to be on their game here.  So I will trust and believe that away from the nest they will still be the honest, capable, trustworthy, hardworking, responsible young ladies we think they are.  Now how biased does that sound!!!

Plants gone to seed at Thoronet Abbey France

On the other hand Adrian and I will be Ma and Pa on our own again.  We are looking forward to it to.  Just having each other to cook for, to chat to, to be spontaneous and take off to the movies when we feel like it......oh it sounds great.  It took quite a while when the girls went away last time to get used to just being two, hopefully this time we will slip into gear much quicker.  We have a lot of plans for this house and the gardens and I am really hoping I can just get into it.  I do tend to get sidetracked fairly easily.  I am really good at thinking about things I would like to do, projects I could take on and then I just sort of stall.  I hate to fail and so often I just don't start then I can't say it didn't work.  I can't say I tried though either and it really ticks me off.  So I am really, really trying to break that habit and for once JUST DO IT!!!!!

Jacaranda blooms and gorgeous street lights near the Eiffel Tower France

Photography and photoshopping are high on my list, I really want to find some way of getting the things I take out there, where is there you ask?  Well anywhere that isn't just my computer and this tiny blog.  I would like to produce something with them, prints or cards or bookmarks, something, but something that hasn't already been done.  Arghh  that's the difficult part, I have to say I don't have a great imagination when it comes to things like that.  

Baskets of wool ready to be spun at Guedelon Castle France

So let's see how I go hey!?  I hope I can look back here at some time not in the too distant future and give myself a big cheer, cause I did it I actually got off my huge butt and did it!

I just have to share it with you

I have spent a lot of time in the last couple of days blissfully cruising through blogland and I am so often reading about bloggers who are wanting to learn to use their PSE or Photoshop programmes.  I love what we can do using PSE and if you haven't bought a program already and are considering doing so then,  from my absolutely amateur point of view PSE 7 or the new PSE 8, which are so much cheaper than Photoshop will do absolutely as well.  When I did my Photography Summer School fortnight back in January, we were taught how to use Photoshop, but many of us didn't have it, as it is approx $1200 here.  We mostly had PSE 5 upwards and we could all go home and do just about everything on that, that we had learnt to do in Photoshop.  So if you are thinking of buying a program then this is a cheaper option.  The joy then comes in learning how to get the most out of it.  How to layer, eek I hear you say, and to add texture, make a storyboard, do some framing, add brushes, yep it all sounds terribly complicated.  But I want to share the most fantastic blog with you, you will be inspired, excited and able to create some truly incredible works of art.  Rita at Coffee Shop has the most incredilbe array of FREE goodies for you to play with in Photoshop and PSE.  Rush on over and play and spread the word for Rita as I believe she is a SAHM who makes a little living from her blog.  She is so generous and so talented........ enjoy.

I haven't actually used any of her textures or actions on my pics here but I will be using them often.

It's incredible isn't it how we can change the feel and mood of a photograph, simply by making it black & white, or sepia, adding some texture or enhancing the colours, welcome to the world of Photoshop Editing.