This “painting” is from a photograph I took of a little girl playing with her doll in a puddle at Golden Gate Park.

One of the new features of Photoshop CS5 is the “mixer brush” which allows one to mix pixels in very much the same way you mix paint so that you can easily achieve a painterly effect. Even when I was painting with real paint in a studio, I usually worked from a photograph, so I have totally fallen in love with this new feature — all the joy of painting without the mess and expense of paint and canvas and brushes with the bonus of unlimited do-overs!

Lynda.com has a good tutorial on using the new mixer brush which you can find here, and it’s kind of fun to watch in a Bob Ross sort of way.

Earlier in the year, Scrapblog contacted me to do a product review. Heretofore, I had not been much of a scrapbooker, had never ventured into the world of digi-scrapping, although as one who loves photography and the like, it did hold a certain appeal. But, sort of like knitting, I thought it was one of those things I wanted to do but figured I’d never get around to doing.  Nonetheless, I checked out Scrapblog and really liked them. A lot. And now I’d like to work for them but they only pay in stickers.

Soon thereafter, I somehow ended up being in charge of the Kindergarten memory book for Sean’s class and I investigated a lot of different ways to get that done. What I found was that Scrapblog was hands down the easiest and least expensive way to accomplish that task. But more than that, they offered me 1000 times more creative horsepower than anyone else. All the stickers and backgrounds and stuff I used in that sweet little book was free. Free! My only cost was the printing which is on par with all other sources who do this kind of thing. All the moms were really happy with the book and I wish I could show you how cute it turned out, to show you some of the cool tricks I learned.

So then, here are the top 10 things I like about Scrapblog and I think you will too:

1. I don’t have to buy a program – it’s all on-line.
2. I don’t have to download a resource intensive program to crunk up my computer – it’s all on-line.
3. I don’t have to buy paper and other stuff that would occupy space in my house – it’s all on-line. (Bonus: I don’t have to go to a scrapbook store which overwhelms me.)
4. I can move stickers around and change backgrounds to my heart’s content – it’s all on-line.
5. I can work anywhere I have an internet connection because – you guessed – it’s all on-line.
6. Lots and lots of free stuff!
7. I can have my scrapbooks printed or just share on-line (you can set your Scrapblogs to private or invitation only).
8. I can earn points in their marketplace to buy stickers and backgrounds just by buying from some of their partners, whom I buy from already anyway.
9. They offer lots of printing options from books to note cards, all the standard stuff.
10. It’s just plain fun.

If you want to see a Scrapblog I made recently (using all free stuff) to sort of recap Sean’s first six years, you can see it here (I recommend full screen view so you can control the speed).

This is the aptly named Mirror Lake in Yosemite Valley.  The last time I saw it, around 10 years ago, it looked a lot different – it was bigger and less “mucky”.  Through natural processes, the lake is filling in and will someday disappear altogether and become a meadow.

In this photo, I applied an HDR affect which gives it a surrealistic quality, although Yosemite is surrealistically beautiful all on its own without the aid of Photoshop.

Here’s one of Sean climbing El Capitan. Hoo boy did he take to mountain climbing. I could hardly keep up.  Of course I had to carry the camera, so it was a bit more challenging for me what with my bad knee and all.

Yeah. No, not really. But I did have to carry the camera. And it was heavy.

Here is one of the approximately 30,537 pictures I took of flowers while I was in California, most of which are in Cousin Judi’s fabulous garden. I learned how to make the frame in Photoshop in a video tutorial at Yanik’s Photo School, which you can see here if you are so inclined.  He has great easy to follow video tutorials and I love the soothing quality of his voice.

Yosemite is one of my favorite places on the entire Earth.  It’s a place where my love for God and geology intersect.  In these exact coordinates in the universe, God and Earth are exposed and revealed in such a way that they are both breathtakingly clear and yet all the more mysterious.  In his book, A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking says that when we understand eternity, then we will see the face of God.  In Yosemite, I come as close to that as anywhere I’ve ever been.

A month or so before AD and I married, we hiked Half Dome, which is that huge “half dome” shaped granite rock you see in the distant background.  When we set off on the hike, I didn’t really know if I could make it because it’s a mostly vertical, 20-mile round trip, give or take.  But I decided that day that I would go as far as I could go and when I could go no more, I would go back.  So I would go as far as I could go and then I would rest.  And then I would get up and go some more. And eventually we made it.  I recall that it took about 12 hours, maybe more. Such is life, one step at a time.

As we walked along that day back in 1998, not fully aware of what was ahead for us, not knowing if we would make it to the top or have to turn back, we imagined that some day we would have a little boy or girl and that we would take them to Yosemite.  There has been a lot of stopping and resting along the way in those past 12 years, but on this trip, that dream came true.

The other day I was out running errands and I had to stop and put gas in my car.  Filling the tank with gas is not my favorite task, but I’m an independent modern girl and I put gas in my own car.  But honestly?  I’d rather not and am happy to get out of doing it whenever I can. I don’t know why. It just seems to me that the men folk should have to pump the gas, take out the trash, remove the dead geckos from the shower and other duties as assigned. When it comes down to it, I’m old-fashioned.

I see that all the pumping stations are occupied, so I pull up behind my favorite pump and wait for it to become available.  Gas pumps are like bathroom stalls – you have your favorite one, you know you do and why it is your favorite defies explanation, but it is the one you go to when need arises.

So then…

I’m sitting in my car waiting for my pump to become available and I’m taking note of all the stories going on at the gas station this morning.  In particular, I notice this elderly couple get out of their car and make their way around to the pump.  As is sometimes said, if they were moving any slower they woulda been going backwards.

The little Mrs. was apparently the driver.  She is the first to get out of the car. She is dressed very crisply in her lavender stretch pants, matching blouse and never-committed-even-a-venial-sin bright white Keds.  She weighs all of 98-pounds.  I am guessing by the scarf she is wearing tied under her chin that she has recently been to what she would probably term the “beauty parlor” where the “beauty operator” washed and set her hair.  Just so.  I also suppose that her beauty operator is named Velma and has been doing hair since 1949.

At any rate, the elderly lady gets out of her car, makes her way around to the other side of the car where she opens the door and helps an elderly gentleman out of the car. I assume he is her husband. She manages to maneuver him into his walker, the kind with the tennis balls on the front, and together they work their way around the car to the pump.  Together with great time and effort, he puts gas in her car. Because by cracky, as long as that man has breath in his lungs, she will not pump the gas.  Whether is it she who will not pump the gas or he who will have not have his wife pumping gas I can’t quite tell, but I can tell that’s how it is for them.

It was almost painful to watch and part of me wanted to jump out of my car and pump their gas, but I didn’t.  I could have done that small thing for them – easily – but it seemed an intrusion of sorts and in this day of age, they would have probably found it more frightening than helpful. So I sat and watched.

Later, I stopped in at one of my favorite boutiques and purchased a small clock for a gift.  The sales clerk, who appeared to be the same age as my mother, was very kind and helpful. I asked her if the clock had a battery in it. She said that the clock came with a battery but that it was not in the clock. She added that I would have to have my husband put it in when I got home.

I laughed to myself and decided that I would have him do that as soon as he gets back from putting gas in my car.

I know. It’s probably not a gecko. But I couldn’t think of a cute alliterative name to go with lizard. Larry was just too obvious. Gordon lives on my front porch and eats ants. In exchange for room and board he patiently poses for my camera.

Tempus fugit, carpe diem and all that. Last day of kindergarten, pass the kleenex.  This post was originally published last year but seems especially appropriate today as I sit at my desk trying to figure out how it all got away from me so fast.  Neither sweet nor bitter stays on the tongue for very long.  Tempus fugit indeed.

* * *

These days, life seems to click past from weekend to weekend, holiday to holiday, school year to school year.  It is as though I am seeing my life through a View-Master.  With the click of the thumb, one season disappears from view and is replaced with another.  And then another, and another.

Soon the school year will be over and we’ll look forward to lazy summer days, swimming and popsicles.  Click.  Then Father’s Day.  Click. Then Independence Day. Click. And then Labor Day.  Click. And then back to school again.

I was almost 39 when we married and AD was 42.  We were both on the dark side of 40 when Sean came along.  And perhaps because we are older or because we came to parenthood in the 11^th hour, time is the filter which sifts the meaning out of the mundane for us.  Time is our most precious and finite resource and informs our every thought.

The other day I watched a young woman in the grocery store pushing a cart with her baby in the seat.  I watched her stop the cart and lean in to rub noses with her baby and coo sweet round syllables to her.  I estimated her to be about 25 and I thought about how if she lives to be 80, she will get 55 years with her baby.  And I was a little envious.

If I’m lucky enough to live to be 80, I will get 36 years with my child.  I am so grateful that I ever got to be a mom. I am grateful for every single day, even the days when I cry and complain about how hard it is because I know that no matter how many years I get, in the closing moments of life as I am ushered off  into the shadow of death, if I wish for anything at all, it will be more time.

This right-now season that fills the frame of the View-Master, is especially vibrant and crisp and golden.  My eyes want to linger here, to stay just a little bit longer…

Click.