Well, this wasn’t how I was planning on spending my summer hours. I finally got my new computer (moving from a PC to a Mac isn’t as easy as everyone claims!!), then it seemed silly to move my old Photoshop 7 program onto it, so we upgraded Photoshop as well, from a fairly old to a very new (CS3) and quite unfamiliar version. Now I’m at the point where I can do virtually nothing on either computer, and am feeling very stupid and very frustrated.

Consequently, I’ve spent way too many hours this past week trying to understand the most basic concepts on both the computer and the PS program, with no discernable success. I’ve also spent a fair amount of money on books that are supposed to help with my problems, but don’t, and will doubtless be off to the bookstore for more. Actually I’m first going to head off to the main library downtown tomorrow to see if they have something that will assist me before I lay out any more cash.

This sort of anguish isn’t something I am happy about enduring at any time, but it seems even more cruel during the fleeting summer months. One part of me wants to say forget it, and just keep on with the old system for now which, while very flawed, I know how to use. The other part of me is the grim determination part that I employed to learn whatever skills I have achieved, and it wants to darn well put the time in and get on with the process. In case you are wondering, I’m doing this post on the old system since I can’t wrangle the images on the new one for love or money at present. Maybe next week. Or the week after that.

To make the situation more stressful, I’m hitting the peak of my summer horse photo busy time, with client shoots, horse events most weekends, and just a ton of photo ops in general. With every download I have to agonize whether to put the images in the new system where they will sit for who knows how long before I figure out how to handle them, or in the old computer where I can get them whipped into shape, but with a lot fewer options to play with than I could theoretically use with the new Photoshop. I’ve almost decided to double download for the next while, same shots in each computer, until I have this resolved. Sigh.

OK, enough whining. Summer is in full swing here and we are starting to reap the garden harvest. Had our family Sunday dinner this evening, which will add to confusing the attending family and friends since today is Monday. Long weekends will do that anyway so I thought I’d reinforce it by having the weekly Sunday get-together a day late. What the heck. We had beets from our garden, and also tomatoes. I can’t get over that–some years we still haven’t seen a ripe tomato in mid-September, and given the early frosts we can get, some years we don’t *ever* see one. Not sure what I did this year to be so nicely rewarded, but it’s much appreciated.

We had a nice treat yesterday on the food front. A couple of middle Eastern ladies appeared on our doorstep a couple of weeks ago asking if they could harvest some of the grape leaves from the trellis on the west side of our yard. The grapevines are pretty well out of control and goodness knows there are leaves to spare, so we said to go right ahead and take as much as they wanted. Yesterday they returned bearing some wonderful homemade dolmas that they had produced from our leaves, plus a sampling of stuffed zucchini, onions and leeks. We enjoyed them for supper last night and they were wonderful. I’m very fond of this sort of food but am far too lazy to actually make my own, so this worked out well on all fronts. They harvested a bunch more leaves so I’m hopeful we’ll get another dinner treat in due course. Win-win all round.

Photos today are a grab-bag of ones from this computer’s files. I have a beautiful new landscape shot of a canola field in bloom from the weekend, but it’s in the other system and I’ve already explained that problem. Trust me, it’s a very nice shot!! Also some very good hawk images from the same outing, but alas, you won’t be seeing them either this week.

Shot number one is an abstracted horse neck and mane from a shoot I did in late winter. I love the simplicity and patterning on this one.

Shot number two is one I did of my husband’s cello. It doesn’t usually leave the music room upstairs (formerly a daughter’s bedroom) but for some reason he had it in the living room one day in the low and mellow light, and my eye was struck by the warmth of the wood. This one has a “bark” texture filter laid over it.

Shot number three is from a cattle round-up shoot I did in late fall, again, considerably transformed in Photoshop.

How’s that for eclectic? One more thing to mention. I am the featured artist this month in an online equine magazine. Click on this link to see the article and quite a few visuals http://www.equestmagazine.com/article-artist-08.php Hope that will get you there. See you next Monday, maybe?? from the new computer!