Sepia Scenes 30/8 : My 1930's House

Sepia Scenes is a brand new Meme that Mary the Teach, over at Work of the Poet.com has just started. Mary is also the organiser of the Ruby Tuesday Meme. The new meme consists of posting a photo you must have taken yourself, it can be any subject, but it must be tinted sepia. Easy to do in a photo editor. Mary will open the Mr Linky list up from Thursday every week, but you can add your entry any day after that. For more info and to get involved pop over to the Sepia Scenes HQ. For my first post I've got a photo of my 1930's semi that I took last year, pity the Safira was parked in the drive at the time, but I think it works well in sepia. I've also used it for my Sepia Scenes badge.

I got the aged look by uploading the original colour version to a great Japanese website HERE which is very easy to use & has an English version (top right hand corner). Just choose to upload a photo from your computer or one on the web, Photobucket or Flickr for instance, then just put in the URL, press a button and it comes back with a great black & white version with a really good aged effect (you will need to have Flash installed on your PC). You can then give it a sepia tone in your photo editor. I use Photoplus X2 from Serif, which is compatable with Photoshop.

Digital Scrapbooking Day - 1st November

It's the second Annual Digital Scrapbooking Day on 1st November. Make sure you visit the DSD website to find out all about the special events, competitions etc that are being held around the world and across the blogosphere to celebrate the event.


There is now a Facebook page for the event. If you're on Facebook, join up here. There are currently 228 confirmed guests, many maybes, and you can invite your own digi-scrapping friends.

Wordless Wednesday 29/10: The white stuff arrives!

It's Snowing!

I posted this last night because it snowed yesterday, which took us all by surprise as we don't usually get snow this early. I was in my pod yesterday afternoon when someone said to come and look at the snow. Well I went round thinking it might be a sort of sleety light shower and got a shock when I saw this really thick snow with huge clumps of flakes coming down. This lasted for about a half hour, but didn't stick. Later on I went home at 4.30, walked out of the office building, where hubby was waiting for me in the car, to be met by a white world and falling snow (normal this time, not the huge stuff we'd had earlier). We only live a 5 minute drive from work so got home ok. I grabbed the camera and dashed to the patio doors to capture the moment for posterity :-)It continued to snow for another hour.

This morning there was still snow on the ground and trees, but not thick, but it was Oc. We had to run the car engine for a while, and even then had a heck of a job getting the car doors open as they were frozen shut! The country didn't seem to grind to a halt, which it tends to when we get a bit of snow and ice. There was a bit of bellyaching that the councils were slow getting the gritting lorries out, but by and large it didn't cause too much mayhem!

I can remember back in the fifties when we used to have real snow, up to the windowsills, with ice thick on the windows and huge icicles hanging from the gutters. And we didn't have double glazing and central heating or fitted carpeting in those days either. I don't know how we coped! :-) Nor were there big supermarkets just down the road to nip to in an emergency. Better wrap this up, I'm beginning to sound like a sketch out of Monty Python!

Ruby Tuesday 28/10: The Red Barn

An old stone barn we went past in the Lake District,
grabbed from the car window!

Why not join in and post a Ruby Tuesday picture yourself, the rules are simple. Just post a picture with red in it, but it must be one of your own and it can be of anything you like. For more details hop over to The Teach at Work of the Poet and check out the blogroll.

How to tell if your feet stink!

My Diet Monday: Week 4 - 270lbs

I have now been on my diet for 4 weeks and have lost a total of 10lbs, so I feel I am on track at the moment. I have been sticking to the regime of Slimfast milkshake for breakfast and lunch and a proper meal in the evening, and have not found it too onerous. I just find it easier when I am working full time not to have to prepare something in the morning to have to bring with me. I just prefer to have that extra 20 or 30 minutes in bed - especially now the dark, gloomy, Winter mornings are upon us!

My aim is to lose 2 stone (28lbs) by the end of this year (only 18lbs to go), then another 3 stone by the end of next year. This seems to me to be a realistic goal to aim for. So far so good :-)