Lori's Blog : It's Here!!!

My husband, saint that he is, if you had not previously read is staying home and cancelled his business trip to Norway. And while, as I JUST STATED, he IS a saint - about 50% was due to his "Good-Heavens-I-Am-A-Latch-Key-Child-Enabler" epiphany - the other 50% had EVERYTHING to do with the puppy waaaay down in that photo down there NOT showing up on our doorstep when expected.

If said contraption were not here by this evening ... as PROMISED by our Good Friend Mr. Amazon, his plan was to go out and buy a wheelchair ... because we needed ONE MORE WAY TO MAKE ME LOOK HANDICAPPED, DISABLED AND / OR PATHETIC ... hmmmm? Yes?

His "Wacky Plan" was mainly hatched due to the fact that when the contraption DID show ... most likely Monday - he would not be around to put it together and thus I would still need a way to move about the house until I begged someone to come over and help me put it together.

The "Office-Chair-Pretending-To-Be-A-Wheel-Chair" - while good for a day as you wait for something better to arrive on the front porch - was in NO WAY a long term ... like, say TWO days, solution. It was difficult, cumbersome, painful, hard, and apparently - according to Gary - made me look awfully pathetic.

Once the Super Duper Surfin Scooter did show up on the porch and he put it together, he realized that I didn't look all that pathetic anymore - putting my dolls, snacks and sippie cup in my basket and toodling off to parts of the house unknown to me just moments before and he had a few moments regrets of being so hasty canceling his flight ...

Of course this was also AFTER he took it for a spin and realized that it is a Fun Ride! My favorite? Role on by with a swift flick of my toe (it practically runs by itself on tile), turn towards him and do the Royal-Princess-Diana-Arm-At-A-Ninety-Degree-Angle-Cupped-Hand-Moving-Ever-So-Delicately-Back-And-Forth-Back-And-Forth-Wave ...

This seems to actually make him squirm, me looking like *gasp* I might be enjoying myself. Long gone was the pathetic, exhausted woman struggling in her office chair and I realized that this Lori would have MOST DEFINITELY been left - a hug and a kiss goodbye, I'll see you on Friday ...

I've tried to keep it toned down a bit ever since I spotted that briefest of brief dejected look ...

FUN TIMES, my friends ... fun times ...

On to the next photo ... down there ... yes, go check it out - I will wait.

GO!

Now, tell me: isn't that just the most adorable thing you have ever seen? In a fridge?

Here's the thing ...

I am a wee bit addicted to / in love with Kroger's "Loaded Baked Potato Soup". It is a warm, potato'ey, cheesy, with-a-titch-of-bacon'ey hug that has a bonus of while not only being gentle on my stomach and not upsetting it - it will calm my stomach when already upset. So ... pretty much: "Lori's-Perfect-Food-Except-For-All-The-Starch-And-Fats" ...

Ah, yes ... into every "Perfect Food" for Lori ... a little (or a lot) of "Things-She-Shouldn't-Eat" must fall ...

So when ever Gary is shopping at Kroger's, he checks the Fresh Soups of the Day to see if this is one of them. If he finds it, he gets me one or two containers. For me this seems to be the "IT" food that I crave.

For example, Friday night (the day of the surgery) I was in massive amounts of pain. Gary had been up all day trying to make me comfortable. Before going to bed, he made sure I was stocked for any occasion. I

had ginger crisps - another food that seems to calm my stomach, almonds, a bag of Whopper Easter Eggs, a full insulated mug of the Crystal Light drink I drink throughout the day, plus a few more bags with my favorite and "Comfort Foods" in them.

In the midst of all this plenty ... which, in addition to being my "Faves" - they were RIGHT THERE at my bedside - and even in massive amounts of pain, got myself into my "Office-Chair-That-Was-Doing-A-Sucky-Job-Of-Pretending-To-Be-A-Wheel-Chair" and exhaustedly rolled myself past all of it and into the kitchen to heat up a small bowl of soup and thoroughly enjoyed it with a half glass of milk ...

So Gary has been running over every day to see if they had the soup, worried that some he purchased three days ago, not only would be gone because I ate it, but worried it wouldn't be fresh, so back he goes.

Since purchasing on multiple days, he wanted to make sure I used them in order - thus the labels!

Guys this is EXACTLY what "Perfect Love" looks like:

You might have noticed something else ... my photos.

Look ... weird?

Off?

Funky?

I recently purchased the "PS Touch" App for my iPad and have been playing around with it.

My usual workflow for a Blog Post is to dump my photos onto my hard drive, review them, make a copy of those I want to use in the post, Photoshop each photo, dump the photos into a Post and then just fill in words around the pics ... straightforward enough ...

So now I am no longer at my desk, and everything feels weird and 'not like mine'. But lately I have remembered to take photos with my iPhone (they really are a pretty decent quality ... don't tell Ryan I said that). I can then e-mail them ... picking them up on my iPad ... and now there is this "PS Touch".

I assumed it was going to be another "PS Express": a very "Bare Bones" subset of a subset of tools. But it is not ...

Rather, most of what I paid literally hundreds and hundreds of dollars for on my PC ... costs $9.99 as an App on my iPad?!?

Seriously?

How does this work?

I always assumed that the "cost" of Photoshop ... THE reason it is so pricy was the 'layers' concept and all associated tools. Layers seems to add a level of complexity to Photoshop that is exponentially ... MORE ... of everything. More complex, more difficult, more cumbersome, more fun, more options, more wonderful ...

I assumed that ANY deep discounted version of Photoshop would not have layers ... it was as simple as that. "PS Touch" has layers, it has Blending Modes, it has every tool I have wanted or needed to use so far - totally confusing to me ... but I am rolling with it and some of the photos today I used a Layer Style of "Cartoon" - something my Most Expensive Most Cumbersome version on my PC does NOT have, but very similar to 'Posterized' thus I am not bitter about it ...

OK, well, not very ...

I have been having quite a lot of fun playing with it if I can forget the cost issues ... I highly recommend it to anyone wondering if Photoshop is the right software for them.

To end for the day ... Here is a shot I got of Charlie with my iPhone for some reason charging off the bed ...