April 22, 1945

I am starting a new, very long term project. Scanning old family letters then transcribing them into something readable and sharable. Maybe a book with a collection of letters? For now I will put some of them into blog posts as I type them. There are hundreds of letters my granddad wrote my grandmother when he was stationed in China after WW2. I am concentrating on scanning them now, but will try to type one a day. Maybe I will type them all in 2 years. New label for these posts is China letters.

Here is the first one.

Darling Ginger, 

Two letters from you, one from mother, and one from Bill. Quite a nice lot. Not enjoying some more foggy and cloudy weather. Using the office portable now that I'm Staff Duty Officer this unpleasant Sunday. 

After one of our joint conferences,s the other night, a group of professional Chinese tumblers put on a very impressive shoe. One spineless girl balanced herself on three legs of a tilted four legged stool and without anything holding down her feet bent backwards until she was upright drinking a glass of water while doing it. Wouldn't believe it possible. Defies all the laws of gravity. 

Trouble is, we are so used to and sick of China and her misery that we don't see the interesting things anymore. Here in this large city an aquaduct runs under the sidewalk on main street, At every street corner there is an opening thru which the water carriers let down buckets to get water. For us who are not immune to the amoeba causing dysentery, that water must be boiled some time. No other purification method will suffice. Of course all waste matter is saved. In the morning the bucket brigades go by with their fragrant loads headed for the rice paddies where this rich fertilizer is used. As for transportation, Shank's mare, litters, ricksha, pony carts and sedan chairs are the only means available to the ordinary civilian. 

Well, that's all.

Love, hugs, and kisses.

George

Gimp

I am learning to use a photo editing program called GIMP (and I already typed this first paragraph once and it and the pictures disappeared). It is more complex than photos, which I was using, but with it, I can add my watermark, reduce noise, play with a lot of different effects, and supposedly do a lot of fancy editing. I will be playing with it, but do enjoy the unedited images the most. I am also learning to name the flowers and birds I photograph. My goal is to label every photo, but I am starting with those. After that, I will work on mushrooms and butterflys. 

possibly Cowpen Daisy (aster)

possibly Golden Tickseed (aster)

Indian Blanket (aster)

butterfly and bee on Golden Tickseed (aster)

millipedes on mushroom

I got to mat a bunch of 8 by 10 photos last night and have only  more to matt. I framed 2 of them for my sister. I have 2 more frames available. I love the way the mats work with the photos to enhance them. My neice is very artistic and she did a great job matching mats to photos. I probably won't order anymore prints except by special request until I sell some of these. Learning how to sell is the hardest part, but necessary to pay the expenses involved in sharing these pictures with others. 

The calendar I am working on is halfway finished, I hope. I haven't test printed it yet, so I don't know if I will have to start over again. I am learning how to use publisher for it. I also got some paper samples to see if I can print photos almost as good as the online place. If I can, I will be able to sell them for less, at least the postcards. The lowest I can get them is $4/card. Even though they are really good quality, people don't seem to want to pay for quality.

Today I get to test out the weight distributing hitch. We are taking the camper to get at least 1 tire. The sidewall is cracking. We want to replace it before our upcomming camping trip. Mom and I are both counting down the days before we go. We are both looking forward to getting into the woods by a lake, watching birds without cars driving by, walking on trails instead of gravel, and listening to nature instead of lawn mowers.

Bird feeder drama

This isn't a mocking bird, but I got yelled at by a mockingbird yesterday because I forgot to fill the feeder. I went out and filled it, but the mockingbird didn't come back. This little girl is a house sparrow. What we have the most of. They are fun. They come in groups, argue, the boss wins. Sometimes they fly through the carport and hang out on mom's car roof. Occasionally they fly into the wall when they are not watching where they are going.

Daylily

Daylilies are one of my favorite flowers. They are so joyful. I am glad a lot of people like them. There are over 80,000 registered cultivars. They are not a true lily and do not grow from blubs. They are not toxic like lilies are and can be eaten by people. They are toxic to cats, causing kidney damage. Each flower only lasts a day (hence the name), but the plant puts out new flowers daily.

Teatime

I have been lax on daily photos. I took a couple of days off facebook also, until someone said they missed my morning photos. I was reading a book called Joyful about incorporating joy into your life. One of the assignments is a joy journal. (Like a thankful journal). I am going to do it. And I will steer my business plan toward spreading joy for other with my photos. That way if I sell it is a bonus, but if people say the photos made them smile, I meet my plan. Also thinking of adding pet photography and garden photography. Both I am good at. And it is difficult for people to take photos of their own pets. They pets like to be too close to get good pictures.

On to teatime..

Last Sunday, mom hosted a tea party for two of her daughters and one of her grandaughters. It was fun. She baked for 2 days. got out all the fancy dishes and served the tea Tammy brought back on the plane from Mystic, Connecticut when we went to visit Tammy's son. I got to eat the leftovers for a couple days after the party. While they were good as leftovers. They were best on the fancy china with people I enjoyed being around.

May 19, 2020

May 17, 2020

Took a few days off. I got tired of seeing 0 visits to the blog and web page and 10 views to the facebook page. But then someone said they missed my photos. This morning I walked with my cameras. I felt better for doing that. I have succeeded in making it a habit. The whole day is better when I do my morning dog/ photo walk. I got a lot of neat photos today. But I only downloaded from the Olympus camera. Here are a few.

May 13, 2020

I don't usually edit, except to brighten photos before printing. First one is original, 2nd one is edited. What do you think?

So website directions... sales of prints and notebooks that will bring joy to the users and viewers. garden photography to preserve the pleasure blooms from each season bring the gardener. pet photography to capture your pet's joy of living and the relationship between owner and pet. 

The wording is not quite right. I haven't drank any coffee yet.

Pet photo sample.. from my cell phone, I need to practice more with my olympus It takes better photos.

May 12,2020

Potential

May 11, 2020

May 10, 2020