Oh, So Pretty

This post is linked with Macro Monday.

YEAH! Buddy Ran His First Marathon ~ 11-10-12

MARATHON BUD DID IT!!! 

HE CROSSED THE FINISH LINE:-)

It was so festive. As he ran under the finish point, the man on the loudspeaker roared..."And here we have Buddy Johnson, age 60, from Lexington, VA." It was so cool. There were quite a few after him, but he managed to make it in under the seven hours. WOOHOO!!!!!!!! Saturday he is going to run the Roanoke Half Marathon. I guess he has that incurable 

"Runner for Life" disease. 

Time for contemplation before leaving for the race.

Eloise and Sage made a sign, 
and they each had blue cow bells to ring.

Buddy stopped long enough for a photo-op with the girls.

Gene waiting for Bud to round the last curve.

Almost there.

WOOHOO...He did it!

Results 1 - 1 of 4716	Results Per Page:   10  25  50  100
2012 Anthem Richmond Marathon

Bib	First Name	Last Name	Age	Gender	City	State	Country	10k Split	Half Split	20 Mile Split	Clock Time	Net Time	Place	Gender Place	Div Place	Division
7232	BUDDY	JOHNSON	60	M	LEXINGTON	VA		1:34:23	3:23:47	5:12:31	6:56:20	6:49:53	4698	2568	77	MEN -- 60 THROUGH 64

This post is linked with Our World Tuesday and Shadow Shot Sunday 2.

In Remembrance ~ 11-11-15

Each Veteran’s Day I post this same entry but with updates on the ages of my children and any pictures I have found during the year. Some of the pictures remain the same as does the story of my daddy and his part in The Great War. Once again this is my contribution to Weekend Reflections - a different kind of reflection, but such an important one for me each year. I am wondering how many there are left of us living who our remembering a parent on this day who served in 
The Great War - The War to End All Wars. 

Eugene Marseilles Hornot 
 Father of Eugenia Hornot Robinson

Born 1893 ~ New Orleans, Louisiana

Daddy and His Sister, Celina
His mother and little brother died in the influenza epidemic
in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

My Father’s WWI Portrait

Corp of Engineers 

France

The Great War

Appointment of Eugene M. Hornot
Second Lieutenant in the Engineer Section
 Officers’ Reserve Corps of the United States
Given under my hand of the city of Washington the thirteenth day of June 1917, and
in the one hundred and forty-first year of the Independence of the United States.


Appointment of Eugene M. Hornot
First Lieutenant in the Engineer Section
Officers’ Reserve Corps of the Army of the United States
Given under my hand of the City of Washington the fifteenth day of August 1917, and
in the one hundred and forty-second year of the Independence of the United States.

***Please note the discrepancy of these two dates. Bud and I have read and reread them, and we cannot figure out the 141st year of independence and the 142nd year of independence when the dates were June 1917 and August 1917...both 1917. Oh, well, he was in the war, he served in France, and my son, his namesake, has his WWI footlocker.

This picture was taken outside the Smithsonian Museum of American History on my daddy’s last visit to VA. From left to right: Mattie, my eldest child now 52, Eugene Marseilles, my youngest child now 44, and me. We pushed him into where the aging American Flag was hanging in all of its glory. My frail daddy sat erect in the wheelchair, removed his beret, and saluted the flag never saying a word. He did not talk about the war with any of us, but I know he never really got over what he experienced while serving with the Army Corp of Engineers at the height of WWI. I have learned he was assigned to an electric plant somewhere in France.  In 1993, he died at 100 years, 7 months of age. On this Veteran's Day in the USA, Remembrance Day in Canada, Remembrance Day in Australia, and Remembrance Day on Sunday in The United Kingdom, please let us not forget the sacrifices our American, Canadian, British, Irish, Australian, and Scottish veterans made while serving their countries during what was known as “The Great War,” and “The War To End All Wars.” Thanks, too, to the New Zealanders who celebrate their Remembrance Day on Anzac Day, the 25th of April each year. 

Daddy as a dapper young man WITH hair.

Mother’s Wedding Announcement

Mother and Daddy 1925

Mother and Daddy 1926

I have no idea about the baby, Ann.

 Daddy always wore a bow tie. 

Here he is with my mother in our home in Palm Beach, Florida.

This picture of the family was taken at our home in Melbourne, Florida, while my daddy was stationed at Patrick Air Force Base, Cocoa Beach, Florida. I think I was in the seventh grade.

 Daddy after he retired from the Corp of Engineers and joined the firm of 
Gee and Jenson Engineers in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Mother and Daddy sending me off to Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. 

This was taken at the railway station in West Palm Beach, Florida, just before I boarded.

It was an overnight ride, so I got to sleep in a berth. Very exciting :-)

 My last picture of Mother and Daddy before my mother died.

Memories of my visit to the WWI Museum in Iepers, Belgium. I stayed in that precious little town for a week while I traveled about Belgium visiting the graveyards, talking with the people, and visiting museums. The things I saw and learned will never leave me. Those were terrible times.

This post is linked with Weekend Reflections. 

My First Mosaic from Scratch :-)

ELOISE

Today I took a break from my Round Trip class with Kim Klassen, and went back to my Beyond Layers class because she was teaching us how to created our own mosaic in PSE10. It was a toughie for me...whether to use the cropping tool or the move tool...very confusing. You will note the middle shot of Eloise is a bit skewed...boo-boo...but I left it in so I could refer back to it. The splotches of blue could be darker, too, but I wanted that first one to be just the way it was without a lot of tweaking. The other pictures I managed to resize and they look OK to me. It is pretty exciting for me to think I have finally created my own mosaic. I never, never thought I would be able to do it.

We are leaving in a few minutes for Marathon Man and moi to head for Richmond. Tomorrow is the BIG day...his first marathon at 60. I am fretting and worrying, but he promises he will call if cannot make it. Keep your toes and fingers crossed that all goes well and he gets to finish. No matter what, he is still a winner in my mind. Will try to get some photos up of the big occasion. 30 degrees when it starts and 60 degrees at the end. Y'all have a wonderful weekend.

It's Dinnertime on the Creek ~ DP 11-6-12

BUDDY AND I VOTED AT 6:15 THIS MORNING!

DONE DEAL!

Now that I am learning LR4, I have decided to MAKE myself learn to use the manual setting on my Canon Rebel. I did not do anything to this shot other than crop it, and I did shoot on manual. I look at the bird shots of my fellow bloggers and want so badly to be able to shoot like them. Well, this is my first attempt, and I am a happy camper. I do not know the names of these sweeties, but I certainly can see them and enjoy their feeding patterns. Maybe there is some hope for me. Class #3 of Round Trip class with Kim Klassen arrives this afternoon. I cannot wait to see what the the lesson is going to be today...maybe some post-processing techniques in LR. 

Eloise and Her Shadow

Today I actually worked in LR4 until I got the color shot the way I wanted it. Then I exported to PSE10 and converted it from color to black and white. Lots of fun :-) 

This post is linked with Shadow Shot Sunday 2.

Lightroom 4 ~ My First Attempt ~ DP 11-4-12

My "Round Trip" eClass with Kim Klassen began for real yesterday. Our introductory class was on the Tuesday before. Class meets twice a week for 4 weeks. So far I have begun pulling my photos into LR4, adding keywords to them, and then placing them into collections. I have now brought over 670 pictures by first opening them in iPhoto and then just simply dragging and dropping them into the LR icon located in the toolbar of my MacBook Pro...Easy Peasy :-) Then I worked with the originals in LR, edited them some more in RadLab, and then returned them to LR to sit alonside the originals in my library. Here you have it... my first try...and LR even put my watermark in for me without my asking. I did not eve know I had been successful creating it. Guess that is what you call a "preset." It took me hours yesterday afternoon and night and then all day today to view and study all of the videos, take notes, figure out how to do the nitpicky things I needed to do to move in my photos from iPhoto, set up my LR library, add the keywords, and then place them into their appropriate collections. Geeze, it was tedious, but I had an awful lot of fun. Lesson 3 will be here on Tuesday.

This is the hook on one side of our 15 year Eddie Bauer or LLBean hammock. We bought it so long ago I do not remember from which store we got it. We are still using it 12 months a year.

This post is linked with Macro Monday, and I am going to try to work on catching up with my commenting once the posts go up.

The Agony and Ecstasy of Learning Lightroom 4 ~ 11-1-12

All I can say is after my first lesson with Lightroom 4, I am one confused old gal. Our wifi at home is so slow that it takes an 11 minutes video 25 minutes to run, and the speech is broken up to where I cannot understand a thing Kim Klassen is saying...so frustrating. OK, Genie, it is time for you to put on the old thinking cap and come up with an alternate plan. AH....I have it. Leave the house each morning at 6:15 so I can get to school by 6:45 and have an hour where I can watch the videos on their fast wifi. Then, stay after school until 4:30 or 5:00 and repeat the process. I am determined to complete this course and learn how to use Lightroom and be able to switch back and forth between it and PSE10 when developing pictures.  As you now, I adore texture work and other processing tweaks. Our lessons/videos are posted every Tuesday and Friday for 4 weeks, so I cannot get behind...and I need copious amounts of the repetitions with the videos. I learn best using multiple modalities: see it, hear it, and write it. So here I am off and running...well, let's say attempting crawling. I'll keep posting on the blog, but I do not know when I am going to find time to do much commenting. I will do as best I can. Just remember...I have NOT forgotten y'all. I really wonder if there is any truth to....."You are never too old to learn."

LR4 is no longer a gray icon but a blue and gray one.

When I saw this icon it made me think just how much tea and coffee I am going to be drinking in the weeks to come to remain awake and alert.

I like this one because at the moment I feel like I'm dangling from the Lightroom rope - just going back and forth thinking...Am I going to be able to swing to the other side, or am I going to drop?" Well, my choice will be to get to the other side. I'm just so darn hardheaded I will never give up and throw in the rag :-) The agony is going to turn into ecstasy...I just know it...I have hope and I have faith...and I have Kim Klassen who is a wonderful, caring, easy to follow online teacher who will help her students over and over again

 until understand whatever it is she is teaching at that time..

"Hope is the sweet expectation that never sleeps."

~Joan Walsh Anglund

From her book "Wings of Hope."

If I am able to begin producing pictures which are in a postable condition, 

I will share them with y'all.