Chili, Photographs and Super Bowl - I Won't Have a Boring Weekend

My chili turned out pretty good, although still not as spicy as I want. I'll have to look into spicier peppers than jalapeno for future batches, but the ground pork was an excellent idea and I'm going to enjoy bowls of it for my meals for a week or so without any difficulty. I might leave the Harissa spice out of the next batch, it might have muted the flavor a bit, but true chili always takes a day to settle into its' flavor profile, so tonight's bowl should be very tasty indeed - LOL. I'm doing ribs in the crock pot for Super Bowl Sunday. Minimal work, maximum impact. 

I have 76 colors of 8mm Swarovski cubes available. 
I got all of the photos taken and uploaded yesterday, 
but barely had the time to start working on the detail 
work (enlarging and labeling each color). After I get 
the rest of them "massaged", I'll need to figure 
out how to make a montage of the smaller photos 
into a larger panel. I'm working within the dimensions 
Etsy gives for their product photos, and I'm using two 
different Adobe Photoshop programs to get this 
done. I feel like I'm jumping through hoops - lots 
of them - LOL. 

I spent the rest of the day photographing Swarovski crystal cubes. It's a job - I have a lot of different colors available, and I need each one identified, sized appropriately, and put into a photo file. Now to figure out how to make a photo montage for them - I want to present them in a splash screen, with ordering possibilities in varied quantities per color. I have a HUGE amount of inventory money tied up in my Swarovski crystals, and the 8mm cubes are the worst category. I need to get the inventory down and the sales up, so I'm hoping adding them to my Etsy pages will help. Today, after I'm finished working with the individual pictures, I'll try to explore how to put the smaller photos together into a larger montage. 

Madison Chock and Evan Bates are one of three teams 
representing the USA in Ice Dancing at the 2022 
Winter Olympics. I'm always happy to watch some of 
the ice dancing. I love it more than the singles, because 
it was so much fun to skate that format. It's a lot 
harder and more technical than most people 
realize. 

While I write this I'm busy listening/watching the "Rhythm Dance" programs in Ice Dancing. When I was ice skating, I practiced to be an ice dancer - I never wanted to be a singles performer, but loved dancing with a partner. Since I never was able to spin well (balance issues), I had to leave that dream behind me, but I still love the sport. DH hates "ice bite" except for the top singles skaters, so it's a pleasure for me to be able to see the dancers today. I'm not seeing the top performers, at least not yet, but it's fun to see some of the less prominent couples - Germany, Finland and right now, the pair from Ukraine (who have to be horribly nervous about what's happening in their country right now). 

Two days ago Nick Baumgartner was in tears, feeling as 
though he had let his family down by not winning a 
medal in Snowcross. Then Lindsey Jacomellis asked 
him to be her partner in the Mixed Doubles Snowcross 
and they both boarded to their maximum, coming 
up with the Gold Medal win. Well done, both of them. 
Nick, at age 40, became the oldest Winter Olympian 
to win a medal, and not just a medal, a Gold medal. 

Tomorrow is a busy TV day. We'll watch the Olympics until the stations flip over to Super Bowl coverage, when we'll shift our mind set to football instead of snow and ice. Since the Super Bowl will be shown on network as well as Peacock, I'll be shelving the Olympics for the day. I'm looking forward to the game, though, and since I have an online friend from Cleveland, I'll cheer for the Browns. 

It's been a long road to the SuperBowl for both 
teams, but this should be a fun game. Both of my 
teams were out of the picture early, and the usual 
suspects - Green Bay and Kansas City - both lost 
in their playoff games. So we ended up with an 
unusual pair for tomorrow's final game of the 
season - the LA Rams vs the Cleveland Browns. 

So I'm wrapping this up and I'm going to enjoy watching more of the ice dancing. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and if you're watching the Super Bowl, I hope your team wins (as I said, I really don't have a horse in this race, so either team is OK with me ... Go Cleveland! - LOL). I'll be back on Monday. 

A Day of Sports, Photography and Cooking - It Should Be a Fun "Day Off"

Although today's schedule is relatively open, that just means I don't have specific appointments. I've done my jog for the day, I don't have to make swimming reservations until tomorrow, and I have plenty of "Ogre Juice" available to take me through until next Wednesday. But I have a huge group of Swarovski crystal cubes in front of me that I need to start photographing, I have more trade beads to upload onto Etsy, and I want to make a batch of 13-bean chili today, so I'll spend some time in the kitchen. 

I don't make 13-bean chili in the summer months (although 
I'm quite sure it would be tasty), but it's the perfect food 
for the winter months. I usually get three batches out of 
the dry bean mix, and I'm already into my second bag of 
the season. Even though it's not horrible temperatures 
today, chili just sounds good to me for today. I'll 
add some Harissa seasoning to it also to give it a little 
punch. 

I love the chili I make in the winter months. I decided to switch things out a bit this time, so I picked up some ground pork, as well as a jalapeno and some fresh mushrooms to add to the base. I'm already looking forward to my dinner tonight and tomorrow night - LOL. I need to take a quick run to the grocery store, but it's going to be a very minimal trip (I forgot to pick up tomato sauce when I was there on Wednesday). 

Nathan Chen set the arena on fire, free skating to a 
montage of music by Elton John, and bringing a bit 
of sass to the ice as well. It wasn't a flawless performance, 
but it was darned good. If you didn't get an opportunity 
to watch it, I'm including a link here that will bring you 
to a You Tube recording of the skate. Enjoy. 
https://youtu.be/8zVL9WY3dUw

I'm watching the Olympics of course. I finally had an opportunity to see the finals of the Men's Singles Long Program yesterday afternoon while working on the computer at work. There was some stiff competition, but congratulations to all three medalists as well as all who competed. It was a highly competitive skate, and even though they were missing an in-house audience, I'm quite sure the broadcast numbers were huge. 

Shaun White was unable to get a higher placement than 
fourth place, but that's damned impressive for a man 
35 years old. This is his 5th Olympics and he still 
qualified for the final runs of the event he loves. He 
has the respect of most snowboarders who work the 
Half Pipe, and that respect was demonstrated after 
his final run of the night. 

We watched the finals of the Men's Half Pipe last night, flipping to and from BattleBots to catch each run. It was a disappointment for Shaun White, of course, when he didn't medal this Olympics, but when I think of the influence he's had in the sport over the past 20 years, he got a medal, even though he didn't get the hardware. Several competitors hung around the back area to hug and thank him for all he's done for them. If Shaun wasn't in tears before, he certainly was after that outpouring of love and support. 

I'm going to wrap this up here. I'm going to start moving through these bags of Swarovski crystals and start alphabetizing them. I'll have to figure out how to make the photos work - I want to make a photo montage of 4 photos across and five rows deep for each twenty crystals. I've never done that in Photoshop before, so there will be a bit of a learning curve. Yippee - I get to exercise my brain a bit today (minus the frustrations when things I try don't work ... but I'm sure I can eventually figure it out). Have a glorious Friday and I'll wrap the week up tomorrow. Also, if you have an opportunity to go onto "The Real LJ Idol" on Live Journal, I'd certainly appreciate your vote for my story. I'm new to the group, and don't have a large following yet. 

Yesterday Was a VERY Busy Day - Photoshop and Ogre Juice

I spent yesterday spending a lot of time with my laptop, working on the multiple detail photos I want for each of the items I'll be putting up on Etsy. I finally finished the last of the photos at 5:45 pm, just in time to make my salad for dinner and put a portion of chili into a pan on the stove. It was a lot of photos - 63 of them to be exact, and each one had to be opened, downloaded, resized, enhanced, renamed and saved to the appropriate computer folder. I was working with the laptop, but saving it to a file that could be accessed by either the laptop or the desktop. Yesterday was VooDoo's 1st anniversary and I can't imagine my life without my it - it's been a great laptop and I use it almost every day. 

Taking a closer look at the Mali Wedding Beads strand 
I posted a week or so ago, this is the first of the 
five detail pictures I have of that strand. I may still go 
back and work on this one a bit more, to make it brighter 
and easier to see, but it still gives a much better look at the 
beads and their variety and shape. 

It was my first experience using the more up-to-date Photoshop version that I have on the laptop, and I rather liked it, although it was a bit challenging at first. I use Photoshop every day - I'm always pulling in photos and resizing or massaging them (or both). First thing in the morning, I'm doing it for my blog, and I've used the version on my desktop for years and years. VooDoo, however, came with a much newer version of Adobe Photoshop, and it has some nice features. I had to drill down a bit, however, to find what they were calling this or that feature and under which tab they had decided to put it. 

I have Photoshop on my main computer and Photoshop 
Elements on my laptop. (Photoshop is left, Elements 
is right in this comparison). The menus are completely 
different, and the program can do a lot more things 
automatically (if you allow it to do them). They're 
quite different, so there was a definite learning curve. 

My photos aren't fabulous, but they're really not too bad. I've certainly found worse in the photos I've looked at on-line. DH's photos for the items he'll be putting up on Ebay aren't great, and he's not even resizing them (which he really should do, and I suspect he'll have some uploading issues if he doesn't). He has a bootleg version of Photoshop that he's using, but it works for him (when he's inclined to actually use it). If Dale is ever able to finish making him a new computer (computer chips are impossible to get right now), we'll make sure to get him a new version of Photoshop, probably the Elements version. DH will complain, but what else is new? LOL

At least I know where my photos are stored 
now (I had a bit of a hunt to find the files I 
had downloaded from my phone). I can 
pull them back out and massage them some 
more at the shop today, if I can manage the 
time. 

I spent an enjoyable hour+ watching the stream of Project Runway. I loved the outfits that each designer made, and the decision of the judges didn't surprise me at all. We're almost at the end of this season and I'll be sorry to see it end, but it's been so much fun to have a Runway again. 

For the first time in Project Runway history, it was an 
all female final challenge to determine who would get 
the opportunity to show a 10-outfit collection at New 
York Fashion Week. L-R - Coral, Shantall, Kristina 
and Chasity - all strong designers with very different 
clothing viewpoints. Although any one of them could 
pull off the win, I think it more than likely it will come 
down to Shantall and Chasity. 

I succeeded in the challenge of making my Ogre Juice without a kitchen sink. I won't say it was easy - but it was achievable. The next time I need to make a batch will be Wednesday, and the sink will (hopefully) be repaired by Thursday night. So I have one more "challenge" ahead of me. It wasn't a super major problem, though. I put on headphones, listened to one of my Spotify playlists, danced around the kitchen and back and forth from the bathroom sink, and made sure all "detritus" that I hadn't managed to swipe up with toweling, went into the toilet, not down the bathroom sink. There's nothing quite like having green and red peppers, jalapeno peppers, cucumber, zucchini, fresh green beans and parsley sitting on a cutting board next to the bathroom sink, waiting to be washed before getting cut up and used. Talk about a small counter ... I guess my kitchen counter isn't so small after all - LOL. 

Try to do a random act of kindness 
this weekend. The positive waves one 
kindness can prompt are astounding 
and can impact many more people 
through a single act. 

On that note, I'm out of here. Have an absolutely fabulous and wonderful weekend. We're actually above zero today already, so it's going to be a good day. I can just feel it! Please, if you can, do an unexpected kindness for someone else today to brighten their day. I'll be back on Monday. 

Cooking and Photographs Kept Me Warm on Friday - Lots of Experiments

Yesterday worked out smoothly. Maybe I'll stick with M, W and Th swim days, it does clear some serious time out of my always-packed Fridays. After a quick run to the store for some mustard I had run out of, and a lettuce for DH, I returned home and settled in front of my computer for my live cooking class. It was a lot of fun, Chef Giles was very confident in the kitchen and the entire dish was actually quite easy to make, Of course, if the ingredients had actually specified "ground" lamb, I would have looked for ground pork. Instead, I had a pork tenderloin. 

I would have looked for ground pork if I had known 
Chef was using ground lamb, but since I had a pork 
tenderloin, I cut it into small chunks instead, and 
after coating them in the spices, put them into the 
oven on parchment paper to cook. It turned out quite 
tasty, although I'll increase the harissa spice 
next time. 

Most of us were not cooking along, rather watching and taking notes. It only took about 45 minutes total time, and that was without pre-cutting any of the vegetables. It was quite lovely to watch his knife skills. I think if there was ever a cooking class I would like to take, it would be the use of knives. I'm nowhere near as comfortable with a blade as he was, and he was most certainly much faster at food prep than I am. 

I almost forgot to add the two zucchini to my ratatouille,  but 
fortunately remembered in time to add them to the pan. Chef 
actually cut out the seeds portion before adding them to the 
pot. He said it kept the mixture from becoming too wet. I 
didn't bother, and yes, it was a bit wet, but I didn't mind. 
I might cut out the seeds the next time I make the recipe. 

We had all gathered a variety of meats for our meal, I had pork, one woman who was actually cooking along with the chef had chicken, and of course, Chef Giles had lamb. I doubt any of us actually had ground meat except Chef Giles. But after the live stream was completed and I read over my page of notes, I realized I could put this together successfully, and determined to do that for my lunch. In the early afternoon I cubed the pork and coated it with the spiced before putting it into the oven to roast. I cut up and stir-fried my ratatouille, then pulled out my pork and added it to the veggies, and it was a lovely lunch. I have enough left over for a couple of nice meals. 

This is Strand A on a white sweep with my portable 
light box. Mali Wedding Beads are antique, quite lovely, 
and still used today in Mali for weddings and other 
ceremonial occasions. 

I started taking photos of some antique trade beads that I'm probably putting up on Etsy. I have a portable light box that I love, it's lighting is LED powered from my laptop or any convenient computer, and it has sweeps of both black and white. I'm investigating Etsy to see if it will be a good place to sell some of the items that I have large stock in, and I determined to put 10 strands of our trade beads and probably some of our Swarovski crystals on the site to give it a try. So, it was time to take some photos. 

Here is the same strand on a black sweep. These 
aren't high-end photos, just taken with my phone, 
but even in full size pixels, they came through 
pretty nicely. I'll need to count the beads on 
each of the three strands and set up a database 
for them before I continue on and add more 
beads to the file. I'd like to get something up on 
Etsy before the end of the month, if possible. 

I had brought three strands of "Mali Wedding Beads" home from the shop to photograph. I took four different photos of each strand - two against the white sweep, two against the black. After sizing them and working a little bit in Photoshop, they looked quite nice. Usually there are 5-8 photos of items on Ebay, so I'll need to think of what else I want to photograph on these. I also need to start a master list of which strand is what, what my computer number is and the price. I'll take a few more photos today, and possibly start pulling and working on some photos of the crystals if I have the time. 

I want to make a montage similar to this for my 
crystals, but with the name of each color below. I've 
seen something similar on Etsy, so I know it 
can be done, but I've never made a montage like 
this using Photoshop before. It'll be a learning 
curve. Time to search the internet for assistance, 
and if any of my readers have done something 
similar, please give me some hints on how best 
to accomplish it. 

Well, I should probably wrap this up. I hope all of you have a wonderful and relaxing weekend. I'll be checking out how to make a montage in Adobe Photoshop, and whether or not I can get good photos of my sparkle queens - the larger Swarovski crystal cubes. Enjoy your weekend and I'll be back on Monday. Peace & love to all. 

Too Busy To Think Today

Today is going to be a VERY busy day. I have a large shopping bag of paperwork that I'm taking to the shop for a final sort and to put into folders. When I get home, I'm picking up DH and we're off to see the accountant about our personal taxes, then I'll get back home and have just enough time to grab a quick bite before diving into Project Runway. 

I'm usually OK with schedules, but today's is a bit
cramped, even for me. 

Adding to all of that, I took it into my head to design a T-shirt for a Facebook group I belong to. I started it last night, and it should have been easy, but Photoshop was being a bear and couldn't reverse my coloring on the main design element. I'm hoping I don't have to hand-draw it. It should be simple. It's turning into a serious difficulty. Argh! 

It should be really easy to switch the image from B/W to
W/B in Photoshop. It was thwarting me at every
turn last night. GROWL. (No, this is NOT the image
I'm using.) 

We're down to the final six on Project Runway All-Stars, so I'm really looking forward to the episodes from this point forward. We're pretty much gotten rid of the dust and what remains are designers who really know how to design and construct. 

I listen to audio books while I'm swimming. I always listen to
books that I actually can also read - sometimes I need to
look something up and I enjoy reading them too. I've had
an Audible account since 2002, so I have LOTS of books. 

So, I think I need to quiet my mind. I'm really looking forward to my swim today. I'm down to the final three chapters (plus an Epilogue) in my current audio book, so that might end while I'm finishing my mile today. Then I'll have to figure out which book to start tomorrow. It's a wonderful dilemma to have - LOL. Enjoy your Thursday, and if all goes well, I'll be back with a Project Runway workshop summary tomorrow and the reveal on Saturday. 

Somewhat Accomplished

So yesterday was my "day off". Aside from errands, I worked a bit on my Game of Thrones original character for the deadline next week. I did take a few hours out to beta a chapter for my friend Iris. She used to send me her work pre-betaed and I would correct from there, but her primary beta has quit so it's just the two of us now. Her writing has improved over the past two years, so even though there were still plenty of corrections/suggestions that I had for her, it wasn't a total sea of red when I was finished.

I got Photoshop CS5 installed onto my DH's computer. There are a lot of new tools, so I downloaded the user manual PDF into my Dropbox account so that I can read through either at work or home and find out how to play with the software. Since it is on DH's computer, though, I will only be accessing it on Wednesdays for this year and who knows when next year. But, when I have to get my own computer upgraded, I'll have to install CS5 on this one too since my old Photoshop won't work any more. Hopefully I'll be comfortable with the new features by then.

DH has his head in LOTRO from the time he comes home (after dinner) until midnight or so. He's progressing in Dunland, and I haven't done anything with it except get the software update downloaded and installed. *sigh* I'd rather write or review or plan my Solstice cards or...or... Oh well. Happy Rosh Hashanah to all of my Jewish friends. A sweet year ahead of you!