ay has been (and continues to be) a very busy month for us.  Homeschooling reviews, Co-op meetings to plan next year, End of Year Program for our Co-op, my twin nieces’ First Holy Communions, and three graduations…Michael got his MBA from Loyola with a 3.98 GPA and my nephew, Chase, and Sean’s girlfriend, Samone, are graduating high school.  This Saturday, Sean is taking Samone to her senior prom.  Sean never went to his own so I get a second chance to see him all dressed up.  As I said…busy.  *smile*

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Most homeschooling families that we know homeschool only during the school year, however, we homeschool all year long.  We take breaks at the beginning of each season change and do special seasonal projects during the holidays.  It’s not for every family but it seems to work well for us.

• Homeschooling - Thinking on Spring
• 101 Nature-Oriented Things to Do This Summer

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And it must be Spring…the twins fell overboard yesterday, came in the house soaking wet, head to toe.  Well, actually, Connor jumped into a friend’s boat, causing it to capsize, over went two of the boys that were sitting in it too and then Cade just decided to jump in because well, my boys don’t mind cold love the water, swim like fish and he didn’t want to miss out on any of the fun that Connor was having.  The start of swimming season seems to get earlier and earlier each year.  They are grounded though (because it’s a little too early) so I hope their dip was worth it.  *smile*

ice brush sets can be found here and here.  I used brush sets from both to create the image below.

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Melissa Frances is having a Big Give-a-Way.  All you have to do is leave a comment on this post.  I left a comment and probably won’t win but I can dream….

Victorian Passage has a delightful download…an 1887 Alamanac in PDF format (Photoshop has no problem opening this file format) in 300 dpi.  It comes in both a color and black and white version.

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A new Victorian journal page to download and print.  Created from my image, Delicate.  Click on the thumbnail to download the PNG file.

Come Holy Ghost, Creator Blest,
And in our hearts take up Thy rest;
Come with Thy grace and heav’nly aid
To fill the hearts which Thou hast made,
To fill the hearts which Thou hast made.

O Comfort Blest to Thee we cry,
Thou heav’nly Gift of God most high;
Thou fount of life and fire of love,
And sweet anointing from above,
And sweet anointing from above.

Praise be to Thee Father and Son,
And Holy Spirit Three in one;
And may the Son on us bestow
The gifts that from the Spirit flow,
The gifts that from the Spirit flow.

 
CLICK ON IMAGE TO DOWNLOAD

kay, I’m not a fan of Vista.  It really has some quirky (i.e. stupid) things about it so I looked online to see if I could find any fixes.  Thought I’d share them with you.

In Windows XP, I was able to select files and move them by a “copy to folder” or “move to folder” command.  In Vista it seems that you can only drag and drop files, of which I am no fan because the cursor always moves at the last moment and I’m always dropping my files into the wrong folders.  I did a quick search and found out that it bugged others too and there was a fix posted on the How-to Geek’s website.

Another little (actually quite big) annoying thing Vista does is it’s always nagging me with ”permission to continue” windows.  Following the steps posted on lifehacker.com fixed that problem for me too.

I may not like Vista but there are many things that I do love about my new computer…I have a huge 24″ monitor, my CPU doesn’t make any noise (…it’s really quiet!), I can watch tv on it, all of my printers and tablets and things have a place to plug into, it does seem faster, no dreaded out of memory window while rendering in Poser, and I have plenty of space again.  I did find that a couple of filters won’t work no matter what I try but I figure that I can probably live without them.

Some important tips about moving to a new computer…

• Backup your computer regularly…I was lucky as my hard drives were still readable and Michael was able to save all of my work
• Take your fonts with you (select all the font files from the c:/windows/fonts folder and zip them up and then reinstall on your new computer)
• Keep all of your program installation disks together in one case…get a new program, put it in the case…buy a new program online, burn the zip or exe files to disk and put it in the case.  Burning filters and other programs’ setup files to disk will also make your life much easier
• Have hard copies of all of your programs’ registration and serial numbers…make copies and place one in with the installation disks
• Transfer your bookmarks, your emails, your documents (some programs use your documents folder so make sure you transfer those files too).  A quick online search will show you where your bookmark/favorites/email, etc. folders are located on your computer
• Copy all of your filters/plugins folders to your new computer as most will work without re-installing and then just re-install those that need to be installed so you don’t lose your filters’ settings
• Keep your PS Brushes, Palettes, Actions, Styles, etc. in separate folder from the applications folders…makes it easier to find when you have to move
• Keep track of Login/User Names and Passwords.  There are many free programs that do this for you (just do a search) but also make a hard copy (and keep it with your programs’ serial numbers)
• Weed out what you don’t use or really need…it took days to transfer some of my folders because they are so big (My Poser 4 folder alone is 82 GB and my Graphics folder is 152 GB
• Don’t try to do it all at once.  Setting up a new computer takes a lot of time and if you start installing and copying files when you’re brain dead you’ll end up making stupid mistakes so make sure that you are well rested and do get up and move around after sitting for awhile and get that blood that’s pooled down to your butt back up to your brain.  *smile*

…doing the Happy Dance!

My darling husband bought a new (AWESOME) computer for me.  I still have many programs to install but the main items, Poser, Photoshop, my graphics tablet and printers are installed and seem to work okay.  It came with Windows Vista and it’s a bit different from XP but hopefully I will get used to it quickly.  Glad to be back!