Thursday, November 1, 2007

Generating a title for my Val Takes Time Blog.



This sign I have chosen seems like a good place to go to, to take some time off. Just wish I had tried this one first as it seems to be going to work. I have spent a lot of time on the others and I couldn't seem to get them onto this site. I made a great Garfield comic strip but tried many ways to download it including downloading another Active X Flash Player but to no avail.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

THANK GOD ITS FRIDAY!


I second that.

Testing

I tried to put another picture on before and couldn't get it to work so I am going to have another try as the dancing mice were successful. Just hope Psyche doesn't see those mice. She is scared of mice.


This lady in the picture is called Maxine and I love the humour.

RSS Ready Set - Signed up


Well with a lot of help from Techno-toria this morning I finally have bloglines set up. Seems to be a terrific tool to use and I'm sure when I get more familiar with all its working I will find many more ways to customise it to my personal requirements. But for now I am just relieved that I have finished this weeks task. So Thank you Techno-toria. May you have rain on your flowers this weekend.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

My pretty pussycat, Psyche.














"Well girl, you are now a "blogger babe" with a portfolio of pictures on Flickr."
I have just informed Psyche of this astonishing fact and she is totally non-plussed.
How's that for not letting fame go to her head?
Hopefully I will still remember how to put her picture into this post. But just in case I will describe her to all of you who have not met her yet.


She is a Blue-point Himalayan and is over eleven years of age. In human years that's over seventy. She's very flexable for her age and can still do things that I couldn't do even when I was twenty. She has more grey hair than me but then again she was born grey, so guess that doesn't count. Her coat is soft, silky and long, what is left on her that is. Every day hands-full moult off on our dark rusty brown carpet. (I warned Tim that dark carpet and light, long haired cats are not a good mix.) I know everywhere she has been while I've been at work , the fur trail follows her. If no fur trail then she has slept all day, most of the time on my bed.


We never leave her outside unless we are home and she is inside every night. She has her own private sandbox (we don't make her share with us) but unless desperate never uses it. We are awakened in the morning about five minutes before the alarm rings and Tim has to let her out for tiddlies. She is then straight back in to hassle Tim for some of his lunch that he is preparing to take to work. After Tim leaves for work it's back up to Mum, who is still in bed, for a scratch and cuddle and a short nap til my alarm goes off. Yes, you are correct, I don't get up to get my husband off to work, he is quite capable.


After the dreaded alarm, if I don't look like I am getting up immediately then she feels it's her duty to get me moving. Psyche tries several different things, from meowing, to walking over me, to knocking things off the bedside table, until I haul myself out of bed. Unfortunately she doesn't realise that Thursday is my day off and sometimes on this day I have to remind her with a well aimed pillow. When I come out for breakfast she lies to me and tells me that Daddy didn't feed her and she is starving so I give her some of my lunch meat then and out she goes for a quick sniff around and a last minute leak. Must be quick as I leave in about five minutes now. A quick call from me, a rattle of the car keys, or the stomp of heels on the floor, and she is inside again in a flash ready for her daily duty of fur spreading.


She is a C.W.A. which is short for a Cat With Attitude and boy does she know how to use it.
She loves being stroked and will get upset when you get interested in TV and stop. She will turn and glare at you or nip you if she has had enough and wants you to stop. It's hard to find the middle ground with this you can get a Nip if you do and Nip if you don't. I still have a few scratch marks to show for this, but as I now give back as good as I get, she has softened a bit in her old age.
Food is a real hassle as what she loved yesterday is not on her most wanted list today and we (Tim mostly) are always trying to please her with a little bit of this or that. Mainly the most expensive meat and believe me she is just as likely to turn up her nose at champagne leg ham at $15 kg as she is at $5 kg devon. She is a good tester for meat though won't touch anything that isn't fresh, fresh, fresh. Well Prison Break is about to start in ten so bye for now as I still have to put on her picture.

RSS Real Silent (without) Sound

Tried this at work but as I haven't got sound I will leave this until Friday and maybe some of my workmates might be able to guide me. Instead of doing RSS tonight I am going to do a fun one in my next entry on my pussy cat.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Bye for now

Did I tell you? I am cat mad.
Should have called myself the Cat Lady.
I have lots of cute pussy pictures so guess what most of my pictures will be?

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Habit 2 Accept responsibility for your own learning. Well who else can we blame if we don't make the effort to keep learning? As an adult I can't convince myself that its the teachers or my parents fault, doesn't ring true anymore. The flip side of this is that all the praise we receive for a job well done is ours as well as the guilt for not trying. Every time we learn something new, we see our lives from a slightly different perspective. This new perspective often reveals doors of opportunity that we never knew existed, and many times, they are right within our grasp.

Habit 3 View problems as challenges. Have you ever heard the expression, “one step forward, two steps back”? Well, that describes me as our computers here at work have been on the go-slow all day and after three tries I gave up and sorted out all the paperwork on my desk instead of doing my blog. As technotoria says "Technology is wonderful when it works" and when it doesn't there is no greater challenge. I now have a clean and organised work space waiting for me next week though? YAHOO! My home computer is zooming through this, is there a lesson here to be learmned ?? As I said previously "Go with the flow."

Habit 4 Have confidence in yourself. Refuse to allow negative thought to dwell in your conscious mind. Replace negative thought with a Positive Motivational Quote. I particularly like this one....."Whether you think you can or you think you can't....you are right." by Henry Ford....... as it is short enough for me to easily memorize. I have a few others and find them invaluable. The instant I feel a negative thought enter my mind, I recite a positive quote to myself. You’ll be amazed how well this works. I also make an extra effort to find the good in ever situation. If you aren’t looking for it you definitely won’t find it.

Habit 5 Create your own learning tool kit. I have a whole house full of what you could call inspiration tools......... books, photographs, articles from Magazines, colour charts, etc etc as well as a couple of computers absolutely chockas with inspirational information. I am addicted to collecting anything that might help me in the creation process. So habit five is almost to the point of becoming a bad habit for me.

Habit 6 Use Technology to your advantage. Technology, if used to benefit mankind, can be the seed that makes the world a better place, and can make your world a better place too, so don’t squander the opportunity to learn all that is available to you. You are never too old to start. I taught a lady of 82 years a basic course in Microsoft Word and she became so fascinated with the computer that she later returned to another more advanced course of mine "Creative Computer Graphics" and her life flowed in a whole new direction. Plant a seed, water it, nurture it, and you will be the one that will blossom.

Habit 7 Teach and mentor others. As I have said, I love to teach and by doing so, I find my students are always teaching me. The satisfaction of seeing another learn is a joy to watch. The "Oh! That's how its done" look is just priceless. Love it! It is said that...."We teach what we most need to learn".... and as I have taught several different subjects it just goes to show how much I still don't know. With Technology, computers especially, I don't think anyone will ever know everything as it seems to be changing at such a breakneck speed no one will ever keep up with it, but just enjoy your journey. You don't need to know everything.

Habit 7.5 Play. Only a half a point here? Raspberry!!! ( Need a sound effect here.) I think this should be 7.5 - 10 points. I designate 2.5 points to this habit and feel that you learn more with laughter than any other way. Lets face it, if it isn't fun then who wants to do it at all. Not me thats for sure. As I have got older I value my time and refuse to do most things I don't like to do. Unfortunately some housework has to be done though.

7.5 habits of Lifelong Learning

Habit 1 Begin with the end in mind. So hard to do this as the creating process (remember I am an artist) is better if you are not too fixed on exactly what you want to end up with. Things seem to work out for me when I can learn to adapt with the flow of what is happening in the moment. Undoubtly I do have an idea in mind of what I would like the end product to be ( you have to have this or you would never start anything) but be prepared for the end finished creation to maybe be different to what was envisaged at first. Be prepared for if you are willing to go where life leads without the struggle against the flow then that is where magic lies.

Habit 2 Accept responsibility for your own learning.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Val Takes Time

Well, here I am finally. Looking forward to being apart of this new technology.