Someone posted this on another website I visit. I thought it was totally something Natasha would do!

Sept  9 - Fringe. This is a new show, but the first episode leaked into the 'Net a long time ago. We watched it and were hooked. Can't wait!

Sept 22 - Heroes returns! Season 3. It's been so long since season 2 (due to the writer's strike), but now it's back! I know Matthew can't wait to see Claire again... he even started calling Veronika "Claire-bear" as her middle name is Claire *roll eyes*

Sept 28 - Dexter is back! Also season 3. Dexter is America's favourite cereal killer. That show is so perverted, you can't help but like it.

I am having lots of fun creating different graphics of my girls... Photoshop CS2 rules!

To see my other creations, click here. One day I want to take some graphic design courses, but not quite yet.

Like it, like it??

Matthew spent his entire day off today redesigning my website.
It now has a new look and a bunch of cool features I never had before!

Needless to say, I am impressed. Matthew rocks!

Sorry for being MIA so much, but I am taking a break from posting. I just don't have the time nor motivation right now.
I will return soon with a new design and some other improvements.
Stay tuned...

On his blog, Matthew posted one of the saddest videos I have ever seen. It has to do with a little baby, and we both bawled our eyes out watching.

99 Balloons

It's incredibly heartbreaking, but also very inspirational. You will need volume and a box of tissues.

I saw this posted on a forum I regularly attend and thought it was fascinating.

Child Drowning Prevention

This just shows how incredibly smart little babies can be and how they can learn an amazing technique at such an early age which can be proven life-saving. When I showed this to Matthew, his reaction was "what a poor, tortured baby!" I disagree and don't think the child in the video was tortured. Of course, this video was designed to show how the technique works and that when a child does fall into a swimming pool, the parents might not realize it happened right away and it may take some five minutes for them to arrive and try to rescue him/her. And I can see that the toddler in the video is screaming, but at the same time, once the daddy comes along and picks him up, you can see a wide smile on his little face. It does not seem as if he was tortured one bit.

I think if we had a house with a swimming pool and this course provided in our area, I would definitely send my children there. I would not rely on this technique and leave my kids unattended near a swimming pool; however, it would certainly make me calmer knowing they are educated on how to save themselves if an accident does happen. Needless to say, I found this pretty amazing.

Today I asked Matthew to set me up a Photoshop gallery where I can gather and display my photos that were edited in Photoshop. I have been using Photoshop for a few years now and proud to be completely self-taught. I cannot say I am an expert, or even close to it, because Photoshop is huge and has a trillion things you can do and a trillion different ways to do them, but I am proud to have learned so much on my own.

Recently I've been frequenting a Parenting forum where members create "siggies" which are photo-montages done in different graphic design software programs, all for the main purpose of displaying pictures of their families in a more extraordinary way. And I must admit that I have been hooked. I started creating siggies for members of the forum and it has really allowed me to expand my Photoshop skills even further and has become an outlet for my creativity. I have recently installed for myself a lot of new and improved fonts, actions, filters, and shapes to allow me to further enhance my pictures.

The new gallery only displays the siggies and other images I created for Natasha as I don't have permission from other individuals to use their photographs, even though I have modified them quite a bit. And time permitting, this gallery will grow and expand. I really love Photoshop.

My blog can now speak! Well, not literally, but I now have a new feature installed that reads out my blog in a nice human voice. How cool is that? Matthew showed me the feature this morning, it's available from a site called Talkr, which converts blogs into podcasts. Anyway, after some light begging, Matthew had Talkr installed on my blog this afternoon. And now there is a link underneath each entry which allows you to listen to my entries instead of reading them. I am not too sure if anyone will use the feature, but I think it's really cool regardless of that!

I've been walking around our apartment lately trying to "get rid" of things. According to Matthew I am a big junkie, and unfortunately it's very true. I hate throwing stuff out and I am very sentimental about it too. For instance, I have an old white teddy bear I got around Christmas 1998 or maybe 2000 (can't remember) but in either case it's very old and almost grey by now. But I can't get rid of it. I have deep feelings for it ().... ok, you can laugh now, but I just can't dump it into a trash can and not feel bad for it. I also have other junk like different miniature doggies, keychains, and I keep every single greeting card I ever received. And well, Matthew wants me to get rid of all these "useless" items. Of course, when I mention his collection of hundreds of old movie tapes and DVDs, plus an entire case of old CDs he never listens to, he gets all defensive and apparently that's not junk. Yeah. Sure.

Anyway, I've been hearing stories of all these people who make extra income by selling stuff on eBay, Craig's List, Buy and Sell, or Kijiji by simply going through their home drawers and closets and getting rid of items they don't use; you never know what others out there need or collect and you could actually make decent extra cash by selling items on these sites. And of course in the process clear out your own home.

So far I've been able to give away two items on these sites. I sold a co-sleeper we bought for Natasha before she was born for 60% of the original price; we decided against co-sleeping once she was born and the item became useless. I was also able to give away for free a bag of 75 Simply Kids diapers to a lady pregnant with her third child (Natasha developed a rash for this brand). I've also put up for sale a collection of my Dean Koontz books but got no replies as of yet. Now my mission is to find additional items in our house and offer them for sale. I've considered selling my maternity clothes (all brand-name) since I obviously don't need them anymore, but haven't decided yet.

Hopefully I will be able to part with more items that I don't use but someone else might find useful or necessary in their life.