In a small town you just never know what will come by your office!

They came past twice. Not sure what they were doing besides having fun!

 

It’s Wednesday evening, September 22, approximately 6 days and 10 hours before our flight is scheduled to leave from the still warm south to the nippy north. I breathe a sigh of relief as the last of the lodging arrangements have been finalized.

Fall in New England is a very busy time for tourism, so we’re told, and lodging, especially in rural areas, should be made in advance. How does a person decide what to see an do in an area this large when she’s never been there before? Thankfully there is such a thing as the WWW and search engines. AAA’s Trip Tiks is also a very helpful tool for finding information on specific areas.

Still, 14 days is only enough time to scratch the surface, search engines or no search engines. We have 2 other ladies joining my sister and both are in ministry of sorts and are limited to the number of days they can be gone so we have 6 days with 4 ladies, 10 days with 3 of us, and the last 4 days just my sister and I.

We had thoughts of a quaint inn or B&B in some delightful setting but fall foliage season is peak tourist season so prices were at their highest. We usually avoid paying top prices for lodging so why do it now? We even resorted to using Priceline thrice and had good success, assuming the 3 star hotels we got aren’t bombs.

We have to be in Boston 4 times to keep flight schedules so that is where 2 of our Priceline deals came in. Downtown Boston prices seemed to be out of our budget, plus staying on the west side of Boston gives us a great chance to see other parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Our route looks like we have serious ADD but it works for us. I wouldn’t recommend such a trip itinerary but for our schedule it works great. We can’t see all of N. E. anyway!

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Tuesday, September 28:

Eighteen hours until flight time and I feel like something the cat dragged through the mud and then left out overnight. A cold has attacked me and I’m slightly frustrated. This is not how I imagined starting a 2-week trip-of-a-lifetime. Praying for better days ahead.

Because there is no one to fill in for me at the office I am doing the best I can to get things caught up for the next two weeks so my boss can at least make a deposit a job check and distribute checks for employees and subcontractors.

My head is screaming for my bed but it has to ignored.

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Thank God that I woke up on Wednesday for our 7 am flight feeling much, much better!!!! Let the trip begin!!

The random number generator at random.org gave me the number

16

and the 16th comment happens to come from Elaine!

Congratulations, Elaine! Send me your mailing address and I will get your calendar out into the mail right away!

To the rest of you who participated, thanks so much for your input! Wish I could send each one of you a calendar! If I do get some printed this year, I will let you know how and where you can purchase them if you so desire.

Thanks, too, for all your kind and generous compliments. Seriously, I wasn’t digging for them!  I do appreciate your vote of confidence.  

So, you want a free calendar? Good, because I need to do some marketing research and I thought this would be a good way to con bribe you into helping me. I’ve been rolling around in my head the idea of making a calendar. The biggest problem with this is making sure there’s a market for it. Getting a few printed is expensive and more than most if not all of us are willing to pay. Getting quantities produced is the way to go, but then finding retail places for them is the key.

They are, shall we say, a dated product and have an expiration date unlike many other printed products.

So here’s what I’m giving away:

1 – 11×17 (when opened up) calendar
featuring art by yours truly. It is professionally printed on thick cardstock, guaranteed not to curl.

I don’t like their month layout AT ALL, but they gave me no choice on these. Any bulk productions will be better than this, I promise.

And since the winner will get one free, you’re not allowed to complain. I may, however, protest loudly. har har

Some more images that are included:

I did some editing on these that make them looks less like photographs and more like art. Here is a closeup of one of them:

and the full page:

So, this is what you need to do to enter this giveway:

Tell me what you typically spend or are willing to spend on a calendar
(and if you are cheap like me, don’t be embarrased to admit you wait for free ones from the bank or get $2 ones from Big Lots that later end up curling so bad you promise you will always pay for better quality next time).

 

This contest will end on Sunday night, September 26, at midnight your time. A random drawing will choose the winner, which will be announced first thing Monday morning. If the winner can get me his/her address right away, I will get it out in the mail by Tuesday. So leave your entry and then check back on Monday morning.

You do not need to be a xanga member. My comments are set to allow “Anonymous” to leave comments as well. However, PLEASE leave at least your first name in the anonymous entry form or in your comment. Any comments left completely anonymous with no name will be subject to disqualification. (I love using big words.)

Thanks and have at it!

 

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I was trying out some software that I was having lots of fun with. It has options for over-the-top editing that I won’t even bother showing you since it’s not my type.

The software is Topaz Adjust and it is a plug-in (works along side an editing program) that I use with PSP X2, which is the only editing software I use at this point.

Geneva mentioned seeing some before and after so here are a few:

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

After

Here are some more afters that I didn’t post the befores.