I'm missing out on.... everything!

So I just received a text from a very good friend. She's at a company event and thinks she sees another one of my good friends. After a series of texts, low and behold, it's her!!!! This is a series of the emotions I felt in that moment:

excitement... 

anticipation of the possibilites...

and then...... 

All gifs are from tenor.com

Yeeeeaaaahhhh.......

But I'm an adult. And I can handle this, right? (I took several moments to wipe my tears.... and my mouth after eating a Krispy Kream donut. When did I become an emotional eater? I will deal with that issue later!!!!)

So my adult self needs to deal with this.

"Self," I said. "What is the problem? These are your two favorite people in our (insert company here) world. It's amazing that they get together and become friends!"

And then, my self answered me. "SELF!!!!! THEY WILL LEAVE YOU BEHIND!!!! THEY WILL BECOME FRIENDS AND NOT NEED YOU ANYMORE!!!!! YOU'VE BEEN HYPING THEM UP TO EACH OTHER FOR YEARS. YOU BEING ON THE PACIFIC OCEAN HAS CEMENTED YOUR FATE OF BEING ALONE AND FORGOTTEN!!!!!"

Now, to be honest, I hate yelling. I'll chastise myself later for that. But seriously? What type of junior high school thinking is that?

One side effect to moving across the country is missing out. My son is dating this amazing girl. I'm not there. My daughter is missing me. I'm not there. My best friend is going through it!!! I'm not there. My family and friends are living their lives without me and there is nothing I can do about it. I'm missing out on all the important (and not so important) events in my old life while having a really hard time integrating into the new one.

I won't try to wrap this post up into a nice little package. I leave it like this....

I don't know what to do....

Until next time.
Cherise

Cheers!!!! To new beginnings and better ones.......

  

The last time I posted (my own content) was October 2015. So it's fitting that I begin again in October.













First, let's address the elephant in the room.... Or To address the mouse in the house. (Mice are much more subtle than elephants, although more terrifying to some.) :-)

It's been a roller coaster for the last year. My mother in law had emergency major back surgery. My mother passed away the day before my wedding anniversary. My daughter got married 8 days after my mother passed. We moved from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, leaving two of my children behind, along with my widowed father, my siblings and the life I've always known.

I read once that, out of largest major life changes, I'm just missing divorce and a new birth (both or which will not be happening)!

Ive always been told that, if you fall seven times, get up eight. Please view this as time number eight. I can't wait to connect with all of you again.

Cherise

Please note: I want to give credit to those who posted the images but I don't have their info!

Witnesses Focus on Loyalty for 2016 Convention Series

MAY 4, 2016
GLOBAL NEWS

NEW YORK—Jehovah’s Witnesses are inviting the public to attend their 2016 “Remain Loyal to Jehovah!” Regional Conventions. Beginning on Friday, May 20, the Witnesses will be hosting these free events in the United States and around the world.

The three-day program will feature 49 presentations, each exploring the theme “loyalty.” Additionally, the Witnesses have prepared 35 video segments specifically for the program plus two short films that will be shown on Saturday and Sunday. Each day, the morning and afternoon sessions will be introduced by music videos recorded for the convention.

As they have in years past, the Witnesses will distribute a special invitation to the public welcoming them to attend the program. The dates and locations for each convention can be found on the Witnesses’ official website, jw.org. Journalists may contact the nearest branch office of Jehovah’s Witnesses for more information, including the name of a local media contact for reporters planning to cover the convention.

David A. Semonian, a spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses at their world...... To read more, click here. 

Breast cancer awareness month

This hits very close to home for me and I want to be a blessing to others during Breast Cancer Awareness month! This will be tax-deductible and no profits will be taken. Be a blessing to someone please. 

CHEMO CARE PACKAGES

 

I am in a campaign to collect donations for Chemo-care gift packages to bless patients as they deal with the effects of chemotherapy & radiation.  These treatments can cause extreme dry skin so we are providing hydration products to heal and pamper them and also lift up their spirits.  

 

The package includes products to help patients with severe dry skin – Extra Emollient Night Cream, Hydrating Lotion and Satin Lips Set; they are designed for use by men and women.

 

We are seeking donations from community members, organizations and businesses to sponsor a chemo care package. The packages are $30 each which covers the wholesale cost, retail tax, plus any packaging materials for the gifts.

 

Chemo Care packages are also available as a gift to send directly to a friend currently in treatment. It will be sent to them via UPS for $30 plus shipping. 

How many will you be purchasing?

 

Creating the Invite to Our Star Wars Marathon.

As a follow-up to one of my wife's posts, I would like to share with you how I put together the invite for our family's Star Wars marathon, which is starting this week.

First I use this wonderful free Windows application called "Paint.Net." Go get it if you are looking for a paint application that is easy to use but very flexible.

Paint.Net  (Unfortunately the developer has chosen to earn some cash on this app by placing all kinds of adds on his page. Please be careful which link you click on.)

The next thing I will tell you is that Google is your friend, and since I was creating this for my own personal use, I was not worried about copyright issues. (Star Wars is owned by Disney after all, and they have the right to say what can and cannot be done with their property.)

So I opened up my browser and zipped over to Google and clicked on the images search link.

Next I searched on "Star Wars" And immediately found an image that would work very well for the background (it's 1920 x 1200px)- this image is on all sorts of sites, so I'm not sure who exactly to credit this to. If you know, please leave a comment.

Next I wanted to place the titles of each movie to it, so I searched on "Star Wars Movie Titles" and found this image -

After getting the image it was opened in Paint.net. Then I Created a new layer above the original background image. With that done I cut and pasted each title on their own new layer ( 8 layers total. There was some re-sizing involved too.)

I also added the title for "The Force Awakens" in the same way at the bottom of the page. Then I added the dates I would be showing each movie on to each layer by using the Text tool. (Select the font and size you like.). For the "Clone Wars" title I modified the actual title to make it fit with the other titles. If you like I can run through how, in another post.

When all the titles were just where I wanted them, I merged all the title layers down to one. This left me with just two layers (the Background and Movie Title layers)

In the image above, if I clicked on the merge button, "Layer 2" (the selected layer) would be merged on top of the "Background" layer, I would be left with just two layers, "Layer 3" and "Background."


I wanted to add a little pizzazz so I went back to Google and copied the classic Star Wars title (I found one that was 2000 x 1207px) In a new image I pasted this title and selected all the gold lettering. Do this by using the wand tool. Press the shift key and click on a gold area. since all the gold is close to the same color, all of the gold areas are selected. Type [crtl] + C to copy what you selected, and switch over to to main image.

Create a new layer then type [crtl] + V to paste "STAR WARS" onto the new layer.

Looks great! But it is a little overpowering in my opinion. Double click on the name of this layer in the "Layer" tool box, and slide the Opacity slider to a point you like and click [OK] (I did about half way.)

Now for the last little bit of flair

Go back to Google and find a large image of the "A Long Time Ago..." bit (I found one at 1440 x 800px). Copy it and create a new layer on your Paint.Net image. With this layer you may want to do some scaling. Click on the [Layers]..[Rotate / Zoom] menu item. I typed .55 in the Zoom selector box.

Next duplicate this layer so that you have two layers that look the same. (you won't see both, but they're there!) Select the top layer of the two, and click on [Effects] .. [Blurs] .. [Zoom Blur] in the box that appears set the amount to about 25. finally double click on the name of that layer in the Layer toolbox and for blending Mode: select "Additive"

All done!

I know I left stuff out. I'll go back over this a few times to make sure everything is addressed. If you have any questions about this, leave a reply and I'll either answer you directly or make addjustments in this explanation.

Enjoy!
Steve S.

In a galaxy far, far, away....

 

I know for a fact that you know where this is going. For all those who are with me, this is how much time left for our wait: Countdown ticker for EST in the US.

Just in case you still haven't guessed, I'm a Star Wars nerd. I can't help it. I remember watching the original three movies over and over again on VHS (you read that right) as a kid whenever my parents had a date night out. I know for a fact that I used to irritate my sister. Then as my children were growing up, they had their own DVDs of the movies (I couldn't risk them scratching up mine) that would be played consistently. And yes, we have the original AND the 'finished' ones. But I refuse to discuss which ones were 'better'. That should be a topic all it's own.

Anyway, Episode VII comes out December 18th. So it has become a family tradition to have a marathon right before a new movie comes out. You may call it an excuse to watch all of the movies again. We call it tradition.

That being said, due to CRAZY schedules, we can no longer watch all nine of them in one day. (For those not in the know, there are three cartoons about the Clone Wars. Yes, it's that serious.) So we scheduled them about once every other week, starting tomorrow in chronological order instead of order of release. The thought is week one, we will watch Episode 1. But week 2, we will watch episode 2, then re-watch episode 1 for those who missed week one. And yes, it's that serious!!!

Want to see the flyer?

Hubby put it together. He's really good at using things he finds from the internet and making it his. :) 

Will you be having a Star Wars marathon or party in anticipation of the movie coming out? 

Until next time!

Cherise, the Mompreneur

My Dessert Idea

So it was my turn to cook dinner for the family, and I wanted to practice my cooking skills.  So I made pizza from scratch!  Yes,  real pizza!  I was nervous! But it was a lot easier than I thought. Long story short, I had some dough left over and cannoli cream left and 'Viola'!".

The insides is the Cannoli Dip recipe posted earlier. Delicious!