Why I love spring time

It's spring fever.  That is what the name of it is.  And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!  ~Mark Twain

Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day.  ~W. Earl Hall

Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world.  ~Virgil A. Kraft

And that is why I love spring

The sky is the limit

A few quotes and a few pictures. Look at the sky and enjoy my random selection of quotes.

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.  ~Raymond Hull

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was.  I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory.  I was naïve.  I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.  It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with:  that I am nobody but myself.  ~Ralph Ellison, "Battle Royal"

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.  ~Judy Garland

I am told to just be myself, but as much as I have practiced the impression, I am still no good at it.  ~Robert Brault,

Contemplating

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.  What you'll discover will be wonderful.  What you'll discover is yourself.  ~Alan Alda

 A little self portrait, a little thinking about who I am and what I want, and a few quotes I found along the way.

It is good to feel lost... because it proves you have a navigational sense of where "Home" is.  You know that a place that feels like being found exists.  And maybe your current location isn't that place but, Hallelujah, that unsettled, uneasy feeling of lost-ness just brought you closer to it.  ~Erika Harris, lifeblazing.com

and finally, one of my favorites
It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.  ~Lucille Ball

Whatever you may be doing with your weekend, I hope that you enjoy it.

Weekend words of wisdom

I found this quote and it made me realize something. Every time I get discouraged trying to do an edit or when designing a new kit I'm competing with people who have been doing this much longer than I have. The only one I should be competing with is myself (the fairer match). When I look at it in those terms, I can see that I'm doing pretty well. My skills and knowledge have improved since I first started.

For anyone who is interested, I'll explain how I did the above edit.
First I opened the picture of yours truly. I added a new layer below the picture and filled it with color. (I used the color picker to choose a color from the sweater I was wearing) I then added a texture to that layer.
To blend the picture into the background I made a selection around the subject using the marquee tool. I feathered the selection (100) then chose select inverse and hit the delete key until I was happy with the look. Again using the marquee tool I made an oval selection around the picture and on a new layer I added a stroke outline. I then merged the outline down to the picture. Next I added a bevel and changed the layer opacity to lighten. For the text I again chose a color from the picture and typed in the quote. I also added a bevel to the text before merging all the layers. To finish it all off I added another stroke outline around the entire image on a new layer. Using the selection tool I highlighted the outline then moved to the image layer and hit delete. On the image layer I added an inner shadow.
After doing this edit I realized one other thing about myself. I really need a dye job....lol