Rocking Your World 2015: Week 31

Earlier this week, my husband Chris, sent this picture to my Facebook timeline, and it certainly made me smile. So I hope it does you too - the dog lovers among you anyway.

Kim may be the youngest of our three dogs, but being a German Shepherd/mastiff cross, he soon became the biggest, but he still thinks he should be able to sit on my lap. I had a quick look for a photo of his latest attempt, but I couldn´t find one, but I understood perfectly why Chris sent the cartoon to me.

I spent some time this week trying to get a good photo of the three dogs together. They were surprisingly more co-operative than usual, due mainly to the knowledge that I had a bag of little treats on the table. Anyway, I eventually managed to get this photo and I knew it was probably the best I would get, so I left it at that. Poor Foxy has the sun in her eyes, but it was the only spot in the garden where I could get both them and the camera, more or less in the shade.

I then tried to get one of Chris and I, using the self-timer, but again it is not that good as our reactolite glasses go dark very quickly outside, and also the camera was really too low, but it will do for now, and we´ll try again when someone is here to take it for us.

Next I did a bit of editing in Photoshop and managed to make this.

I have had a quiet week as it has been too hot to do anything much, so I have made good use of the time in my craftroom. 

While I was in UK earlier this month, my son Ben took me to The Range where I spotted a photo frame that I have wanted for ages. I first saw one on my Grand-daughter´s wall, and I was admiring it again on my recent visit, so when I saw it in the shop I just had to buy it. So this week I have been sorting through the photos I took, editing and resizing them, and then printing them out. In some cases I took the head of someone from one photo and pasted it onto their body in another one, until I had everyone looking happy together! Then this morning, Chris drilled the wall and helped me to hang the finished frame. I am really pleased with the way it turned out.

The bottom right corner of the frame reflected the window opposite it, but it is actually the photo of us with the dogs that I have just added above.

My main project is still a work in progress, but while Chris had the drill out today, he did get the first bit done for me, which was to hang this clock face directly on the wall.

I sent for this a long time ago, but it took ages to arrive, and since then I have been keen to get on with it. So once that was up I did the next bit, which was this.

At the moment the photos are only printed in quick draft on thin copy paper, but I wanted to see how well they would fit. Tomorrow I will go down to Mojacar and arrange to have twelve, ten centimetre square frames made. (I need to get a better close up photo of Chris and I for the number twelve slot too). Then I will position them more accurately, and make proper prints of the photos. There is still more to be done, but I have made a start and hopefully soon I will be able to show you the completed project. 

I am surprised I haven´t melted away this week. In many of the towns, and tourist areas, they have LED signs that alternate between the time and the air temperature. I guess it is a good way of reminding visitors to use plenty of sun-screen. Anyway, this is the sign above the Farmacia in Mojacar, taken at tea-time on Monday.

Even the local folk are not used to it, and are wilting a bit too. Unless we are going to the shops etc, we tend to walk around the house all day in our swim-wear, so we can slip in and out the pool whenever we want to.

I have taken the opportunity to do some reading, and have really enjoyed it. I love to read, but once I am in a book, I don´t move, even to get meals, so Chris has been very patient with me this week, as I have read three complete books! It is a good thing that the heat tends to suppress our appetites, and we don´t want to bother with food too much anyway.

However I do drink lots and lots of water, and eat plenty of fruit. Yesterday I went to the supermarket for what I hope will be the only time for a month, and although I will be going to the street market each week I did buy some lovely apricots, nectarines and grapes  while I was there. I looked at the melons and eventually decided to buy a yellow sugar melon this week instead of another water melon, and I was glad I did, because when I got home, Chris told me a friend had called in with a blanket and jumper she had knitted for my Africa project, and she had also left me a melon. Well it was in fact, an enormous water melon.

I am reliably informed that the yellow patch on one side is a good sign and something to look for when you buy one, because it shows that it has been allowed to sit in the sun in the field to ripen. If it is picked under-ripe there will be no yellow patch. So hopefully this will be a good one. The main problem is finding some space in the fridge to chill it. I will tackle it tomorrow and get at least half of it cut up.

It is important to water our garden regularly during the summer because nearly everything is in pots, which soon dry out. So yesterday I was out at the front, using the hose, when I noticed I had a visitor. 

She wasn´t bothered by the hose - I only have it on fairly gently so I don´t wash the soil out of the pots. She just sat on a post by the roses and had a shower. I have seen lots of babies out here, but this is the first time I have seen such a large one. I am fairly sure it is a ´she´because the male ones are smaller, and when they have mated she eats him! But she also eats lots of mosquitoes and other unwanted bugs, so I am happy to know she is in the garden.

When I tried to get a picture of her face she went camera shy on me and kept turning away. Then she delicately stepped down into the plants and I caught her as she reached out to test a wet leaf for her next move.

As well as spending a lot of time reading, and editing photos, I have also managed to make a Christmas card for a monthly challenge that I participate in. I also noticed that the Silhouette store had all their Christmas cutting files at half price until midnight tonight, so I had a quick browse and bought a few to play with if we have another hot week. It never feels quite right to be making Christmas items in the middle of summer, but I am always happy to know that a few more cards have gone into my box ready for December.

Anyway, while I was browsing I noticed this word art cutting file and it so exactly fitted me that I just had to add it to my basket. I have always been called ´Smiler´It is just the way I am. Mum  used to say "You smile and others smile, and soon there´s miles and miles of smiles, and life´s worthwhile because you smile". I have never forgotten that little rhyme, nor the song she used to sing to us; "It isn´t any trouble just to S_M_I_L_E. It isn´t any trouble just to S_M_I_L_E. Smile away your troubles, they will vanish just like bubbles, if you only take the trouble just to S_M_I_L_E. I wonder if any of the family reading this will remember them too. 

Anyway, here is my cutting file. I am not sure I will ever use it, but maybe I´ll cut it from vinyl and put it on my craft room door!  So if anyone reading this has something to smile about, and be grateful for this week, why not join me at Annie´s Friday Smile, and at Rocking your world on Virginia´s blog. We´d love to see you there, and you may just give a smile to some-one who really needs it.

And now I´ll just leave you with my usual sky photos. I was getting our tea ready late this evening when I saw this pretty sky out the back door.

Yes, there is a face in it, and it looks to me rather like a little cat watching a mouse, ready to pounce!

About a quarter of an hour later, it had all changed. The colour had deepened and the light patches had gone. The bougainvillea that grows all along our side fence, is more or less under control now, but sometimes it sends out a random long branch, that grows almost while you watch it, and that is what is cutting across this shot, but I like the silhouette it makes, so I took this one quickly through the railings on the door.

Now I am off to see what everyone else is smiling about this week.