What do you do out there every day?

I know it's hard for people to understand my life right now.  I appear to becoming one of those crazy cat ladies, sans the cats. I rarely leave the house, and except for my nightly visit with Pam, I can go days without even talking to anyone. But right now it suits me, and I know that if the mood strikes me my family and friends are only a phone call or a short drive away.

Normally I am motivated to keep very busy... gardening, doing yard work, pruning, canning, crafting, etc. I always feel like I need to acomplish at least a couple of things everyday. But this month, my motivation seems to have abandoned me. This could be due to the five or more feet of snow on the ground, or maybe because of the nasty fall I took. I didn't mention the fall to many people - it would just give them another reason to say I shouldn't be alone out here. But when my dear friends the Tschetter's heard about it they came to the rescue as usual! Miriam, who happens to be a massage therapist, came over and gave me  a 90 minute deep tissue massage. I will admit that I accused her of using hammers and knives at the time, but the relief was amazing. Two days later, & I almost feel healed. JoAnn came to keep us company, and dear Brian attacked all the nasty ice build up on the sidewalk & porch for me. They even brough me a couple of jars of a special herbal cream for Finn and his poor dry skin! I am so blessed to have such giving friends!

What I have been doing this month is finally trying to learn more about Photoshop Elements. It's the program I use to do my scrapbook pages, and although I know the basics I have wanted to know more for a long time. I subscribed to an online group - Hummie's World a couple of years ago, but at the time we were driving to Willmar everyday for treatments, and there just wasn't time. So this winter I'm giving myself a "get out of work mode" pass, and I'm spending many hours a day trying to teach this old dog some new tricks.
Here are a few examples of what I'm learning :

How to create a "faux" layer mask to extract a photo

A new technique for cutting papers, and using a photo as a background

Using brushes! Always wondered what those dang things did!

Adjusting photos so they match better, using opacity, recoloring grid lines

recoloring papers & elements so you can use them with more photos. (very cool!)

I could go on, but insted I think I'll go make another scrapbook page. How cool would it be to have all the Christmas books done before the orchard blooms this year? (Shhhhhhhhhh ... don't tell anyone!)