Rene Marker

I've done different variations over the years. In 2023 I did what I called a "Week In Review". I used the same template each week that had 9 photo spots. I included a photo from each day, put a small calendar with the week highlighted on another photo spot and a small cluster in the last spot. Depending on the photos, the last 2 photo spots varied from week to week. I used one very large collaboration kit the whole year. I chose to have each month with its own theme as to colors in the papers and elements. I ended up with 6 themes so in July I started over. Back in 2008 (Aug 31) through 2010 (Aug 28), I did a different "Week In Review". That is when I was first introduced to P365... taking a photo a day. I again used the same template, one for 2008 and all of 2009, then a different one to finish it out. Again each had multiple photo spots that I could change where the photos were each week. I again included a small calendar and another spot documented the week aka "August 31 to September 6". I used just 2 mega kits during the whole process just for the papers, no elements on any page. This was a quick and simple way to document the week and is really fun to look back at. I actually through these layouts have a documentation of the ups and down of gasoline prices. I drove by a gas station on my way to work every day and at least once a week took a picture of the price.

I didn't do P52 but more of a P12. I did a monthly layout with several pictures of things that happened throughout the month. I found that more to my liking that the P52 (which were very nice) done here. I called it "Month In Review" and used a set of templates I've had for several years (I believe they are retried) from a designer at The Lily Pad. The month title is on each page and I just chose the number of photos to fit the photo spots. Will do December later this week so I can include a photo from Christmas. I used the kit I designed in the build-a-kit workshop, in November I even created a new flower since what I had wasn't working. Was nice to be able to do that. I will probably continue in the same format except not using the same templates. I will create the title the same to have some consistency. Here is my September layout:

I've had problems in the past so I'm always cautious about installing them.

I've had the latest big MS update sitting on my task bar for about 3 weeks. I was unsure about installing it. When Matt came over to help get my floodlight camera back online after the fiber install I asked him if it was stable enough to install. He looked it up on his phone and said yes. I have another issue I need looked into but he had his son with him so couldn't stay long. He said to start a list and after the first of the year, he'll come back and see what we can do about the small issues. I decided to hold off on the windows update (24H2) install until then after I read somewhere that people had an issue with it and PSP.

One of the times it shut down on me, I wasn't working in the program. In fact, I wasn't even on my computer. I had the program open but not working on anything. My doorbell rang so I went to answer the door. When I came back and wanted to start working in PSP, the program was completely closed down. I swear I have ghosts living in my computer at times that just like messing with me.

Sorry to say this didn't work for me. For one, all text came in as one long line and while trying to fix that, it would crash. Every single time.

But I had crash dump files and I definitely didn't use the beta.

Sorry to hear this. I firmly believe the quality of PSP has gone down when they kept adding all the new advanced features such as AI. I didn't have X5 but did have X4, X7 and X8. I never had any problems with those. Hate to say this but Adobe is smart to have Photo Shop Elements for those users that don't want the advanced features. I know so many scrappers that are very satisfied with elements and even some designers still use it.

@gwen jewitt 2023 also shuts down when doing text for me. Only difference is it does it even if I'm not using text wrapping. Probably 90% of the time is if I'm writing large amounts of text (say more than 4 lines) but it has also done it with just a few words. I also at one point thought it might be the font and tried a standard font and it still did it. So when I know I'm going to have a lot of journaling, I do it in X8 where I don't have a problem. I also have the problem of the program just shutting down on me even when I'm not using the text tool. I have learned to save often because the auto-save time is often not long enough where I have lost work. 2021 did both of these things for me on my old computer so I was hopeful that when I got this computer and did a new install, it would fix the issues. Sadly, it didn't. Both 2021 and 2023 still have the same problems. I've never had an issue with X8. I probably should just use it all the time since I don't use a lot of the new features of 2023.

Our big family Christmases the first 40 years of my life were always the host supplied the meat dish and everyone else brought something. When I got old enough, I would make good old Rice Krispies Marshmallow Treats. So it wasn't baking but it was something very enjoyable to eat. Some years I would make a recipe that Mom & I got off a Rice Krispie box many, many, many years ago called "Choco-Scotch Clusters". Rice Krispies mixed into melted chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and smooth peanut butter. I would make either one of those 2 things for any carry-ins we would have a work (I'm not a cook at all and hate cooking for me let alone others). On Thanksgiving I asked my cousin's wife which one she would like me to bring on Christmas... she chose the chocolate so Christmas Eve I will be making a batch of those. Although I usually put them in a pan instead of dropping them on waxed paper in clusters. I documented the recipe in a layout.

She only needs the license number per her post in the other thread in the PSP Stuff forum on November 14.

It seems like the weather pattern in my area has changed over the years. I do remember snow at Christmas time as a child. Most of the time it was just enough to cover the grass and not cause driving problems Every once in awhile we will have a big snowfall. I just looked through my photos and in 2012 we had a big snowfall. I think it was at least 10 inches. I chose to stay home and not travel the 35 miles to a cousin's house. Looks like the last time we had any snow was 2017 which also was the year of really cold temps with wind chills of below zero through the new year. I'm OK with one really big snow a year. I like taking photos of it when it is fresh. I just hate going out in it and thankfully these days I don't have to when it does snow!

I'm doing good. One year checkup from 1st surgery looked good. Have the 1 year checkup for the last surgery in January and should be released back to my regular cardiologist who I now see every 6 months instead of just once a year. I do live in a small town. We have a local phone/cable/internet company that serves our town and the surrounding area. It started out as a phone company in 1895. In 1995 they added ISP services then in 1998 cable TV. I have used their internet since 1995 and cable since 1998. Yes, I still have cable. If I've had service issues, the longest I've waited to get it checked out was 2.5 days and that's because the outage happened at 4:45 p.m. on Friday afternoon. They were out here on Monday morning to check it out. Internet was out but I still had cable. Turns out a squirrel had chewed through the internet wiring. We had snow/ice and then it melted and zapped the wire. (Cable and internet were 2 different wires). Neighbors that have service through Spectrum do not get that kind of service. The company itself is very involved in the community and still does things to improve both the community and the quality of life for those in our community. Thus the fiber upgrades. The installer told me that it is a long process because of the financial commitment and they are making the areas with issues with the old wiring the priority. I happen to live in one of them!

@Suzy I am a fan of multiple monitors. I have 2 24" monitors. When I'm scrapping I have PSP on the left monitor and Picasa (the old program I use to see all my photos and scrapping supplies) on the right monitor. I can then drag and drop right into the layers palette in PSP. PSP is full screen on the monitor which gives me a nice size workspace to work on. I've even had PSP open and will work along to any of the tutorials as I watch them on the right monitor. I was just able to upgrade my internet to fiber lines and I'm now getting twice the speed for the same price I was paying before. I signed up for an online backup service on the 1st and was amazed at how fast the backup went. I did an initial backup of 171 GB Sunday afternoon and it took 4 hrs 26 minutes. Then I set it to backup another 297 GB overnight and it took 12 hours. Years ago an online backup like that would take weeks! Last night it backed up 18 new/changed files in 2 minutes. So now I've got multiple backups of all my important stuff. A couple EHD's and online. I think I'm good on the computer front for awhile since this computer setup is less than 3 years old and still fast for what I do. It wasn't a gaming computer but as good as you can get without going gaming.

I had never thought about why Thanksgiving is on a Thursday in the US until you questioned it. So I looked it up. And, this is what I found: In 1789 Pres. George Washington decreed Thursday, November 26, as a day of public thanksgiving, but, in the years that followed, the holiday bounced informally from month to month and date to date. The last Thursday in November became the norm in 1863 with a declaration by Pres. Abraham Lincoln. Evidently in 1938 President Roosevelt changed it to the third Thursday in November. It wasn't popular so in 1941 President Roosevelt signed a resolution establishing the fourth Thursday in November as the Federal Thanksgiving Day holiday. And, that change eventually led to the unofficial "Black Friday" holiday... that now is a multi-week event and spawned Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday.

At one time I had 2 versions of PSP on a laptop running Win7. They even worked when it was upgraded to Win10 and it wasn't as powerful as my desktop I had at the time. And, I added a newer version of PSP at that time as well (X4, X7 and X8)

Something that I always do to make black text darker is always select bold on the text tool bar. The other thing that I do that is actually against everything everyone says about text and drop shadows is to add a very small drop shadow to my text after I rasterize it. I use the settings: 01-01-50-05. Horizontal/Vertical offset being the 01. Opacity is 50 and Blur is 05. I only use these settings for black text but I do usually use black text anyways. I want the text readable which is also why I very rarely use a patterned background for my text. I know if I can read it, anyone can!

I also do it in October.... to document the colors of fall!

I've met people from all over the country through these retreats. The ones I went to were all organized by different people that were members of a scrapping forum. It sort of started when people in the same area would get together and evolved into much larger gatherings. I was a paper scrapper when I first went but became digital not long after. I've been to retreats in several different states along with the one in Ingersoll. A lot of the ScrapShare (the forum that is now defunct) retreats are no longer being held but some still are on a smaller scale. One of my friends from there still goes to retreats several times a year. In fact, she was at one 9 days ago when her husband passed away unexpectedly.

It also is a way to just document my daily life even though it is boring! But it also kind of forces me to not wallow in the depression but to get out and do things if weather is OK and to think outside the box about the photos I take each day. It has been interesting to look back and see how different each December has been since 2017. I've included screen shots of news headlines some years as well, especially in 2020. I first learned about it at The Lily Pad. Their designers design kits around a theme every year and they have a sub-forum with different challenges and tips on completing the project. Some people only do 25 days ending with Christmas. Some people do 6x8 layouts, some do full 12x12 layouts, others do Project Life type of layouts. Some people do something like the Project 52 some of you are completing here this year, with just 1 photo to reference each day.

Thanks Julie. It will never get easier since both my parents are gone and I have no spouse or children of my own. The last 6 weeks of the year has been hard for the family since 1971 when my mom's mother (the glue in her family) passed away the day after Thanksgiving (Nov 26). Three years before Mom passed, my dad's mother passed away the Monday before Thanksgiving and we buried her the day after Thanksgiving, Two years later my mom's father died the beginning of December then Mom the next year. Too much death in my family during that time period. I have found ways to keep the depression away during the month. I keep busy by scrapping or working on jigsaw puzzles. I've also done a project since 2017 called "Document Your December". I take photos every day and do 31 layouts of what my month was like. Yep, even got a photo of me in a hospital bed in last year's layouts!

I've been to Canada using both the bridge and the tunnel. And, I've also crossed at Sarnia. On one of my trips, I was a passenger and was able to get a photo of the US and Canadian flags that were displayed right next to each other. I think it was when we were coming off the bridge on the Canadian side. Two of my friends and I were on our way to a scrapbooking retreat at the Elm Hurst Inn in Ingersoll, Ontario. Beautiful place! I went to a retreat there 3 different years (2007 - 2009).

I'm also not a fan but my cousin's daughter/granddaughter are huge fans. Allison and Caroline flew to Los Angles (from Orlando) to see her in August 2023. Then in June of 2024, Allison, her husband (Dennis), son (Luke) and Caroline saw her in Lyon, France. They did make a vacation out of that trip going to Chamonix and then some time in the Swiss Alps as well (they had been in Paris and Nice the summer before). Then apparently Allison and Caroline saw her again in Miami last month. I just can't see spending that kind of money on any concert. But if it makes them happy...

Christmas has been hard for me since Mom passed away in 1996 on December 26th. I've gone through phases where I decorate a lot or don't decorate at all. Most people get their seasonal depression in January... not me, it starts right after Thanksgiving. On January 1st, I'm a whole new person! The last couple of years I haven't done much decorating at all. Last year was very little because of everything going on and having surgery on the 18th. I just didn't have the energy to do it. I hope to do more this year to celebrate my health being much better! For a few years, Christmas music was a trigger for me and I couldn't listen to it. Still can't listen to certain songs as they were favorites of Mom. I have some Christmas music of artists (mainly country) that I do enjoy listening to. But what turns me off the most is the constant Christmas movies on all the different Hallmark channels starting in late October (and can't forget the whole month of July). I used to enjoy them but not anymore.

Listening to him singing Back Home in Indiana at the Indianapolis 500 every year was such a treat. It just isn't the same these days.