Sorry For The Delay

How often have you heard this statement from a customer service person, "sorry for the delay"?  Just about every time I make a call to a customer service number I hear the now familiar voice repeating the above phrase.  If it is an automated voice I sometimes wonder if that facility really cares.  But I really do not worry about it.  I will stay on the line till whatever business that needs conducting is completed.

This past week we have been enjoying my baby sister visiting from Texas.  It has been fun playing with my Sissy.  After my therapy visit on Monday, we roamed around the Relics Antique Mall.  We found lots of stuff that reminded us of our shared childhood.  We saw an old galvanized bath tub like we bathed in as children.  One of us commented that over there was our old tub.  Sissy suggested we should climb into it together.  This comment not only broke us up at the thought but all the folks within earshot.

Example of low resolution picture.

Example of the partially reworked picture.

Sissy and Doug had spent time in Italy last year.  She and I spent some time this week working with her snapshot of a canal in Venice.  She was inspired by a picture in my living room of a scene from the 2005 trip back east.  I had made the bridge picture look like a painting by manipulating it in Photoshop.   The digital image was then printed on photo canvas by Lawrence Photo here in Springfield.  A frame was added and the picture has hung above my sofa for several years now.

Her canal photo originally was 10" x 13" at 72 ppi.  My picture had been high res but I had failed to notice that one program I used to rotate it had saved at a low resolution.  So I just used what I had, resized the canvas and used a combination of different artistic filters and came up with a pleasant memory photo.  I am looking forward to helping Sissy have a memory photo for her family room.

In addition to the canal picture project, Sissy helped me print, stuff and mail the homebound greeting card.  She helped me pack Easter gifts for my grandsons.  Then we worked together to use pictures of her grandchildren and make a coloring book for her 3 year old grandson.   Here are a few samples of those projects.  

We sisters sure have had a good time playing together the last few days.  We laughed about old memories and inside family jokes.  We caught up on each others families in ways we can't during hectic holiday visits.  We cried as we struggled with the care of our mother.  And held each others children in our prayers as we discussed challenges facing each of them.  Best of all was just sharing a quite space together without outside pressures overwhelming our time.

We have been so busy just playing and being together I did not take time to blog.  Thanks, Charlie, for calling to check on our state of health after not seeing new blogs.  All is okay here at 3871.  Guess I need to say, "Sorry for the Delay".