Sunday Synopsis

Not quite what I had in mind, but a deal is a deal, even, no - especially, with oneself. Taking stock of the week. Hmmm, managed to get two more letters entered onto the blog of Uncle Ralph's letters. The most difficult and time consuming part of that endeavor was the scanning the copies into my computer. As I have mentioned before, my dear uncle had a penchant for saving money on postage by using "onion skin" paper AND writing on both sides. His April 2nd (1985) letter to Olive included a hand-drawn map of the Minnesota's Crow Wing Lake area where the family lived from 1914 thru the early 1920s. The map is a treasure BUT scanning it and making it readable was most difficult as he wrote on the backside of the map with a very heavy, broad tipped pen.

So to save the map in a usable form, I had to get rid of the bleed-thru writing. Some of you undoubtedly have Photoshop or a similar program. I have The Gimp, an open source program which is similar to Photoshop. I am not an expert, but with my meager ability and knowledge, I had to "clone" clear white area over Uncle Ralph's handwriting. A very time consuming job, at least for me, that resulted in a decent looking copy of the map which indicated where my grandparents lived, and different farms where three of my aunts and an uncle were born. I gained a new perspective as to where this family lived in respect to the Mississippi River and the towns of Brainerd and Little Falls. Unfortunately, when I tried to upload the map into the post, I ran into trouble. I could not get it loaded so that it was viewable. However, I do have the map in my computer and I can insert it into the book when I get to that point..

Colldubh coaxing me to come and play

As for writing, my week was not too productive. I sat down Monday morning expecting to put in 3 hours of writing. Alas, during the Christmas chaos, I had "stashed" the material I was working on and it has yet to surface. A week worth of desk cleaning under the watchful eye of Colldubh (big, black German shepherd) have yet to unearth said writing.

I did go to a workshop on Saturday and got my creative juices flowing, so tomorrow I will again sit down to my computer and begin my weekly writing commitment.

And such is the Sunday synopsis of January 9th. By the way, you all can wish my sis a very Happy Birthday as did we over the course of the last two days. Happy Birthday, Sis.