Repainting the House... the 21st Century Way

Hey, remember in Total Recall (the original awesome one - not that thing they did to remake it) when the secretary was painting her nails?  She just used a wandy-thingie, touched the tips of her nail, and it changed to a different color. 

Well, I'm not quite using that level of technology, but I am using Microsoft Image Composer to look at different colors on my house so we can get an idea of what color would look the best.  (Yeah, Image Composer - which I've had and used since 2000.  They don't even make it anymore and it's not 100% compatible with Windows7.  But I'm used to it and it is awesomely easy.)

Anyway, I used one of the photos I took of the house:

After several false starts, including one where I turned the whole picture B&W, I got into the 'tools' in the program and chose the 'colorization' function to make the orange part white (for a better canvas):

And since then, I've been trying various shades of wood tones.  Anything to get rid of the orange.  I even tried to match the wood - using the 'color picker' tool (it sucks the color off any other image and puts it into the 'paint') I tried to match our sunroom paneling:

And ended up with:

Way too yellow...

I tried to pull colors off one of the does:

But everything looked flesh toned...

I tried using a fawn's coat:

But the background was making every attempt pull too much green.

Anyway, I'll probably play with it some more today.  I may even go out and take a full frontal pic of the house to get a better canvas to play with.  :shrug: 

Yeah, I probably should be writing...

What are you up to today?  And once you get done answering that question here, please go over to the Killer Chicks and answer it over there. 

kthnxbai

Teaser Tuesday

If you haven't seen it yet, I put my short story "Time Stops Here" up at Killer Chicks today.

Over There

Today I'm over at Killer Chicks talking about letting go.

Wednesday I'll be heading over to Michigan for a week, so posts here will probably be sporadic at best until the 28th.  I already loaded a couple posts at The Unpublished Writers' Guide to Survival and Tabula Rasa for while I'm gone.  And I did the same for my scheduled Killer Chicks posts. 

That way you won't miss me too much.  ;o)

Have an awesome time while I'm gone, folks.

Sticky Notes

I'm surrounded.  Sticky notes to the right of me.  Sticky notes to the left of me.  All of them staring at me, waiting for me to do something.  Make a call.  Write a check.  Research this.  Delete that. 

Aarrgghh.

And mixed amongst them are non-sticky notes*.  A half-finished to-do list.  A note to call some guy about some things.  Notes on some other calls I made.  A list of blog topics.  A whole square of paper about a particular topic I need to write about. 

I'm drowning in little squares of paper over here.

(We won't talk about the pile of big papers sitting in front of the file cabinet.  That's a whole other kettle of fish.)

Is your desk covered in notes or are you more organized than I am?  What are your notes telling you to do today?

*I'm using the back of torn off Dilbert calendar pages as scrap notes.  Works pretty well and keeps me from having to buy notepads.

Oh, and if you haven't wandered over there, Silver James is guest posting again at The Unpublished Writers' Guide to Survival.  She's talking about Getting Physical.  Stop on by and join in the conversation.

Or stop by The Killer Chicks and learn about My First Crush.

Want to Win?

If you want the chance to win a book, stop by Tabula Rasa.  I posted a snippet from a book I love and I'm offering you the chance to snag a copy.  All you have to do is comment.

Also, since the winner of my 1000th post contest never got back to me, I'm going to use that fundage to pay for a contest over at The Killer Chicks tomorrow. 

Yes, I am everywhere.

Monday Means Elsewhere

As usual, I'm elsewhere today.  Mondays mean my day to blog over at The Killer Chicks where I'm talking about my crazy-pants life and how awesome it is to be busy.

Mondays also mean a guest post at The Unpublished Writers' Guide to Survival (usually).  This week, I badgered the lovely and talented Karyn Good into writing a most excellent guest post.

Please stop on by and leave a comment or two. 

And if you haven't responded to this month's poll at The Guide, take a second and enter your totally anonymous answer.  (Seriously anonymous.  I have no clue who answers these things.)  Also, if you're not currently 'following' The Guide, would you do that for me, too?  It's not just for my own personal satisfaction - some industry people look at these things when they're judging whether I'm worthy of their notice.

See you out there on the interwebs!

Elsewhere

Good morning!

I'm not here today.  Today I'm over at The Killer Chicks doing my first regularly scheduled post.  It's a get to know you post, but I dish some things about myself the followers here might not know.  Come on over!

Also, this morning over on The Unpublished Writers' Guide to Survival, we have a guest post by Natalie Murphy - in which she talks about writing while getting her college degree and preparing to get married.  Go give Nat some comment love.  (And while you're there, answer the poll on the left bar, please.)

And if you missed it, I posted a snippet of one of my stories yesterday at Tabula Rasa.  Plus, we've got a couple other people playing along on their own blogs.  Some good stuff out there.  Stop on by.

Busybusybusy.  Thank goodness for the ability to schedule posts.  Seriously.  ;o)