CollieSmile 8 years ago

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Hi Everyone,

It's been a busy, but happy Summer for me-- which is the reason that I may not have been around to visit you for awhile. Well... mostly happy. Car problems that were [I]not [/I]cheap kept me from seeing my 5 month old granddaughter for a couple of weeks, but at least the car is finally working again. :)

My job has been keeping me busy also. We are engraving a lot of Stainless Steel mugs right now. We have one type where each shrink wrapped mug must be unwrapped by hand before it is engraved. It's time consuming, and my hands are getting a little sore... but hey... it's a living! I can listen to any kind of music that I want to while I unwrap them too.:D

I try to upload at least 5 wallpapers a month. I uploaded one wall on July 4th. I tried to get more up here during the month, but things kept coming up. Finally, today, July 31st, I rushed these 5 wallpapers up here. I got them uploaded with less than 3 hours to spare; August 1st starts on Desktop Nexus at 8pm my time. (Michigan, USA) It feels great to have beaten the clock! :D I hope to get many more walls uploaded during the month of August, because I have a backlog now...stay tuned! lol

As you can see, I've got 3 Cows Group walls up in this bunch; and 2 of them are especially silly...:P :D If you aren't a member of the Cows Group yet, you should check it out. There is such an incredible variety of cow wallpapers in it scenic, unusual, cute, humorous, etc... I think this group has become one of the most interesting (and fun!) ones on Desktop Nexus! :D

I hope that you are having a great Summer also, or a great Winter, depending on where you live!

Elaine :)

PS. PUPPYDAWG/ROGER news is that there isn't that much right now. He is doing better, but has an annoying, chronic cough. I do think he could use your prayers. He wants to come back to Desktop Nexus, but he needs a new computer to do so. He has enough money, but he isn't very mobile. Hopefully, one of his relatives will be able to help him out with that soon. Believe me, he misses everybody!
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CollieSmile 8 years ago

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From the beauty of Spring and the fun of Easter Bunnies & all of the trimmings...
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to the amazing & glorious meaning of this holiday;
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I hope that you will all
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Elaine :)

PS. Wonderful News! Puppydawg/ Roger told me that he will be getting out of the hospital [I]tomorrow![/I] Which will be Easter Sunday. :D
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CollieSmile 8 years ago

[B]Hi to all of my friends & fans! I hope you are doing well and enjoying life on DN as well as in your own homes.:D

In January the weather in my area was on the frigidy-cold side. In other words, normal.:) I wanted something on my wallpaper screen that looked a lot warmer than I was feeling-- so I created the 3 wallpapers below. But I didn't get to upload them when I planned to.

Now that February is almost over, the weather has been well...[I] weird[/I]. We've had everything here from extremely cold days, to days so mild I've almost been fooled into thinking Spring has come.

I know better though. I live in Michigan, the Great Lakes State of Unpredictable Weather. I'm convinced I'll find plenty of good use for these warm hued wallpapers before the Winter [I]really [/I]ends.

Perhaps you will also! Hot Cocoa & marshmallows anybody?

Stay warm!:D

Elaine :)

PS. If you live south of the equator, I guess you'd better stay cool! But if you're a member of DN, you are [I][U]always[/U][/I] cool, in my book! :D
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CollieSmile 8 years ago

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To my friends & everyone else on Desktop Nexus,

I am the bearer of some sad news.

Betsey Butler, a member of Desktop Nexus since September of 2008, passed away on November 20th, 2016. I did not find this out until last Sunday, January 22nd.

Even if you did not know Betsey, please read on. I have something to say that you may never have thought of before; something that could help you and many others.

Most, if not all of us, have made some good friends on Desktop Nexus. Some of those friends may mean so much to you that you've even exchanged email addresses with them and have become pen pals, (or perhaps I should say email pals.)

Betsey and I were email pals. We wrote back & forth on a regular basis. Often it was just short notes. We had days where we wrote each other as much as 10 times. Sometimes 3 or 4 days would go by before we wrote again, but we always kept in touch.

On October 24, 2016, I wrote Betsey that I was about to go to Canada for the first time in 25 years, and that I'd let her know all about it when I got back. She wrote back;

"Have a great day!"

That was the last time that I ever heard from her.

I kept writing her, and got more and more concerned when I didn't get any replies. Betsey had dealt with some health problems, i.e. she had what she called a "small stroke" and had to go live in an assisted living center for awhile, but then she got her own apartment again. I began to wonder if she'd had another stroke and was back in assisted living with no computer access or something. It never occurred to me that she might have passed away.

I finally found out that she had from another one of her friends who was just as shocked as I was about it. My friend read it on her Facebook timeline. No details were given.

Whoever may still be reading this;

Please, if at all possible give a trusted friend or family member access to your Desktop Nexus account; your Face book account; your email account. You matter. People care for you. People [I]will[/I] notice when you are missing.

Please have someone lined up to notify people, just in case you leave this earth. None of us knows the day or the hour when that might happen... If you pass on, people will wonder and eventually worry about what happened to you.

One Desktop Nexus member who did think to do that was Sparky/Kate Hatheway. Her sisters were able to access her Desktop Nexus account and let everybody know. That was such a wonderful to do...

https://my.desktopnexus.com/katehatheway/

I wrote to Betsey for 14 weeks without hearing from her. It hurts to realize now that I was writing to someone who would never read what I had to say.

I have been in mourning since last Sunday when I found out. That is why I've been wearing this wallpaper of Betsey's on my profile for the past week. (By the time you read this, I'll be wearing one of the one's I made for Betsey.I wish I could wear more than one wallpaper at a time!)

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I put aside some abstract wallpapers I was going to upload last Sunday. Instead I have spent this week creating two wallpapers in memory of Betsey Butler.

This one is my mourning wallpaper...
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I was only going to make the one wallpaper, but I decided that another one was needed. To the best of my knowledge, Betsey was a Christian and had Jesus in her heart. She is now in a better place...so I created this happier wallpaper in her memory also.

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Please choose either of my two wallpapers and put your thoughts and memories of Betsey in the comments. I would love to read them and possibly learn some things about her that I didn't know before. :)

One more thing. Betsey fanned 387 members here. I've fanned only 159. If she has fanned anybody that I have not, and they are still active friends of yours, please let them know about Betsey too.

Thank you for reading this...and God Bless...all of you! This sad experience has made me realize just how special you are...

With much love,

Elaine [/B]

CollieSmile 9 years ago

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Father Time & I are dropping by to see you & say goodbye to

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Let's say hello to 2017 instead! :D

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Yahooooooo! It's a brand new year! Be sure to party and celebrate it to the max! :D
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Best warm wishes for you in the New Year. I'm looking forward to more Collies, more Cows, more Wonderful Wallpapers, more Smiles, more Kindness, and more FUN on DN with you! :D :D :D

Love & Hugs,

Elaine :)
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CollieSmile 9 years ago

[B]Hi..... I just want to stop by and leave you some Joy:
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A little (wallpaper) present:

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A blessing;
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And to wish you a wonderful, meaningful, Christmas! :D
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Thank you so much for being a part of my life this year at Desktop Nexus... my favoritest place ever! :) :) :)

Love & Hugs,

Elaine :)

PS. And last but not least, your very own [I]decorated cow[/I]! :D
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Well... I [I]thought[/I] he was a cow.... :P oh well...:D

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CollieSmile 9 years ago

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Hi Jazzy,

I am enjoying the Christmas season & looking forward to Christmas itself. I hope you are also. :)

It was harder than usual for me to leave the Autumn season, however. That's because I fell in love with the beautiful Autumn leaves in my area this year. (Actually, it's still Autumn, but all of the trees here are now bare. We also had our first snowfall yesterday, so it sure doesn't [I]seem[/I] like Autumn!)

For me, the 4 wallpapers I've just uploaded are transitional. One has Autumn colors, but 3 of the 4 are Christmas walls. I call them that because (a)they have a lot of red & green in them, and (b)2 of the 3 "red & greens" have Christmas tree shapes in them!:D

All 4 of these wallpapers were made with only "natural" ingredients... mainly, leaves. I collected the leaves I used for nearly 8 weeks! (I can just hear some of you saying, "So [I]THAT'S[/I] what she does with her spare time... lol :)

May you have a lovely Christmas season, with many blessings to come! :D

Elaine :)

PS. If you'd like to know how I came to collect over 1,000 colorful leaves, I've written a journal post about it. Here's the link:

https://my.desktopnexus.com/CollieSmile/journal/leaf-collecting-at-long-last-d-12953/

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CollieSmile 9 years ago

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Hi Everybody! :D

I hope that you are doing well, and have many things to be thankful for. Desktop Nexus is a big one for me, and I bet it is for you also! :)

Another thing that I'm very thankful for is Autumn. The trees are so beautiful when their leaves turn... in my "neck of the woods" it is a wonderful feast for the eyes. Perfect for a color freak like me! :D

One thing that made this Autumn truly exciting for me is that I got to go to CANADA for one glorious day! I've been trying to get there for years! (I bet that all of you Canadians are either applauding, or are thinking that I'm just a little bit nuts... lol)

The three wallpapers below were all taken in Canada, 2 by me, and one by my husband. I've written a journal post about the day we were in Canada. I hope you'll have a look at it, if only to see that I'm not[I] totally[/I] nuts...! Here is the link to it;

https://my.desktopnexus.com/CollieSmile/journal/how-i-finally-got-back-to-canada-12873/

I know that Canadians celebrated their Thanksgiving Day back in October. "U.S.A. Thanksgiving" is coming up this Thursday, November 24th. I hope to get by your profiles with Thanksgiving greetings... but things can get crazily busy at this time of year. So just in case I don't make it, I want to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving today. For those of you not from the USA, I hope that you have a blessed day also, and many more to come.

Thank you all, for being such a wonderful part of my life!:D

Hugs,

Elaine :)
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CollieSmile 9 years ago

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Hi Everybody,

I hope you are doing well. :)

As I write this, I'm listening to lots of banging and crashing. It's been going on all day! At long last we are getting a badly needed new roof on our house. We've been saving up for it for 3 years. To my amazement, Katie our collie is taking all of the noise & pounding a lot better than I thought she would. Now if only I could get her resigned to traffic noises...

I'm looking forward to passing out candy to trick or treaters this Monday. But the best Halloween fun I've had so far this year is planning & designing these 2 wallpapers! I chased one of them down with my camera...and the other one took me waaaay more time to do than I ever dreamed it would. It was worth it, but...if I spent 30ish hours on every abstract I made, I'd go absolutely crazy! [I](Did I just hear a couple of smart alecs say that I'm totally crazy already? Rat's... the secret is out! :P) [/I]

Have a great weekend, and a super fun Halloween! :D

Elaine :)
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CollieSmile 9 years ago

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Hi Everybody,

Things have been[I] crazy[/I] for me lately! It's hard for me to believe that these are the first wallpapers I've uploaded since August 21st! I was afraid that I wouldn't get [I]any[/I] walls up this September.

It felt so good upload these just before before October 1st hit. Especially since in Michigan, where I live, a new day/date on Desktop Nexus starts at 8pm, my time!

As some of you know, I have been getting onto DN in bits and snatches, mostly to comment on wallpapers. Especially on Cow Wallpapers! Black & white cows, brown cows, cows on mountains, cows jumping over moons, cows on farms, a cow family in a rowboat, a cow riding a motorcycle! I never know what kind of a cow is going to come down the pike next! It's hard to believe that just a little over a month ago the Cow group only had a dozen wallpapers in it! Thank you everybody who has contributed to this group! It has now started it's 6th page! :D
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So what's been keeping me off of DN? Part of it is that I got spoiled, I guess. I got used to having lots more time for DN because of my broken foot and being in a wheelchair. Now that I'm mobile and back to work, much of the time I had for DN is gone. If only I could fit more hours into my day!

In spite of all of that, I know I have so much to be thankful for. It is so good to be able to get around again. I've been taking all kinds of photos, mostly nature ones. Also I've made a new friend at work who breeds and shows Pekinese dogs.

My top favorite breed is (you guessed it!) collies, but it's fun to get to know another breed. I went to a Pekingese specialty show to help my friend out earlier today. When those little long haired dogs enter the show ring, they look so funny-- like furry caterpillars running around! I took a few photos of them, some of which I hope to upload to Desktop Nexus.

DN is one of my favorite places to be, and I'm going to keep right on trying to figure out how to get more time up here. I don't give up easily! :D

Elaine :)

PS. Thank you to all of you who've been dropping by my profile page, & commenting on my wallpapers... even though some of you have probably been wondering where I've been at! :D
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