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Actually, I enjoy the preaching too. I quite like weddings in general.

All the pomp and circumstance.

But also: the love.

The connectedness of everyone gathered;

a connection forged by mutual affection.

It is tangible.

You can pluck off a piece of it and put it in your pocket.

Have a good weekend!

This post begins with a seemingly irrelevant confession.

Once upon a time, I was given a video camera. I think for my birthday. Not content to merely videotape the mundane details and special occasions of my life, I felt the need for video editing software. And, what do you know, it was available bundled with Adobe Photoshop. Of course I needed Photoshop. I cheerfully dropped some 80 bucks on the bundle, installed it on my computer, and…

Never. Used. Ever. Again.

This is horrifying to me now. Eighty dollars! That’s almost a week of groceries!

So for months now, I’ve been saying that dang it, I am going to learn to use Photoshop. I am. And I am going to make lovely notecards and stationary on recycled paper printed with soy inks for my friends and family.

Now to part two of my story.

Last month I committed to Gift of Green‘s Clothes Line Challenge 2008; I pledged 100% Line Dry for the months of May, June, July. And I’ve been doing it, really I have, it hasn’t been a major hardship.

But I feel like I’m not being held accountable- for all you know, I’m gleefully running all my clothes through the dryer. On high. Twice.

I considered just snapping a photo daily and posting it, but do you really want to view my laundry every morning? I’m thinking no. The cute little girl clothes are only once a week; generally it’s construction worker jeans and gym sweats.

I thought about engineering a creative photo every day- pinning words, quotes, toys, etc to the line along with the laundry. This seemed like a lot of extra work.

So what I have done is actually opened up Photoshop. Actually imported photos. And as I play around and figure out how stuff works, I will alter a clothesline shot, upload it to Flickr, and it will appear in the sidebar as a slideshow. (I hope- can you see it now?)

Now you have evidence that I take my line drying very seriously, kind of, but you don’t have to eyeball my laundry if you don’t want to. And I won’t get all lazy about getting my money’s worth out of Photoshop, because I know someone will call me out on it. Maybe I will learn something useful.

Maybe some lucky ladies can look forward to some environmentally friendly, personalized stationary for Christmas.

For the record, all the photos in my posts are straight-out-of-camera. Previously, because I was too lazy to learn to use Photoshop. Forevermore, because I think the reality of nature is beauty enough- to alter it is to diffuse the wonder.

I know I just said I wasn’t going to inflict my laundry on you- but while digging through my scraps and stash, I found a pile of pretty hankies!

No more Kleenex for me!