Saturday, November 20, 2010

Inspirational Color for Abigail's Christmas Sampler

Brasstown Bald mountain is the highest peak in Georgia and at the tower, you can walk in a circle and see the tips of 4 states, including Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennesee.

Before my computer took a major crash, I thought I had lost all data but just got my computer back this afternoon and had to share our last weekend visit with you. It's not far from our house.

 I also took a few videos with my camera and this was the first time I learned how to do that. 


If you love the mountains like we do, you will like to see these pics!

The leaves had peaked in the valley and as you will see, the pics on top of Brasstown Bald Mountain, all the trees are bare.


on the drive up to Brasstown, patchy color left on the road.





It was a cloudless, beautiful, sunny day.


The kind of day to go up to the top of Brasstown Bald Mountain.



Here I am standing in the parking lot and you can see the lookout tower at the top.

They give you the option to hike up the steep, steep .6 mile which really feels like 6 miles,  or a van will drive you up there.

Years ago, I hiked but today we took the van.


a close up view of the tower, you will later see in the pics.....
The season just closed the other half of the tower which holds a museum of local memorabilia and a great educational spot for kids and adults. Only the tower at the top to walk around was open.


Another reason I like the van better.



For the past 10 years at least, the same driver has been here. He is very cheerful and loves his job!



He dropped us off here and up to the tower.
I love to walk along the rails.
Body Guard stands back a bit. I don't mind going to the edge of heights but he is a bit reserved and prefers to profile the visitors there instead. LOL



This is the breathtaking view.





I love the edge.





and around and around we go.



This is actually Lake Chatuge and Hawaissee, Georgia in the background.






Looking up.......I love you to the moon and back.



It was quite a windy day but it did renew my spirit to be on top of the mountain.



The natural elements grounded me.


It reminded me that things that look so big, can really be so small. This is the parking lot, so very small now, where we were parked earlier.



And the Van Man came back every 20-30 minutes to pick up those waiting at the bottom of the tower.



Here is Moi looking up at my hubbie playing around while we waited for the van.



And in walking distance from our home, was this one beautiful red, brilliant red tree.



I hopped out of the car to take some pics and enjoy the color.



Another reminder that there are at least one or two spots of breath-taking beauty, even in the valleys.





I picked one of the many flowers in our yard that was blooming and put two contrasting colors with a bud, in a tea cup.





the colors inspired me to start designing Abigail's Christmas Sampler. Here's a sneak peak!



And Miss Abbie herself, is pleased with the sampler so far!  ;)

She is my constant lapanion........a companion in the lap.

Till later,

Jennifer

Thursday, November 18, 2010

To Drop in for important info for bloggers and Facebook fans

It's Wed night and quite a long day too. I have been doing much better at sleeping except for tonight so just wanted to let readers know that there is a Russian computer virus that is random out now, striking computers and there is no fix for it. It destroyed my laptop and the contents. It's a bogus that originates in Russia according to the computer guy and even the best virus protection programs will not protect from this virus. There is no rhyme or reason why it strikes (of course it had to be mine) but when it does you computer will freeze and go bright pink listing 230 serious virus attacks and it literally goes nuts. Then it constantly shows a 79.00 program to fix it. Thank goodness, I didn't cave to do that. I showed Body Guard and he was astounded at how many serious viruses it was listing. We took it to the computer guy and he immediately knew it a new Russian virus that is striking computers randomly and no virus protection program can protect from it. The companies are not spreading this word. There is really nothing you can do if it happens.

If you buy the bogus program that keeps popping up (and believe me with 230 serious virus's you're tempted strongly) then the hacker wipes out your credit card limit and because it originates from Russia, NONE is refundable.

One lady in front of us had the same problem but bought the program and was out 5000.00.
I was so thankful I didn't get it.
I highly encourage backing up data. I think I have lost all pics over the past 7 years, all my design patterns, and documents. It sickened me.

He  is trying to work on a backup disk for some of the data but can't guarantee it can be retrieved because this virus is the most serious. The computer cannot be fixed and it was only 11 months old.
Scarey.

So, I have a new one but no pics on it yet, haven't had any time as work has been quite busy this week.

This pic was one already on the computer and really is a good example of what frenzy I'm in after losing all my information from this major virus. Again, no virus program protects from it. They do associate Facebook use with it.
I had all my mountain pics from the weekend I wanted to put in here and even the disk which was in the computer is messed up right now.
The computer guy is trying his hardest to retrieve at least all the work I did for patterns, documents, free patterns from designers, pics of my kids, puppies, etc. I'm praying he can get at least some of the information but the computer itself can't be used again.
So, I'm learning on this new Acer I have which is actually lighter to carry around.
Hope your week is not as wicked as mine...LOL
Maybe I'll get my "junk in the trunk" together soon.
Praying for all computer friends safety,
Jennifer