Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. Langston Hughes

Sometimes when I’m feeling blue, I just want to fly away. This has been a strange and tough week. My better half has been gone for the most of the week to New Zealand for a conference. I have been getting the girls up, dressed, lunches packed, dropped off to school, to work myself, pick up the girls in the evening, make dinner, put gals in bed, clean house, do laundry and etc. I just really, really appreciate single parents. I don’t know how they do it. I’m buggered!

Work has been particularly challenging at the same time. The end of the financial year is upon us and we are massively over budget (like me personally – go figure) to the tune of several million. I submitted a budget for next financial year only to have it shredded by god today and was told I would likely need to reduce staffing to accommodate a balanced budget! This is in an environment where staff are massively stressed already and I face 33% turnover rate due to workload pressures. So, I’m back to the drawing board. I’m pulling in a financial consultant to draw up a budget/workload analysis to see if I can placate the powers that be.

So, all in all, this week has sucked pretty hard. I’ll be glad when my better half returns next week. Until then, I’ll just dream of sprouting wings and soaring someplace calm.

Zenwalk Fly Free Wallpaper Download (3848 x 2592 px – 4GB file)

So far, I love using Zenwalk Linux 5.0.  It’s a very nice lean linux distribution. I had the hankering to create a nice background for my Zenwalk box’s 20″ monitor. I started with a photo I took of some interesting clouds. To that, I added a photo of my youngest daughter jumping on the trampoline. I used the GIMP and also Wine running Photoshop CS2 to cut her away from the original background and blend in with the sky photo.

Above is a screen shot of my desktop using XFCE. Feel free to hit the link and download the large file. If you wish a smaller version, you can find it on my flickr account.

• Camera: Canon 400D
• Downloaded to Zenwalk with DigiKam
• Edited using the GIMP and Wine with Photoshop CS2

It’s still hard to come to terms with a hot Christmas even though I have been living downunder for 11 years. I took the girls out to Ricketts Point this weekend. They had a great time playing in the water and I managed to get this very graceful shot. It’s amazing that on land pelicans seem so clumsy but when they take wing … it’s effortless.