Happy New Year!

It is 2015 already! Unbelievable!Happy New Year to you all!
I hope you all had a great time!
I will hopefully manage to blog more this year, or maybe not!
I am working on my New Year's Resolutions and will post them the soonest!
It's the camera thing that is delaying me. My compact pocket Olympus X-925 broke down for some reason and I am trying to learn how to use hubby's old camera a compact Nikon Coolpix L810.It was a camera that had an accident, had broken down, was fixed but the fixed camera didn't make hubby happy so was left in a drawer and a new NIKON DSLR 5100 was bought. So I just inherited the Coolpix (in a lovely red colour) and today I decided to have a look at it and see if I can use it.Till I get something else!Or not!
For the time being I will show you some photos from New Year's Eve.
This year after many many years we celebrated it at home with our relatives!

We had  a great dinner with beef, wild boar, lots of salads and desserts.

Here's the dessert I made, similar to the chocolate one I had made for Christmas. See the 4th of July tablecloth? I wanted a chance to use it!

 Barca was of course with us! She was such a good girl!

 We cut the vasilopita (New Year's pie) and the coin in the pie was won by our house!How great is that! I had bought a lovely blown glass pomagranate to give to the person who would win the coin. So we are keeping it in our house!How great is that!And no I didn't fix the cutting or put the coin in the pie. It is put by the pastry shop!

Then we exchanged gifts.
I got some books, wine, desserts, a cap and scarf and here are two gifts from my brother's family that I really loved.

We gave some gifts as well.(But no photos!)
We talked on the phone with relatives and friends.
Then we went to my mother's place and cut the pie there too.

On New Year's Day we walked Barca on the sea front! The view was magnificent but the cold was terrible!(That's a selfie with my mobile and then screenprint!) I am wearing the cap and scarf my cousin sent me!Thanks P.

Hope the new year brings happiness to everyone!

An egst photography session and a rowing race.

This week I went to a Photography session with the Etsy Greek Street Team at Peirama.
The event was organized by The wandering deer Vivika and was presented by Marietta of
 Double Crochets.
Unfortunately I was too eager to pay attention and didn't take many photos.
Marietta on the presentation.

 Items to be photographed! That amzing crochet bag is by Niata Crochet.

How to photograph a little penguin by the Wandering Deer.

 My sea glass felted stone photographed in various ways.

Of course we ate sweets too like auts-pins Eleanna's chocolate candy. I made some red pepper and cheese savoury muffins.

There was a Bingo game too and I won this lovely crochet cross by NiataCrochet.

This week also there was a World Rowing Coastal Championship in my city.

Lots of boats and athletes from around the world took part.

 The weather wasn't helping much as it was too windy and the sea was rough.

 We were there of course!

 An athlete who fell overboard being taken out.

 The French win!

 This athlete was supporting his friend to win running and shouting!A great sport!

Together after the storm.

Hello friends! Welcome new followers!
Today is Saturday 14th and the school year is over! I am so so happy! I still have to go for a week for the usual school chores and a hopefully interesting teaching seminar on the 20th.
My son's exams are over apart from his last subject.That will be English on the 21st.He didn't do very well this year either unfortunately. I hope he will manage to enter a University or college though.
We still have two performances with the Drama Club. I will post accordingly when I have full information on them.
And there are still 17 days for our dream come true, our big trip to the States! I am so excited you can imagine how excited!I still have things to prepare for that trip though and I am eager to finish them.
What I want to show you today are a couple of things that happened lately.
As you might remember and as I have posted here I attended the egst party. Well there was a blogpost on their blog today and I can also be seen there as one of the instructors and I was happy to read that and see my photos.You can read it here.
  And also just recently I had taken part in a photography competition of Paralia_zo about our new sea front. Although my photos didn't win one of them was chosen to be published in the book the organisers made. I was so glad to see that photo in that book really.I had taken the photo in September 2012 after a storm. The colours are real not enhanced. You can read the whole blogpost here.
You can see the whole book here. My photo appears at the bottom centre on page 81.
It is the photo of an unknown couple who were standing admiring the colours of the sea after a storm. I named the photo Together after the storm.

You can see all the entries here.There was a voting but it is over and there was a comittee that chose the photos to be published.I am so glad they liked mine too!There were hundreds of beautiful photos. And I can't say that my camera is that good. I have an Olympus X-925.Gift from hubby years ago!
Well till the next blogpost, hope you have  a great weekend!

Having fun with Picmonkey

Sometimes I might sound as if I have discovered America but I am rather slow in discovering things especially computerwise.
Anyway a friend I recently met through Etsy Greek Street team introduced me to picmonkey.Thanks Christina. You can find her beautiful nail art and jewelry here.
So picmonkey is a free photo editing website where you can edit your photos.You can add all kinds of beautiful details on them, crop them, make them more beautiful, write on them and finally save them. And all that for free.
Having no photoshop, I found picmonkey really very user friendly and fun!
Here is a photo of me adjusted in various ways by picmonkey.

And here are some I made with my felted stones.

You can compare the first photo with the one in yesterday's post here. Bytheway no one has yet found the destination of my Christmas trip. It is hidden in yesterday's photos of Philoxenia. The winner will get a treat!

Happy Summer!

I hope you will have a great summer!
Ours is bound to be really hot due to the continuous financial and political crisis, the unemployment and the many problems people are facing in Greece!
Still the blue sea, the open skies, the sun and nature are ours to seek, feel and dream with! For better days!

I won't be blogging much during summer!
I will hopefully swim a lot to get my strength and rhythm back...

... and I will definitely read books!

Here are the 20 books I managed to save all through winter from bazaars, exchanges and second hand bookstores.

I will take lots of pictures to fill lots of blogposts in Autumn!

I hope also to do some cross stitch as Barca didn't allow it in winter. I will add some more felted stones to my collection (whether they will be sold or not!)

Hopefully we will play a lot with Barca!(Here at her first swim!)

And meet friends and relatives!(If people are fortunate enough to have money to spend on travelling!)
Of course I will be spending hours sea glassing!And here I leave you with a picture of what I will probably be looking for all summer!I miss the U!Or something matching!

Have a great summer!