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 Reason For The Long Newsletter Hiatus
Sceneramic Goes Stained Glass
Glass Eye 2000 Software Review
Featured New Photographer
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Reason For The Long Newsletter Hiatus
Our Experience
 A lot of people have asked me why I haven't written a newsletter for so long. I answer the question honestly and openly by saying, "Linda, my wife of 30 years, and I had our share of marital problems and we decided to commit the time to putting our marriage back together and put everything else on the backburner."
Okay, so I'll cut to the end of the story and tell you we didn't give up, we worked through the issues and heart aches and have a much stronger, deeper relationship for it.
So Why Share This?
The reason we wanted to share part of our story with you and with other folks who will read this on the Internet is a simple one...
This kind of thing happens to more people than anyone cares to acknowledge. We hope by sharing how we navigated through our journey that it may inspire others to step up to the plate and do something to fix their marriage instead of walking away from it.
All too often walking away from a broken marriage is viewed as the all-to-easy way out of a relationship that doesn't appear to be working. We're here to tell you that isn't always the case.
Divorce Statistics
Did you know that: About 50% of first marriages, 60% of second marriages and over 70% of more than two marriages ends in divorce? That's amazing... and very scary and alarming!
From our experiences, Linda and I don't believe that that many people made the wrong decisions and married the wrong person.
That said, of course there are times when abuse and/or other serious factors are involved in the relationship that staying together is not the right answer. What we're talking about, however, are the cases when couples split because they "just can't deal with it anymore."
In the majority of cases, these are the marriages that if one partner--or better yet, both partners--had sucked in their pride and done something to resolve the issues the marriages could have more than likely been saved and happiness restored.
Other Couple's Experiences
After our experience, Linda and I began talking with other people with similar pasts and asked both men and women if they had any regrets about what had happened to them. Almost always they would immediately reply with something like, "I should've tried harder to salvage our relationship because I lost the love of my life." We found that to be a common, profound response that was always followed by a look of sorrow and pain from the person.
People would then often follow up with a statement like, "I should've tried harder to make things work." Or, "I threw in the towel way too soon." Or, "I didn't acknowledge how I contributed to the problems."
The one kicker comment we hear most is: "Although I remarried, I don't love the person I'm now with as much as I did my first, true love." Whew, that's heavy!
Investing Time and Overcoming Pride
So, why do we hear this all the time? Well, it boils down to 3 things: 1) Many couples aren't willing to invest the time putting their relationships back together with someone they love; 2) It's all too easy to just walk away from a broken marriage; and, 3) Pride. Yes, pride!
To that I say," get off your high horse, take control of the situation, admit your mistakes, acknowledge it takes two in a marriage to destroy it or make it work, and participate in the process to rekindle what has been lost with your partner and rebuild your future together!"
Understand and Know Each Other
Going back to Linda and my experience, we loved each other--we always did and always will--but we didn't know how to communicate with each other in a way we both understood. It was like we were always 1/4 of a step out of sync in the way we talked with each other.
If you're brutally honest with yourselves, you will know exactly what I'm saying. If you don't understand what I'm saying, you are likely missing the big picture in communicating with your significant other. Heed the warning signs!
Must Reads For Any Relationship
Regardless of how well you think you're communicating with your significant other, there are 2 books that we'd recommend any couple read:
The Five Love Languages: We can guarantee after reading this one you'll do an "ah-ha!" The reasons will become clear why people--your significant other--respond the way they do to the way you communication with them... and them with you.
Whether you're in a relationship or not, this book explains how we all communicate in five distinct ways and things we can do to present our messages in ways the other person will understand.
Who Moved My Cheese?: Be aware when you read this book you can fall into the trap of "validating what you were thinking and feeling all along." Think outside of that paradigm and be the judge of whether you're really taking the right path through the "maze of life."
In Conclusion
Linda and I have shared our experience in the hope it will make you reflect and think about your relationship. If you'd like to find out more, or would like to share your experiences with us, or have a differing view or opinion, please email us. We've love to hear from you.
We wish you the best for your relationship and hope it's a long and happy one!
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Dear Reader:
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Visit CafePress.com/SceneramicPhoto for a large selection of mousepads, framed prints, postcards and coffee mugs. Images include landscape, seascape and cityscape of Australia, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland and the USA.
If you see an image you like in the Sceneramic Photography gallery that's not yet featured in our CafePress store, send an email telling us which image you like and what product you want it on and we'll be sure to add it for you.
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Sceneramic Stained Glass
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Sceneramic Photography has now branched out into stained and leaded glass.
Introducing... Sceneramic Stained Glass
 What with Linda being an artist and me a photographer it was only a matter of time before the idea of working in stained and leaded glass was conceived. Who knows why we didn't think of it before! It's as good a pairing as peanut butter and chocolate.
We offer both pre-created stained and leaded glass pieces or, if you need something a little more tailored, we can design and create your custom stained glass or leaded glass piece to your specifications.
If you have a conceptual idea of your stained or leaded glass project and you'd like us to help turn it into reality, send us an email.
Keep a watch in the newsletters or on our website for more information because we plan on writing a few stained glass articles once in awhile, too.
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Glass Eye 2000 Stained Glass Software Review
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What is Glass Eye 2000 Software?
 Glass Eye 2000 software by Dragonfly is for the serious stained glass hobbyists or professionals who want to design and create their own stained glass and leaded glass project designs. It comes in Standard, Professional, Professional Plus and Enterprise Editions so there's something to fit every need and budget.
Its set of custom tools makes drawing, alignments, symmetry, measurement, and resizing easy... even for someone new to computers and computer aided design software. Glass Eye 2000 is very intuitive to use and the available tutorials and help are excellent. Heck, within hours after installing it we were cranking out our own designs.
If you have your own image you'd like to use, just import it as your background and use the Glass Eye 2000 tools to draw your own pattern.
If you buy the Professional Plus version it has an auto-trace feature that can save you a lot of time by automatically tracing your images. This feature is meant more for tracing line images and not complex images, though, so you may have a tough time with pictures. However, if you use it for its intended use--to trace line drawing--it does a fantastic job of creating the pattern for you.
Once you have your pattern drawn you can then drag and drop glass samples from the vast glass library into your pattern to get an idea of what the finished project will look like.
What's The Difference Between The Versions?
The two primary differences between the 4 Editions of Glass Eye 2000 software are, as you'd expect, features and price. The more features you need or want the more you will pay. That sounds fair enough. After all, not everyone needs all of the capabilities of the Enterprise Edition and, not everyone will find the features they need in the Standard Edition. There's a comparison page on the Dragonfly website to help you decide on the Edition that's right for you.
The main features of each of the Editions are:
Standard Edition: Allows you to perform all of the basic functions such as tools to draw lines, curves, circles, and polygons; change line widths and colors; arrange lines with tools for resizing, rotating, stretching, flipping, and reflecting; aligning pattern elements to grids, crosshairs, and rulers; and, import and export JPG and BMP images.
Professional Edition: Allows you to do everything the Standard Edition does plus importing and exporting more graphic formats; assign names and prices to glass; piece numbering by color or location; lamp wizard 3D modeling tool; export print and calculate materials usage; a glass library with over 2,600 glass samples for you to drop into your pattern, and more.
Professional Plus Edition: Allows you to do everything the Professional does plus allows auto-tracing of scanned or imported line drawing; display measurements; keyboard entry of location; customizable short-cut menu; and, vector import into DWG, DXF, EMF, and WMF formats for compatibility with all major CAD programs.
Enterprise Edition: Allows you to do everything the Professional Plus Edition does plus the Enterprise Edition adds support for plotters and cutters; bursts design into separate pieces; Nests pieces by color onto pages; exports to DWG, DXF, EMF and WMF formats; and, adds offset contour drawing.
Recommendations
Well, a lot of what Edition you buy will be dependant on what you want to use it for and how much of a budget you have.
From personal experience--and in talking to other stained glass serious hobbyists and professionals--my recommendation would be to purchase the Professional Plus Edition. The auto-trace feature alone is well worth the additional money if you work with a lot of line drawings and want to create an electronic pattern at the click of a button. I don't know about you but we'd much rather let the software take care of that mundane chore so we can spend more time creating the stained glass piece.
Bottom line, if you're a serious stained glass hobbyist or professional you should give Glass Eye 2000 by Dragonfly a close look. They have a trail 30-day download of the Professional Plus Edition if you want to kick the tires and see what it can do. In fact, I'd highly recommend you do that before buying it to make sure it's right for you.
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Featured New Photographer
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Having been in the photography business for about 30 years, I find it refreshing when I come across photographers new to the business who have a natural photographic talent... someone who has an eye for picking up a camera and capturing amazing images.
Photography is not an easy business to break into and can be difficult for new photographer's to gain exposure, especially on the Internet. Sceneramic Photography recognizes and showcases talented new photographers to hopefully help them reach their dream.
In this newsletter I'd like to introduce you to Tracy Woolley...
 This fabulous image of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia was captured by Tracy Woolley, owner of Nautilus Gallery.
Tracy was conceived on Mooloolaba Beach, on the Sunshine Coast and has spent much of her life traveling the country either by sky, road or sea.
Her father joined the Royal Australian Air Force when Tracy was 5, during which time they were posted to several Australian towns and overseas to Penang, Malaysia.
Growing up, Tracy vowed she wanted to stay in one place when she became an adult. But, when she reached adulthood the travel bug hit and off she went again traveling to the Queensland Islands and settled for a time in Hobart, Tasmania.
Tracy’s dream was to one day sail a yacht through the Whitsunday Islands. So, in 1998 she bought her first yacht and settled back in Mooloolaba. A few years later in 2000, she competed in an international yacht race from Brisbane to the Solomon Islands. She spent the next few months sailing back from the Solomon's and cruising the Queensland coast with 3 of her 5 children.
That’s when her love of the ocean and their teaming of life, beaches and shells came to the fore. Many times on those voyages between ports she saw sights that were of wonderment and complete joy, but having no means of recording those beautiful scenes had to commit them to memory.
Having spent 2 years sailing, she decided to return to Mooloolaba with her children where she worked as the coordinator of the local Chamber of Commerce.
Upon receiving a High Distinction studying Photography at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Victoria through an external course, Tracy decided to capture beautiful images of the place she called home and hopes you will enjoy her images too!
For more information about this image or about Tracy Woolley's work, please
click here to send her an email or visit her website at Nautilus Gallery.
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** Recommended Reading **
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