Today I woke up before my alarm, I was feeling pretty tired, and before even getting out of bed had to work on cultivating motivation. I started by taking refuge, and recalling the teachings. Then I prayed to Tara, that I really needed a break...and don't you know! The phone rang and it was my job asking if I wanted a day off! This is a true story! Okay, so maybe you don't need to know about the turnings of my samsaric mind, but the sincerity of prayer really does work. So, I was off...what does a Stupa gal do?

I considered going to the temple, naturally. But I work 12 hour shifts, and I've learned the hard way in the past that the "e-day" as they're called, are allotted in 8 hour spans. So it was possible they'd call me in for the last 4 hours of my shift if they needed me. Thus, I really couldn't go to the temple to work. I've been wanting to learn photoshop (adobe) for a long time, and had started to teach myself from a book prior to the start of this project. So I dug the book out and spent some time with it. That's where this photo came from! It's a mock up of what the Stupa Park would look like with the base of the Long Life Stupa finished in stone. We've been in a pretty continuous debate about how to finish it off, and we've seen some mock ups with color, but I wanted to see one of the stone...so as I studied today I realized I was learning the necessary tools to do it! Thus, I could not resist.

I welcome feeback/comments by the way, on this scenario (please be gentle if you wish to critique the photoshop skills, this is a first attempt...). I was primarily going for the impression the stone base would have. I'm wondering if it wouldn't make the Stupa look small...but from this view I like it, better than solid colors...Now that I've learned to do this, and actually saved my "selections" in photoshop, I can work with lots of scenarios. This is one area of the project where we haven't hammered out a firm plan. I'm hoping we arrive at a consensus soon, as we are making progress towards the painting phase out there as well!