The winner of the giveaway is...

Congratulations to the winner of my first giveaway--jodyvanB.  Please contact me with your mailing address, so I can send your print to you.

My daughter and I used random.org to generate the winner which was a little silly I suppose.  We could have easily put the names in a hat or jar as there weren't that many of them.  But it was fun to do it in a high-tech way.

Jody visited my blog after we 'met' on Etsy.  I had been admiring her very beautiful watercolours and told her so. Have a look at her shop.  She's a wonderful painter.  I plan to own one of her originals or prints some day. I am really happy to be able to send her my Pansies print.

Thanks to everyone who participated.  It was so interesting to read how pansies held special significance to a number of you. For all of you who didn't win or didn't have time to enter, I will hold another giveaway to celebrate my Etsy shop opening which should happen in the next few weeks.

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Well, yesterday was an interesting day.  I woke up to find out my PC would not open.  It got stuck in a forever cycling loop of 'startup repair'.  I thought it was a Windows problem but it looked more and more ominous as the day wore on and all of my attempts to repair the situation failed.  Mid-afternoon, I thought I had lost everything--all of my recent work on my prints on Photoshop, family photo files, documents, you name it.  Yes, I know I should have saved everything.  I had a backup up to October 1st of many things but not of my most recent scans and Photoshop work on my art.  I have a delivery to make to the arts and crafts show early next week.  I was also working on a compilation and CD artwork for the birthday party of a dear friend which was yesterday evening.  The timing could not have been worse.  When my husband heard the desperation in my voice on the phone (if we'd been on Skype he would have seen tears too), he asked his IT guy from work to come home with him at the end of the day.  At first the IT guy said that he thought everything was still there and it was just a Windows glitch, then he said my C drive was gone and I had lost everything on it and then, just towards the end of his visit, he said that he was seeing my files and thought he could save them. Talk about up and down emotions.  I do have my files.  They are now on another drive until the damaged one can be replaced.  He said I was very lucky.  Yes I was.  Now I can get back to work on producing more prints.  I'll post more photos over the weekend.

It is Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada.  Happy Thanksgiving to all.  My mom, dad and sister are visiting us from Ontario.  Here are my suggestions to you for this weekend:  surround yourself with family and friends, enjoy the beautiful autumn weather and back up all of your important files!