My blog has new clothes-more or less

I have a new banner for my blog and my Artfire studio and etsy shop. I also have a new avatar for the shops, too.
The wonderful Yini, of Red Ruby on Fire http://www.artfire.com/users/RROFGraphics who has an Artfire studio designed it for me. I was lucky enough to be the recipient of her February blog giveaway and the new banner and avatar are my winnings.

Yini is really easy to work with. If you need a new banner, by all means, contact her. We chatted back and forth by email and I sent her the picture I wanted to use and the above banner is what she created. It's perfect-just what I wanted it to be and so is the avatar. I highly recommend her design work.

Of course, there is a story behind the picture I wanted in my banner. It's a decent sized pond, about 50 yard off of Interstate 95, a few miles north of where we live, but you would never know the highway was that close. The bass that lived in that pond were huge- fun to catch and delicious, too. My husband and I used to go fishing there often. We would see all kinds of wildlife there-hawks, eagles, gators, once a Florida panther even crossed our path. That was cool and a magical moment. We don't fish much in the winter when it's cold-especially in ponds. Don't have much luck with the fish in deepr water. So, several months went by and one nice spring day, we hopped in the car and went up there. We were saddened by what we found. Like so many natural, wonderful areas these days, this mini paradise had been turned into a housing developement. Sadly, we turned around and went home. I wonder what happened to the wildlife. I'm sure the panther was long gone. It had been well over a year since we had seen it-and since seeing it the first time, we would look for tracks when we went fishing.
So that's the story of my new banner picture.