Lotus Girl’s Neighborhood

In response to this post by Lotus Girl ( my daughter ... <3 ) I have these pics of Gillian that I wanted to post.

These were taken this past May at that Spring Celebration day thingy in Chestnut Hill that I keep mentioning. Here is Gillian eating blue cotton candy (with her daddy and then her mommy holding her.)

 

&:o)

Because I promised Robbbiedobbbie that if she showed me her monkey, I would show her mine:

Here is some kind of monkey dish that I got at a thrift store (he's holding the bowl/dish on top of his monkey haed):

And here's a bottle of some kind of foreign wine (German???) that has a gold monkey hanging onto the bottle (also from my favorite thrift store):

Both of these guys are sitting up on top of my kitchen cabinets.

When I get a pic of the stuffed toy monkey haed that hangs right inside our apartment door, I'll post that, too.

&:o)

How exciting! After 2 years, you guys will finally be able to see stuff like this ---

Here are my very own toesies ( in my very favorite flip-flops ):

Here is Wembley very meticulously cleaning her toesies before she shows them to you:

And here are her little peenk jellybean toesie pads!!! ( with the little tufts of caterpillar hair that sticks out from between her little peenk jellybean toesie pads!!! ):

hee-hee!!
&:o)

There's a grade school in Chestnut Hill that has a really neat public playground. (John Story Jenks grade school.)  Deniro & Sarah love playing there. (Deniro had his birthday party there in May.)
On one of the walls of the school, there'a a big mosaic mural with all kinds of wild animals depicted on it. (it's probably 20-ish feet wide x 8 or 9 feet high?) I love Phillie's murals --- and I love mosaic. So this mural is the best of both worlds for me. Here's a section of it:

Last year, Chestnut Hill commissioned a bunch of artists to decorate a bunch of fiberglass animal statues, then they displayed the animals throughout the tourist/shopping street for a couple of months --- then they had an auction for the statues. ( it was called " Abzoolutely Chestnut Hill "...) One of the beautiful huge (expensive) houses in a neighborhood that I drive by alot bought one of the statues and they've had in their side yard ever since. We love driving by their house and seeing it there. Here is Julibant Elephant:

&:o)

Back in May my family & I went to a celebration thingy day in Chestnut Hill. They closed the street off to traffic and all the stores were open and had outside displays & booths --- there was food, drinks, live bands, stuff for kids...etc etc.

I had mentioned to jaypo that the SPCA had a couple of critters there for adoption, and the cat that was there reminded me of jaypo's Sophie --- 'cause her (heem?) was also black & white with the same little white mustachio that Miss Sophie has.

So here is the pic of Miss Sophie's short-haired Pennsylvania kittycousin:

And here is a close-up of teh mustachio:

( I hope some nice person ended up adopting teh kitty!)

You know that I'm just learning how to use my camera and how to take decent (hopefully) pictures. Alot of you guys have been very sweet & complimentary regarding my efforts --- and I appreciate the good advice & feedback that you've given me.

I had never thought about framing & composition that much before. To me, a good picture was one where I did NOT cut the tops of everyone's head off, that kind of stuff. I had never thought about framing the picture content before I snapped it --- or what made a good or interesting picture in the first place.

Then when I was messing around with my camera the other day, I ended up cropping a picture completely by mistake --- and it was kind of a lightbulb moment and made me go "whoa! look at that..." and I realized that within the picture that I thought was an ok picture there was an even BETTER picture than the one I had originally seen & taken.

Who knew.

So then I started messing with ALL the pictures I had taken --- whether I thought I was satisfied with the original pic or not. And I got a bunch of cropped pictures that made me so much happier than the originals.

That's all part of the learning process, right?

* * * Disclaimer coming up * * *
So --- if you've had enough of me & me learning to use my camera and take pictures, THIS is the point where you either want to just ignore my picture posts, or run screaming --- either one will not offend me ( not too much anyway...)

Here are some original pics and then the cropped pic. If you have any suggestions or advice, please tell me.

Original pic:

Cropped pic:

Original pic:

Cropped pic:

Original pic:

Cropped pic:

Original pic:

Cropped pic:

Original pic:

Cropped pic:

Original pic:

Cropped pic:

These are 3 pictures that I had taken of my grandkids. I had posted the one of Hayden on my blog previously; I had not posted the other 2.

I just figured out how to crop pics on my camera the other day and when I cropped the 3 originals of these pics, I liked the cropped version so much better. To me, the cropped pics were more interesting. When I took the pics originally, I would have never thought to have framed them like this. But now that I've seen them like this, I'll know for future pics.

So here are 3 pics I wanted to show you guys: Hayden --- then Gillian --- then Amber.

 

Here's a picture I took of Wembley while we were sitting on the couch the other night.
I really like this picture --- to me, it captures some of the feel of how sweet, loving, gentle, kind, caring, and precious she is.

This is my beautiful Wembley:

&:o)

Remember the piece of Sugar Skulls material that I got to make a curtain for my kitchen window out of?

Here's my kitchen window with the curtain hanging at it now. It's more of a valance, or a shade, I guess you'd say --- it doesn't move or open/close or anything.
I put a strip of bias tape with beads (which I got from Dollar Tree) across the bottom of it, and across the top seam(near where the curtain rod goes through.)

Here are a couple of pics too, of the stuff on the kitchen window sill:
The birdies came from Key West Florida, from Sarah when she visited there years ago.
The ivy plant in front of them was a gift from Amber, Gillian & Hayden for Mother's Day.
The little skwerlio was also from my grandkids --- and the froggie planter was my Nannan's (it's probably 50 or 60 years old now???)

Kittiez have so many skillz --- many that we inferior hoomins cannot even begin to aspire to.

One of these skillz is The Art Of Not Being Seen. If a kittie does not want a hoomin or another kittie to see them, they can become invisibuhls as the wind...

Example: Here is an ordinary bathroom.

To the inferior hoomin eye, there is no kittie here...because this kittie is highly skilled in The Art Of Not Being Seen.