Paradise, can it be all I heard it was. I close my eyes and maybe I'm already there....

Well...

Here we are again...the end to an adventurous weekend.  I have about 65 photos to post from the last week so I'm going to break it up into a couple of posts (mainly, I was getting fed up with how slow the whole post-processing was going - and I want to watch Game of Thrones...).

On Wednesday, Pappy, Mara and I went thrifting.  (Just can't take him anywhere...)

We usually hit 3 or 4 thrift shops and maybe stop for a bite to eat, too.

For some reason, IHoP seems to be our restaurant of choice lately.  The biggest drawback of that place?  The "devil's blood" sitting on the table...just waiting to cause an accident.

On the way home, we decided to stop at Lunken Airport to see if any of the big planes were there yet for the Airport Days which happened over the weekend.

Only this one...but I have some cooler pics of it for the next post...

And this crappy pic of a little lizard...I'm still using my 40mm Pancake Lens in deference to my sore paw...so no zooms...

Mara and I went to the movies on Friday, and on Saturday Ludlow and Bromley had their City-wide Yard Sales.  We visited the house were Pappy lived until he was in the second grade and his mom's church...

I did have a personal best in the purchasing department.  I found two Charley Harper serigraphs...for $15.00 a piece!!  That's over $500.00 worth of art!  My art collection is growing fairly well.  I purchased a George Braque original lithograph at auction recently for $25.00.  I am doing quite well.

Well...here is a collection of "shapes" I saw on our travels...

And all of the flower photos I took this week...

(I didn't realize I had this many...)

More photos to follow...

Debussy is a god....

So...

Slow week - again.  We hit a couple of Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul stores this weekend.  I did make an awesome purchase...two small triangle looms.  Cool!!  I started weaving some squares - you weave one triangle and push it down on the pegs of the loom and then weave another one and crochet the two of them together.  Viola!  A square.  At first, I was only going to make a wall-hanging or the like, but I decided to try to create an afghan.  I figured I'll need 70 squares to make an afghan approximately 3' x 4'.  I have 16 squares already...it takes more than a few minutes to weave one. 

Patience, Grasshopper...

Well...here are this weekend's photos and this week's offerings to the art gods...

I don't know about you, but my OCD would make me CRAZY about the placement of the lock...crikey!

Going in the back door...

We're never going to get to go to the pool....

More Legos...I need to get to making my bigger sets...

Bodhi...catching some tasty waves...

"You're gonna need a bigger boat..."  Holy crap!  Jaws is going to be at theaters again this summer!!  I know for sure I'll be going so that maybe this time I won't spend most of the movie hiding on the floor of the theater.  Just for the record...that was 1975, right?  I still will not go in the ocean.

Ojo de Dios...back to my Girl Scout days...I just found a ton of instructions for fancy ones!!

And this seems to be happening a lot...wrastlin' Chuck back into my purse wearing this apparatus on my hand, taking weird accidentals.

I STILL have Elton John singing in my head...I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues...

So...

This frigging laptop is making me nuts.  It just took me more than an hour to process 29 photos - and then another hour to type this post.  Holy crap.  Being that it is a 2008 model MacBook, I shouldn't really complain...but I AM the Queen of Instant Gratification.  Ugh.

I had my 3rd day off since October yesterday.  It wasn't intentional...the company I work for did not notify me - or my Supervisor - of a schedule change...that came when the person who worked my hours informed me he was working Wednesday night.  Nice.  (I need a real job...)  Sleeping 12 hours straight was pretty awesome...and I had a few naps in there, too.  I guess I was catching up.

Well...here are the rest of last weekend's photos - finally.  On Saturday, Pappy and I were out and about so I requested stopping by Spring Grove Cemetery to view this year's edition to the ongoing saga of the crazy Gypsy Flower Memorials.  I am always surprised by several of the arrangements...by that I'm saying - how are these things even relevant to a gravesite?? 

I mean, come on...

See that last one?  That's supposed to be a dog.  It looks like a brown glob to me...named Tinker.

Then, you have to see it to believe it.  The sheer amount of flowers...I'm telling you...my mom was a florist for most of my life and I worked at a wholesale florist for 9 years.  The amount of money that had to have been spent on this has got to be outrageous. 

At this monument, we counted more than 75 baskets...that's just the ones on the ground!  Look how many are on easels!  And this was just ONE spot!

Here are some more weird ones...

And I couldn't forget the Elvis corner...each one of the roses that spell Elvis has a shiny rhinestone in the middle...

Roses are my favorite flower...while they're still on the plant.  Still, I like taking their portraits...

And daisies are okay, too...

Here are some more of my observations from the cemetery...like this guy.  Who is this?  Gaston?  Flynn Rider?

Just whatever catches my eye...

Hey, Pappy...this is from the Clan Gunn and means:  Either Peace or War.

Sacred Heart Church - I-75 South

And then Mara, Pappy and I hit the Taste of Cincinnati.  It was pretty tame this year.  Not many crazy sights to see...

He looks like he's lost about 20lbs...I hope he's okay!

This is the only food pic I took...and it was gross.  Pappy liked it.  Yuck.  Grilled cheese on a doughnut.

It was right after we were sitting here, under the wisteria, chillin', that my altercation with the idiot occurred.  The dude who called me fat - well "wide".  Hey buddy, your wife and kids must be so proud of you...picking a fight with a chick.  You know what?  They can fix fat.  You, on the other hand, with be stupid for life.  Sorry.

Shadow and light...I wonder how many times I've taken this same photo...from the same exact spot each year...

And all of the sudden, I've been taking photos of fire hydrants...no idea...