I Finally got a Monkey – a PicMonkey

 

Once upon a time there was a little, white-haired girl named Melinda. She was very, very little and her hair was very, very white. It was sometimes hard to be very small in such a big world. She had to learn to have a big voice and big ideas to make sure both were  broadcast upwards towards all the Big People. 

First grade was a challenging time for this little girl who had a very big teacher. She was taught to be polite, so tried not to stare, but Miss Forgey was very large and very stern. That’s the perfect writer’s word to describe the woman who stared little children into learning their alphabets and spelling “mother” and “father” and “said” correctly. Stern. She had iron gray curls, like old women, but she wasn’t large and happy and squishy like Melinda’s Gramma. She was just large and solid and stern.

No matter how nicely Melinda colored in the lines or how perfectly she could read, “See Dick run.  Run, Dick, run” Miss Forgey rarely smiled. 

One day, Miss Forgey went around the room and had  each student tell about their pet or a pet they would like to own. Little Melinda wriggled in her too-big seat with excitement and unstuck her sweaty legs from the varnished seat. She knew exactly what she was going to say. Surely, this would make Miss Forgey smile, maybe even show her teeth.

When her turn came, she dared to look Miss Forgey right in the hole-boring eyes and said, “I want a pet monkey.”

The rebuttal was a slap. “You don’t want to own a monkey.  Monkeys stink and they are hard to take care of. It would probably die.”

When the little girl tried to break in and assure her she could take care of a monkey the teacher continued, “They need to stay warm and they need special food…..blah, blah, blah.” (Insert Charlie Brown teacher’s voice with anger.)

Even though the words were meant to douse the flames of ambition, they only fueled them. I can still feel my resentment at her harsh rebuttal grow into resolve.  As an adult, I always wondered why she didn’t patronize me and say, “Oh, that’s nice”  or “That’s an unusual request.” 

Cuz’ ya’ know what?  I still don’t want a dog or a cat, I want a monkey.

 

So, not too long ago I found a free monkey on the internet and I adopted it. 

 

 

 

I LOVE THIS MONKEY.

 

(click on pic)

 

It’s free photo editing program that’s so easy to use, even someone dumb enough to want to own a monkey can figure it out. Yep, it is a Cool Tool, for sure.

It can’t take away the sting of misplaced, angry words, but it improves my life today.

 

Click “Edit a photo.” It brings up your photo storage, just like when uploading in other social media environments.

 

See?  Easy Peasy. Even a monkey could do it.

Then, you just start reading the words and clicking the buttons.

This is the special effect DUSK and  TEXT.

This is my best friend from high school, Janet, a photographer who needs to write for her business. I’m a writer who needs to photograph for my business. See why we are such good friends? I don’t pick on her dangling modifiers and she doesn’t pick on my over-exposed pictures.

If you don’t live in North Dakota so can’t hire her, you can visit her Facebook page.

I sharpened the pic, added some contrast, saturation, and my words. Creative, I know.

 

Better late than never with the “Hey Girl” craze, but I think my hubby is way better looking than that other guy…

…even though he has this annoying habit of taking pics of me coming out of these things.

That’s what I get for saying, “Here, hold my camera.  I hafta’ go poddy.”

BTW, that’s hand sanitizer in my hand.  Just to keep things real here.

Under the FRAMES, this is the Polaroid frame option.

 

I’ve learned the hard way, if you accidentally step on a slug, you could almost throw your back out. So, when we saw this while hiking Boulder Creek, I was very cautious.  Boulder Creek is the home of the beautiful waterfall I used to teach you how to make a panorama. 

This Simple Edge Frame gave room to put the text below.  I had tried every color and every font and couldn’t get my words to show up directly on the pic.  A few more clicks and I found  this border, rounded the corners and moved my text down.

 

And, when something doesn’t work quite right,

their little dialogue boxes are actually fun to read.

I felt like clicking the wrong things on purpose, just to see what the box would say.

 

Other than being free and easy to use, PicMonkey will help you produce the graphics you need to make your photos stand out no matter where you use them. I look back to my blog photos from when I started blogging, and I cringe.

 

PicMonkey Free Features:

• Basic Edits (crop, rotate, exposure, colors, sharpen, resize)
• Effects
• Touch Up (Wrinkle remover only comes with the upgrade package for $33 a year.  Rats!)
• Text
• Overlays
• Frames
• Textures
• Themes

And if you really get into their coolness, you can follow their blog.

 

 

It took me 40 years, but guess what Miss Forgey?  I now have my own monkey – PicMonkey!