119. National Black Cat Day Celebrations! + Trying out Nikon D3100 SS

Hey y'all!

The weather here in Finland is getting cooler each passing day, the sun going down quite earlier and earlier every evening, but that doesn't keep me from performing my favourite activities: playing video games, blogging and daydreaming! Although I would love some kind of heating - and organisation, serious talk! - to my room, I enjoy curling up in a blanket on my bed, with battery-powered candles on, listening to music on the radio, drinking my favourite Pukka tea, and read a good book quite often now that autumn's almost in it's last month. Before proceeding to November however, there is one last event just needed to be celebrated...

Today, 27th of October, is National Black Cat Day!

Which includes black and white cats, just like the one we have at home! ☺

I have actually been waiting for this day to come for the longest time, and now I'm glad it's finally here! And just to clarify your confusion, the National Black Cat Appreciation Day was on August 17th, which I sadly missed due to start of the school. The National Black Cat Day is today, and I'm here first time celebrating it, therefore granting you, my readers, some entertainment regarding black (& black and white) kitties!

Black cats are rarely given a good start or even a chance in life, just because of the colour of their fur. For me, it's equal to racism, as neither skin nor fur colour should matter, as beneath it lies something far more valuable. Black cats are said to bring bad luck, therefore not many people will want to adopt one. Which I think is quite silly, don't you think so too? Every cat has a heart and it is that heart that matters.  My family and I have Bimbo, and he was given away for an unknown reason - but he is the friendliest cat I know, and he's a tuxedo cat! It's more like bad luck happens to those cats, not the humans, and so I am a huge supporter of black cats. My, I even want to have a black kitten when I live on my own, and her name's going to be Willow! (I will tell you more about my dreams in another post - or perhaps another page on this blog?) Now I'm starting with some cat content I found hanging around my secret Pinterest board, which I think is a heartwarming gift from another unknown lover of black cats:

13 Reasons To Adopt A Black Cat

So if you're looking for a new feline friend, check your local shelter for any kind of cat - but pay attention to the black kitties as well!

Since our tuxedo boy Bimbo is so fashionable and a black & white cat, I think I will dedicate a fair amount of time on this blog to him.

And just because he just is so fashionable, always wearing a stainless tuxedo withwhite socks, he is an extreme challenge to photograph! Especially now that he's taken playing hide-and-seek mixed with a game of tag with little Emi behind some curtains as a habit, he is super difficult to capture on camera. But I don't blame him, I love to see him play with his little sister and then cuddle up next to her (and remain therefor the next 18 hours)! And besides, sometimes I do manage to get some good pictures of him, and those rare photos are seen below! Practically you will see successful pictures of Bimbo through the years, from the very birth of Symphonicats to, what, yesterday evening? All of them retouched with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, my honourable companion! Hope you enjoy! ☺

Mostly I photograph my baby boy while he is sleeping, which is both the best and not-so best time to take photos of him: he is still, yes, and he is a cutie, but I want to capture his eyes of gold, his gentle paws, his gracious movements, him at his very prime of the day. His tuxedo rests on him like a blanket that little Emi likes to sleep on, and while I am poor at both finding Bimbo at his active time and having a camera equipped, I still love every piece of him like the most gentle, kind, funny, loving and lovable (half) black cat he is. ♥

Another topic of note for this blog post is that I rediscovered the first SLR camera we ever had from collecting dust on the shelf. It's a Nikon D3100 and the reason why it hasn't been used is because my parents, oh the parents that I love so much and were embittered that our precious, expensive camera was and would remain broken forever, hadn't figured out how to focus. It took a while for me to catch the meaning of this issue, too, but all I had learned on the two previous cameras (both of the brand Olympus) and on the digital photography lessons came to use when I turned the lens of the camera and BAM! It was focused. I love my parents, and we are, actually, equally intelligent, because I still don't know how to count without my fingers.

As I was saying, I got the camera into working condition after letting the battery recharge through the night. It is now for all to use, though I also secretly adopted the camera, whoops... But! I couldn't be more excited! I can now vary on which camera to use, if one's recharging its battery or something alike. I still think the Olympus SLR is more convenient, but Nikon has a nice way of capturing in almost any light... oh my, the possibilities are endless, and one thing is sure: both will live a long, healthy life as an active camera!

Here are the pictures I took to try out the old newcomer! The D3100 is quite old, so to say, as the memory card didn't fit in my modern laptop, however it did so on another laptop in the house, so I'm super happy for that! (The USB cord is still missing and I can't bring to my own memory if I've ever heard of a portable SD card driver or something like that...) It will take some extra amount of time to export and import photos through Google Drive or Dropbox, but a little challenge ain't nothing to cry about! ☺

The pictures are only of Elsa the Queen of Cats, and I love the Nikon camera for bringing out her silly, kitty side! Also, no editing in Lightroom has been done to these photos, only scaling and resizing, just to justify the great quality of the pics.☺

We're doing a very fun assignment in the computer graphics course in my school: we're making an Advent calendar on Photoshop, for it to be printed and turned into actual Advent calendars! I'm working on a calendar that includes my beloved cats and cats only, and I can't wait to show it to you once it's finished!

I have been a little coffee bee in such a short time lapse: on Monday I went to have coffee at Wayne's Coffee in Forum, with my friend Havu! It was very refreshing to see after such a long time, and we plan to keep contact more often - and I am going to go to more HeSeta (LGBT+) youth gatherings in the future!

Oh, and as a solution to me never waking up to my gentle phone alarms in the morning, Mum bought me my own alarm clock called Clock Radio! You can literally play music when you wake up or just for the fun of it; mine played The Offspring right as I got to Radio Rock! But since my mother once played loud extreme metal in my ear and I just continued sleeping like it was a soft lullaby, I chose to go with the annoying sound I believe every alarm clock plays to usual people!

I've been feeling a bit ill from Tuesday onwards, as I have the woman's monthly week of pain going on. That stopped me from going to school like I wanted to, but I sincerely hope I'd be better tomorrow. I have art class, which is always fun, but also because I'm planning to go to the Helsinki Book Fair tomorrow! The ticket I got from school works only today and tomorrow, and I can't wait what gems of books I will find! I am also going to visit my paternal grandma, so I have a lot of chat and food planned for tomorrow!☺

I think that's about it for this blog post. I will slowly be going to sleep, as tomorrow's so exciting, I will need to get ready the whole morning, hehe! I will tell you what I bought at the fair on this blog ASAP, but for more frequent updates go follow my Instagram account, symphonicats! I will also be starting a personal Instagram account soon, hopefully very soon!

Thank you so much for reading this post, I wish you all the best! Don't forget to leave a comment and spread the feline pristine love, but always remember you readers mean the world to me!

Be seeing you!

118. Stranger (and cuter!) things SS

Hi friends!

You can't even imagine how much fun I've had this autumn break! By 'fun' I mean fun-fun - doing this and experiencing that - but also the kind of happiness you find when you get one week just to rest. Of course I got the idea of doing schoolwork the whole break as being a good thing for school, but then Mum convinced me to just rest this week and worry about school again next Monday. A wave of relief washed over me and I stopped hitting the rocks in the stream of school progress. This autumn break I have taken care of and pampered myself, and even if the first half of the break went to unhealthily worry about school and attempt to get something done, I've spent the rest of the week, from Wednesday until today, to look after myself so I wouldn't get lost. And here I am, writing this blog post, on the last day of the break - the break that consisted of plenty of cats, good food, fun with friends, gym sessions and World of Warcraft!

I could start with telling you that yet another Autumn Bucket List item (my list that can be found here) has been achieved: I went outside the other day and photographed the beauty of autumn! It's already super cold here but that doesn't erase the magnificence of this season! I went for a bit different locations this time, places you haven't yet seen on Symphonicats - places that can be explored more and look just as glorious in winter! Speaking of winter, I myself am really waiting for some snow to fall in late November or somewhere in December - only after Halloween though, let's not get too Christmas-y before Halloween, okay? ☺

As always, I've not touched any of the nature pictures with Photoshop or any other editing program - these pics are all natural! ☺

On Wednesday I went for morning coffee with my friend Aino, as you might have seen on Instagram! We had a really good time at the Espresso House in Kamppi, Helsinki, and afterwards we went shopping at the most basic small grocery stores. There Aino was looking for soft avocados (she's a vegan, how awesome is that!?) and I went for Fazer's chocolate, a Halloween pastry and some sugar-free soda. I'm planning on eating (or at least buying) many of those pastries upon Halloween, so you will also see what things they are!

Thursday was a busy day. We got Ella the Dog to a vet to get groomed, as her fur was once again getting too many knots that hurt the little girl. She behaved well and got a treat afterwards, here are the before & after pics (by Mum)! She is a real cutie either way in my opinion ☺

Before and after ☺

Next came a quick visit to Helsinki, whereafter I went to see my friend Nina after the longest time! We were supposed to go out for a coffee, but we took an alternative plan: we made a whole liter coffee and went to watch Stranger Things on Netflix! It was the first time for me watching it and I absolutely loved it! It was a real gem to a horror fan like me, and I quickly found it as a favourite. Here, I'll leave the trailer below so you can see what the fuss about it was in July - as it should be. ;)




You remember Nina's cats, Tiivi and Taavi? Tiivi the big, calm girl, and Taavi the big, adventurous boy? Of course I didn't forget to photograph them! They were resting on the same sofa where we were watching Stranger Things, and didn't mind the occasional petting or the sound of the camera! They were the easiest cats I probably have ever photographed as they just remained in their (sleeping) position and didn't do much to protest. And they were super adorable, maybe especially because of their size and sleepiness!

Here we have Tiivi exploring the small bag I carried my stuff in, including the camera which I took these photos with!

Oh, Taavi! I have a hard time recognising these two, but this one's definitely him☺

Tiivi was a real cutie as she was literally smiling the whole time I photographed her!

The only times she moved a part of her body was when she responded to petting her belly!

We then ate a vegan dinner, which consisted of vegetables in oat milk, and pasta with some salted nuts. Yum!

We're planning on seeing again sometime in the near future with our friend Siri, maybe have a sleepover or go Christmas shopping? We'll see! Whatever the way we meet next time, I definitely had a great time that time, and so did Nina! Hope to hear more of these amazing girls soon. ☺

Bimbo was a real gentleman to his little baby sister today! He took my brother's piece of ham on his bread, and instead of eating it all by himself, he gave most of it to Emi! How adorable is that!? I took pictures of the little girl afterwards, with her tummy full of delicious meat, about to take her daytime nap!

Elsa has been quite low-key the whole autumn break, perhaps because Emi got all the attention on Monday, her birthday. I believe she spends most of her time in the sauna, occasionally appearing here and there. I'm planning to do something nice for Elsa, like buying her toys or treats, or just simply give her free access to my room, to give her a sign that it's OK to be with us humans and the other animals every now and then! Somehow she reminds me of my oldest younger brother - both don't like to be with the rest of the family that much, both are by themselves most of the time, but both have a good place in my heart. ♥

So school starts tomorrow and I am only hoping the next post will be coming soon! I already have plans for Halloween - regarding the blog and some other stuff, too! - but if you have any suggestions on other content, then feel free to comment below! I'm now off to fully relax myself with some little gaming and coffee, you try to relax too this Sunday. ☺

Alrighty, I'll see you all later!

See you!