Happy Fall Y'all!!

I know I sound like a broken record, but time is just going way too quickly these days! I can not believe that my favorite season is almost over! Although September and October were both chock full of many, many autumnal activities and I made so many new memories, it still seems like it has gone by much too quickly! In any case, plans are now in progress for Thanksgiving, district HS football playoffs that Friday (including another huge tailgate), and yet another huge tailgate and the FL/FSU game. We are still a house divided so this will be fun!

With all of that being said...and the weeks just flying by...I think it is time to begin our Thanksgiving 2021 house tour. Come on along for the porch and living room reveal today.

Thank goodness the mums are all just starting their second blooms as most of the stores are sold out and bringing in poinsettias already!

I absolutely love the colors in the house at this time of the year. They are the colors that make my heart happy!
 

So that is the living room. Not a lot of change from last year but, it always seems like by the time I am done with Halloween, Thanksgiving is almost here and I just don't have as much time to think about new things to make or even buy...the stores are getting wiped out earlier and earlier every year. Hopefully I have everything I want for Christmas this year because I haven't really even begun checking out what the stores have and I'm hearing that the shelves are already getting bare! Luckily for me, I just love lots of greenery for Christmas so I think I will be good. I still haven't even decided on an ornament to make let alone shop for the supplies so I might be playing a bit of catch-up for the next weeks. Again, luckily, my grand children are almost all adults so shopping is a simple matter of cash and gift cards these days. It is what they like best so they can get exactly what they want and it is a no-brainer for me. Win/win situation.

I'm off to get a few chores done before a pretty busy week so stay safe and stay tuned.

What a Day!

I love days like yesterday. I wish they would happen more often but, they're not really anything I can plan. That is not how it works. I always seem to have one or two things on my list and then all heck breaks loose.

Yesterday was to be day #4 of Halloween take-down. All I had left to do was to put all of the outdoor and very large decor up on the tippy top shelves in the garage. This is always a chore that I dread because getting the very heavy things (especially my two large mummy statues that are off balance weight wise) first up the ladder and then over the rails of the garage door tracks is tricky. In any case, I usually try to do this first thing in the morning before I am dragging at all. And so, up and down the ladder I go until everything is back in place...and I am feeling pretty good about myself.

While the ladder is out, I remember a piece of lattice that has slipped on my fence so out I go to do that. I thought I could do it with my electric stapler so out comes the very long outdoor extension cord. Of course, the wood was so warped that the staples didn't go in far enough. And so, off I go to grab a hammer. Of course now, before heading back up the ladder, I notice that there are a lot of weeds in one of the gardens.....and so you probably know where this goes from here. Let's just say that many bushes got trimmed, many weeds got pulled, many, many loose fence boards got re-attached all around the whole yard - including some that involved a scary trip back behind my fence - holes in walls from old nails got patched and repainted, loose and wobbly things got epoxy glued back together, my car got washed (it had been out under the trees for the four days the garage was full of Halloween and autumn Rubber Maids and was full of leaves, acorns, sap and bird poop), and a few other things I am forgetting. I was the Energizer bunny. I know if I had made myself a list of all of those things to do, half of it probably wouldn't have gotten done. I just love it when my OCD kicks in and I go from one thing to the next...wish it would happen more often! Lol

And so, here I am on Friday. Today was supposed to be the last regular season football game for my oldest grandson's team (they are going on to at least districts so the season isn't over yet) but the predictions are for rain ALL day today and it looks like, for once, they will be correct. I just got word that the game has been canceled. I wanted to do a bit of cleaning today but that will have to wait because when I clean on a rainy, dreary day I never feel as if anything looks clean. And so, I am giving myself permission to take it easy and maybe catch up on some movies or a book...but first, let me get my Halloween post finished so I can move on!

I spent Halloween with daughter #3 and her family. My son-in-law bar-b-qued, the boys were in and out with their friends and my granddaughter kept tradition going by inviting her BFF and her mom over for food and a trip through the neighborhood for a bit of trick-or-treating. During the day, a number of other friends dropped by and a good time was had by all! Jen asked me to bring some appetizers so I made a "new to me" cheese skeleton (which was delicious and will be making return visits often in whatever shape that holiday needs) and crackers and a skeleton crudite' and dip.

 The girls also go to a pumpkin patch together every year. This year was no exception. They came home with some beauties so carving was a necessity for them.

While we were getting the food out, we left the girls to carve their pumpkins.

I'm not totally sure what they were going for but they had fun!

My daughter's neighborhood is now allowing golf carts to drive on the streets. They live in an area close to downtown and the downtown merchants lobbied for this because parking can be a problem and they thought more of the "close by neighbors" would come more often if they could avoid the car issue. Of course, my daughter was all over that so, she recently found and purchased a golf cart. The girls did some decorating on it and we were off. And, in case you're wondering, they are supposed to be fraternity boys. Lol

I will say that zipping around on the golf cart made the trick-or-treating process so much easier. We could just move from one street to another without any of the walking or watching out for cars usually involved. And, now that the girls are this age, they really only want to go to the homes of family friends so they don't mind skipping lots of house in between. Once again, I was having so much fun that I was either holding on for dear life (Lol) or not thinking about taking photos. Here are a few I managed to capture.

So, yet another holiday is officially in the books. As soon as we get some sun again, I'll show you what Thanksgiving looks like this year. Off to relax. Stay safe and stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

The Beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway

Wow! Halloween and the taking down of Halloween and putting up of Thanksgiving...not to mention a football game that resulted in a broken hand and a surgery for my youngest grandson...have really left me behind. I am trying to get caught up on everything this week before the weekend fun starts all over again. And so, let me take you with us on our last day of vacation in N.C. We first headed along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I took SO many pictures...only sharing a fraction...but the color this year was better than our last visit and the temperatures were perfect.

After we had stopped at about every scenic overlook along the way, we were getting hungry so we headed to Brevard where my daughter and grand daughter have a favorite lunch spot. The last time I was here with them, it was closed so this was my first visit. It is a true old time soda fountain place and it didn't disappoint from all of the good things I had heard. After lunch we walked around town a bit and then were off to find an orchard.

Justus Orchards is usually the family stop but, for some reason, we decided to try a new spot this year. We knew that all of the orchards no longer had apples to pick but, there were still plenty of apples, cider and doughnuts to buy! This orchard also had a lot of other things going on so we enjoyed shooting apples from the cannon, watching the children enjoy rides on the trains, petting the small animals around and having a delicious frozen apple cider before we had to hit the road and get out of the mountains before dark.

The next morning we hit the road. It is a pretty long trip first to Gainesville where my granddaughter had left her car...and still had to run by her apartment in Tallahassee before heading to Alabama to pick up her dog...then to Ocala to drop me off and on to St. Pete for my daughter. Many miles of driving this trip but we are all home safe and sound and waiting for our next adventure!

As I said, I had a busy weekend ending with Halloween at daughter #3's house but that will have to wait for another day! Stay safe and stay tuned.