Uh-oh

I looked out the window of the bedroom when I opened the shade this morning to see this. The leaves of the dogwood shrub on the corner of the house are changing colors. Yes, the leaves on the big trees on the curve of the court are changing. Yes, I walked through crunchy brown leaves last week in front of the neighbor's house. But this is right here, right in my yard. Autumn.

 

When I looked out the back window this morning I saw a pop of yellow again. Another late blooming Stella d'Oro lily flower. All of the other lily plants are done blooming and the leaves are yellowing and drooping, yet here is this one plant pushing out blossoms in September. Yay!

 

The bronze mums have started blooming. I didn't crop the picture so all you see are the flowers because I wanted you to see all of the buds on the rest of the plant. If they all bloom at the same time it'll be amazing.

 

Right next to the Stella d'Oro lily is the pink sedum. There was a nice bee on one of the flower clusters and between the time I raised the camera and pressed the shutter, the bee flew away. So you get to see the flowers without the bee. Oh well.

 

The gratitude journal for yesterday was an easy one to find things to put on it. I tried drawing the Chair Pose for my yoga gratitude and I put starting planning cozy book #2 on there too. Also three, count 'em, three Bluejays!

 

Speaking of cozy book #2, it now has a name--Not Fair. I read that cozy readers like word play
and puns in titles, so I'm trying to be clever. I couldn't resist starting to write it. I managed to write four pages, maybe five, before giving up and stopping because I need to save something for Novel November (used to be NaNoWriMo, but they disbanded) since I said I'd write 50,000 words in November. Three Cheers for Murder isn't 50,000 words now and I think it's mostly done. I wrote 1,077 words today so I only need 600 more words to make the first day's goal. Let's see, 600 words divided by 38 days until November 1st equals 16 words per day. I can do that.

 

Today's drawing prompt was Boot so I drew a cowboy boot, an ankle boot, a moon boot, and a rain boot as directed. They're okay. If I'd taken more time drawing them they might have been better but I'm satisfied.

 

I spied the Red-bellied Woodpecker on the suet nuggets feeder. On the BACK of the suet nuggets feeder so only its head and tail were visible. *sigh* Why can't it land on the front of the feeder so I can take a picture of all of it?

 

The lawn mower came late this afternoon. It was almost 6 o'clock when he got started and he didn't have a kid with him to do the trimming and blowing so he was here for longer than 15 minutes. This was the first guy who came. He seems to do a better job, takes his time a little more. I think his name is Isiah. Or maybe Isaac. One of those "I" names. Whatever, he's a nice thorough guy.

This morning I repacked my display bag to make sure I have everything I need and loaded it and my book rack, poster, and rolling backpack of books into the car because I've got a craft show tomorrow. Then I have to get home, replenish any sold books, and reload the car because I've got a 2-day book fair this weekend. And my new book hasn't come and won't come because I haven't gotten a shipping notice.

 

I got to do the after school run today and we were almost to their house but had to go back to school to get something forgotten and saw flames and black smoke boiling up on the bridge. I had to pass the spot on my way home after dropping the kids off and saw it was a pickup truck that had a huge fire in the engine compartment. It looked like the whole front of the truck melted and they were still pouring water on it from a fire hose. I'd hate to have been in there when the thing started to burn. Scary.

--Barbara