I learned yesterday that you should never wait until three days before a holiday to shop for a new table cloth.
I have a lovely table cloth, in the right size, in a wonderful Fall Gold shade, but there were no matching napkins left. Instead, I ended up with eight wonderful napkins in gold, russet and green that bring a lot more color to the table. Some lessons are felicitous, but I didn’t think that was how my shopping trip would turn out yesterday.
I found two table cloths in a reasonable price range to cover a long banquet table. Unfortunately, there weren’t matching napkins for either of them. Then, I found these great napkins, but there was no matching table cloth in the right size.
I looked at every set of gold napkins in the place before I finally realized that the table would be prettier with the additional color. I’ll add flowers in fall colors, and candles, and we should have a lovely table.
I hope your Thanksgiving plans are all coming together well!

The rain has moved in. It’s been gray all day, and was misting as we came home from errands around noon. The sky darkened through out the afternoon, and around 4:00 I realized that it was raining. We should have rain off and on into the weekend. It was 60 degrees today, but by Sunday, we should be down into the low 40s.
As we drove home, we passed the last of the corn fields to be harvested. The resident Canada geese were gleaning the fields. The farmer had made his first pass over the field, leaving roughly the bottom 12 inches of the stalks behind. Eventually he will disk the crop and turn it under, but for now you see a rough stubble. The bodies of the geese were hidden by the stubble, but you could see their necks sticking up out of the field. There were so many geese it looked like the farmer had planted another fast growing crop.

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BFI, the company who picks up garbage for my town, needs to have someone encourage them to institute a “The Customer is Always Right” policy!
We live between two subdivisions, and every time there is someone new assigned to our route, they miss our garbage. Of course, it’s MY duty to call them and let them know they failed to pick it up.
This morning I called, and was told (repeatedly, by a machine) that their hours were from 8:00 to 4:00 Monday through Friday. Unfortunately, it told me that at 8:00, 8:01, 8:02, 8:03, 8:04 and on, until I had to quit calling them at 8:10 so that I could get to exercise.
When we returned home, I called them again and had to play 20 questions. Each of the questions was phrased to show us just how sick they are of STUPID people who call them. What day is your Pickup Day? Tuesday. I just told you that it wasn’t picked up yesterday, and yesterday was TUESDAY! What time did you have the garbage out at the curb? 5:00 a.m., even though you don’t pick up the garbage until later in the day. Did it have the proper stickers on the bins? Yes! Did you use an authorized bin? We use your bins for recycling, and our own bins for garbage. This was the garbage you missed, so no, it was not one of your bins. What’s your address (in a very bored tone)?
This woman lead me right to the edge of violence. Every word from her mouth implied that we had screwed up in getting the garbage out to the street. They NEVER admit that their people could have erred!
Now, I’ll probably get in trouble for complaining about their service on my blog, and they’ll give me someone else’s garbage, while leaving ours behind, again!
If your business requires that you have to work with the general populace, you need to get real about how you interact with them. I can tell you, when the contract comes up for renewal, I’ll be encouraging the committee to look into other service providers!
If you read Essay’s blog, you’ll understand when I tell you that my Peeves rating was “VOLCANIC!”

I’ve been concerned that there was something wrong with our cat, Ed. He’s the one named for Edward Scissorhands, thanks to wicked claws.
Ed is an indoor-outdoor cat. During the summer he’d like us to acknowledge that he is an OUTDOOR cat….but we compromise on the subject. Generally we let him out from whoever is awake first in the morning, until about two o’clock in the afternoon. Most days he tests his freedom, by asking to be let in and then back out a dozen times. Finally….close to 2:00, we get tired of the game and refuse to open the door for him. That’s his cue to slink off and take a nap in the safetly of the house. Other days, he refuses to return until much later in the day, as if to say “I’m in charge here; I’ll do as I please!”
So, last week, I finally made an appointment with the vet. I was concerned that Ed looked as though he had lost weight, and thought maybe he needed his quarterly visit to be wormed.
Normally Ed is a tough cat, but when we get to the vet’s he becomes a sissy. This trip, he pushed his face between my arm and my hip and hugged my body. I think he figured if he couldn’t see the doc, she couldn’t see him.
The doc was surprised at how he looked, and that made my heart sink. But, when she weighed him, he hadn’t lost any significant weight since August. Because we were both disturbed by his appearance, she decided to do a bank of blood tests on him. We’ll find out the results tomorrow night. If there had been anything serious, they would have called us on Tuesday.
I hate to admit it, but Ed is about 64 now. It doesn’t seem that he’s been with us that long, but he’s about 12 in human years. The chart I was reading says that makes him older than I am. Perhaps what we are seeing is the result of a well lived life. I certainly hope it’s nothing more!

Well, we are two thirds of the way through Fall. We’ve had the most amazing season this year. I’m still waiting for the frost that will do in the last of my plants. I take heat every day from my mother, who wants me to go out and kill off living plants that have grown out over the sidewalk. The brick holds the heat of day and staves off the lighter frosts. These plants clearly understand the benefits of decorating the brick with their arms. You have to be careful where you place your feet as you come up the walk.
Last week we moved a bale of straw to the covered entryway, and set a mum and some pumpkins on it. We also cleared the containers of spent plants and moved some of them to storage, swept the sidewalk, and generally tidied everything. The entryway is ready to welcome visitors, unless we have our killing frost in the next week. Unfortunately, I can see myself outside doing yard work the day before Thanksgiving!
It’s been a dry year. We had plenty of rain in late Spring, and then gradually things dried up. We’d have a week of gray days, but no rain, and then we had unremitting sun for a month. Finally, this week, we are getting the gentlest of rains. It isn’t enough, but we’ll take what we can get. I hope that the trees and shrubs get enough to drink before the ground freezes.
So, I’m still thinking in a Fall palate. I want to dress my tables for Thanksgiving in rich pumpkin colors. I have teasel and milkweed pods and cattails to use as part of my floral decorations. My candles smell like pumpkin pies rich in cloves and ginger. Let’s hope the weather holds just a bit longer until we “gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing.”

My beloved SUV had to go in for repairs this week. When I turned on the heat, the entire dashboard shuddered. I suspected I knew the problem, but I wanted to be sure it wasn’t something under warranty.
When they opened the hood, they found one of our free-loading mice had made a home in my air filter. Of course, now I have to check our other vehicle, for the same problem.
The paradox came when I traveled through the dealership to pay my bill. A long hallway connected the section where the repairs are done, and the sales area where the cashier resides. Halfway down the hall, there was the loveliest scent in the air, and then petroleum odors closed in again. I thought I had imagined it, until I retraced my steps. In the midst of all those “manly’ smells, the three women who worked there had made a little oasis in the ladies room.
The door was ajar, and I could smell either the scent of the soap, or perhaps a hand lotion. What made me smile, was that the door was directly across from the parts department, and the men were lined up, sitting on leather stools, waiting to get the parts for their repair jobs.
I wonder if they were taking their time because they liked the lovely scent wafting over them, or if they needed a break from all those “manly” smells!?

I was cleaning shelves in my clothes closet on Sunday. We have one of those closet organizer systems, and the shelf on the top seems to be a tiny bit short. It rests on pegs that you can use to change the height of the shelf, and every now and then, if you touch it just right, it will slide off the pegs, and dump everything on you.
Well, on Sunday, it did just that. Everything slid past me and hit the floor as I grabbed for the shelf. Everything landed safely except for a bottle of Eucalyptus essential oil. The bottle is tiny, but the oil packs a punch. Some of it spilled across the back end of two pairs of slides, and some of it dripped onto, and into the carpet.

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I’m a hoarder.
I don’t intend to be one, but it seems that I am. My niece was helping me organize the pantry this evening, and she brought to my attention the fact that I have enough candles to light most of Illinois.
I love candles, especially this time of the year. I love the pumpkin spice scented ones and those that are spiced apple scented. I like the warmth of the flame, and the homey feeling they give the house.

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I’m one of those people, those old fogies, who believe that you shouldn’t celebrate Christmas until you have celebrated Thanksgiving. It disturbs me to go to a mall in mid-October and see it dressed for Christmas, and to see them hawking merchandise on the basis of it’s “gift appeal.”
I can understand towns and villages wanting to get the decorations up while the weather is still reasonably warm. I can deal with that sort of thing as long as the decorations are not lighted until the day after Thanksgiving.
I know….I’m a grinch. But it seems to me that we have lost the entire point of the celebration of Christmas in the overflow of merchandise and garish decorations.

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My sister sent this to me today. It’s one of the best e-mails I’ve ever received on the subject of friends, and I want to share it with you.
I don’t know who wrote it, but I’d LOVE to give them credit for a wonderful message about sharing our lives with our friends.

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