. . . at that time of year a few weeks' neglect can soon transform a richly flowering garden into a mess of weeds and seed-heads, and the tidiest brick path into a slippery ribbon of moss and algae (Mary Stewart, Thornyhold)
I've just about finished up my crazed flurry of pre-Thanksgiving projects. It's time to just give the whole place a good cleaning and then sit back and enjoy the rest of the week without my silly self-induced stress. Although I got stuff done that needed doing, and I'm happy about that.
The garden is (relatively) weed-free, at least out front, and I'm hoping to avoid Mary Stewart's apt description of November's decay.
The pansies remind me of excited women doing holiday shopping.
I cut back the roses in front of the bay window because they were up to the top, and needed a rest. I like the hips, which come in round and orangish-reddish and offer interest when the roses are gone.
But there are still blooms on the fence. They glow at dusk, and almost look blue.
The fountain used to be out back, but we see it more out front, so now it's there. The pansies keep leaning towards it for a drink, I think.
The bunny photos I posted the other day were overexposed, so here are a couple more, taken later when the sun wasn't beating on the porch. Alas, the original bunny was decapitated in a fall onto the sidewalk (let us never speak of it again), so this is a replacement, brought around from out back. I do miss that first, terra cotta bunny, who always looked so wistful and sweet to me.
I made the bloom! sign at a trip to Color-Me-Mine a month ago or so. Do you ever go there, or to a similar paint-your-own-pottery studio? It's so fun. I could sit there all day painting. It's way too expensive (so we only do tiny projects about four times a year), but so fun. Claire and I paint, and Bob, who is the best painter in the family, watches. It took me awhile to realize that he doesn't paint so that he can help Claire so that I can paint. (I get completely absorbed in what I'm doing and don't hear anybody talking. "Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama?") When I realized what he was doing, I thought it was so sweet. Next time I want him to paint.
My sign kind of reminds me of something out of Beetlejuice, like stripey witch stockings. I'm not sure what I was going for. Maybe an inchworm? But it was fun to do, anyway.
Inside, I am so pleased to have finally hung up two prints of some original paintings our Catherine did. I'm a very slow picture-hanger-upper.
They are exactly the punch of color on that wall that the dining room needed. (The piece we had there before has found a nice home in our bedroom, where its subdued color palette works better with the bedroom's light green walls, and shows up better than it did against the yellow.)
And finally, here is my favorite pilgrim (squinting into the morning sun), ready to go to school last Friday and enjoy the Thanksgiving party. (Her hat was at school.) She has had stomach flu this weekend (last night was a long night), but seems to feel better this afternoon. Hooray.
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