As I was innocently walking towards the silverware drawer in the hopes of retrieving a spoon so that I could enjoy a delicious little snack of pomegranate Greek yogurt...
little did I know that I would find...
in such an inconspicuous place...
proof that over the last two weeks, yes...I actually had been *losing it* a little!
Do you see it??
There it is, in all of it's shiny, out of place glory...sticking out like a fancy sore thumb as it mingles away with the 'big boys'...the working crew, completely unaware that it was put there by accident and won't be able to stay. No, this is not your new home pretty butter knife...
you must return to where you belong...your family awaits you.
Over the past few weeks my writing, spelling, knife putting away skills, tea making (strong black tea is not meant to be drunk at 11:00 pm, especially when one thought they were making sleepy tea) and all sorts of other daily habits and cares have been put to the test due to LIFE happening (illness, lack of sleep, family stuff, house stuff, even fun stuff)...and it had me seriously wondering about my poor mind and where it had gone.
It also had me thinking even more about what our dear
Visual Vamp has been going through and what her silverware drawer might be experiencing...as my last few weeks can't even begin to compare to
hers and Alberto's.
May balance, sanity, and a bit of humor bless all who are experiencing the
ups as well as the
downs of this wonderful yet crazy thing called life, be they blogger, family or friend! ♥
During the summer, Miss. Ginger and I will find wild orange poppies along a particular path we like to take and the bright flowers always make me smile. Well now that it's "sweater weather", I didn't expect there would be any at all along the path but lo and behold, there were...one little patch was left...
and I was so happy to see that I wasn't the only one appreciating the sweet surprise.
My little companion was actually stopping to "smell the poppies"...I know, poppies usually don't have a scent...but maybe, just maybe, they do...if you're of a canine persuasion. 
So this weekend, while you're out and about...may you find a beautiful, bright, and possibly sweetly smelling...unexpected surprise! 
Well another fellow blogger, Laura 
In the hopes of helping them in their plight, I've created six cards depicting lovely rooms (
I can't help myself...my attentions are most definitely drawn to the outside these days. It was unusually warm yesterday...as the title says, we reached 75* in our little 
the Cascade Mountains and Lake Washington were allowed to be visually stunning in the clear skies and sun...
and we all enjoyed the last glimmers of the sun touching 'the mountain', and the air that felt like summer personified. Fall perfection and summer perfection combined, make for a memorable and very special kind of a day. What a gift!
Our gray and soggy skies today made for a beautiful display of fall color! The grayness was the perfect background for the foliage extraordinaire and seemed to brighten and enhance the already vivid colors. All was aglow...
Of course...when skies are blue, the pops of warmth add an extra layer of beauty to what are already breathtaking days. God really was thinking when he came up with this glorious range of warm colors to help ease us into fall and make the foray into winter so very pleasant.
For quite a few years now, we have hosted a very silly, very mischievous, and sometimes very annoying group of Pumpkins that have insisted it is our house they would like to hang out at on Halloween.
There's always a few new faces in the bunch which keeps things interesting, and sometimes... they even bring their kids with them, who I must say, are not that very well behaved!
This guy's always terribly grumpy and always seems to be in a sour mood (we call him grumpy pants)!
And the one that's always wondering why the 
but at least he has a little brother who's always 
This weekend I decided to brave the bevy of spiders one last time so that I could harvest the last of our Monkshood...along with a few other flowers (two kinds of Dahlia's & "Autumn Joy" Sedum) to create a fall bouquet, which so didn't really look very much like fall but I liked it none the less.
Initially I just placed the vase directly on the marble but then thought it might be better placed upon *something* and decided to use a transferware platter that I had recently aqcuired. I'm so happy I did this because the next morning, the Monkshood had already started to drop it's petals...the platter ended up being the perfect petal catcher. I had given a few stalks of monkshood to a neighbor several weeks ago when they were in their prime and she said they had lasted a long time...must just be that they are on their last leg (or should I say stem).
The platter, made in 1892 by JHW & Sons - Hanley, England, was another to good to be true find, like recent Ironstone coffee/tea set that I happened upon, and one that I'm thrilled about. It's slightly warped and stained which to me means it was well used and well loved...and it was only $19.00! I've seen other items from this maker, plates not platters, that start at about $50- so needless to say, I couldn't pass it up. And see...it has a new job and seems to be quite happy in it's new home.
Monkshood, also known as 'Wolfsbane' as it has a long history of creating and repelling werewolves (the perfect Halloween flower ;), is an amazingly beautiful and hearty garden perennial...albeit a very poisonous one if you should decide to eat it's roots. It will also multiply into a forest very quickly if left to it's own devices.
Ours started out as a little potted plant that was a gift from a dear friend. We had never heard of it before and happily planted it in the garden. Each year there were more and more of them until finally, we started digging them up and giving them as gifts ourselves, passing them out to friends and family. Of course when dividing the roots, you must always be careful not to leave any pieces lying around as they might look like a tasty snack to someone, a fatal tasty snack!
The flower itself truly does look like a little hood, or a helmet that a Spanish conquistador might wear. I desperately tried to take a close up picture of one so that you all could see this phenomenon for yourself but my camera was acting very naughty and kept producing the blurriest of images and after about thirty attempts, I gave up. Hopefully you'll be able to see the hoody's in the images I have posted, if you look closely at the top bunch, they are quite visible.
During my excursion I also culled some Hydrangea's that have turned a suprisingly pretty mixture of green and pink which I'm so happy about because not that long ago they weren't looking so nice...but that's for another post! 
"I paused on the threshold, I turned to the sky"...Emily Bronte wrote these words in 1838, and last night, when I stepped outside and had to pause on my own threshold, instantly turning in amazement to the sky that was before me, I wondered if she had been feeling the same way before her sky as I was that very moment before mine.
I paused on the threshold
