Autumn Begins

 

I'm not sure there's much that's more autumnal than apples!

My Dad brought over bags and bags of them from his (one!) tree at the cabin and we chopped and froze them so I can make delicious apple cobbler!  Thankfully, he had an apple peeler machine, which made things much easier and quicker.

Rewards:

I made my Dad and Greg soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

I moved some pumpkins into our decor for fall. 

This one is vintage from my trip to Wyoming in 2022.



I've had these for a number of years.  I don't like bringing additional colors into the house for holiday decor, so if I see festive things in shades of BLUE, I'm always tempted!

In the kitchen:

In the library:

My Mom bought this witch kitty for me!

This little pumpkin was a birthday gift from my niece Esme last year!

And this cute scarecrow girl was a gift from my niece Cora last year!

We're finally catching up on precipitation.

We even saw a rainbow over the pond!

The trees are almost done at the time I'm writing this.  It's been warmer than usual for this time of year, so they're still hanging on a bit, especially where they are sheltered a bit.



There are berries on some of the plants near the pond.

Filming my YouTube videos and doing online meeting was a bit echoic in my new office, so I've been looking for some fabric wall hangings.  I found these two on Facebook Marketplace and loved how well they coordinated!

When I picked them up, I was surprised to find that they are exactly the same!  One was simply advertised with the back facing forward!

Here's how they look absorbing sound together above my desk:

I've been reading this AMAZING new-to-me series by Louise Penny.  She has won pride of place on my living room bookshelves where I can see these wonderful and beautiful books all the time.  There are so far 18 books in the series and I'm on book 17!  If you haven't read these yet, GO GET THEM!

Greg's new hobby is washing the windows!  He's enthralled by all the different tools and techniques.  He's always learning, so it's cute to watch him take on a new topic and learn all he can.

Here he is with a bunch of his fancy gear!

We continue to slowly organize and improve the house a little bit at a time.  It was already GREAT when we moved in, but we think about things a long time before making decisions and we are still sorting through some of the stuff we brought with us from Arizona.  Some will go, some will get stored.

We are also sourcing as much as we can second-hand, which is often more fun, better for the environment, and more economical, but it takes longer. 

We have the seating area sorted out down there!

Doesn't it look GREAT?!

I wouldn't ever paint anything grey, but we are warming it up with light colors and lots of wood and textures.  

The humongous and beautiful shelving unit is vintage and was in the same people's basement for 40 years, I think they said!  My parents had a very similar one when I was growing up and I have a small piece of it in my office now.

We had the coffee table in Arizona.

The perfect blue and beige rug is from my parents!

The two couches are from my brother and his wife!

The corner ladder bookcase we had in Arizona.  Our favorite neighbors there had put it on the street for anyone to take, and I've always kind of wanted a ladder bookshelf, so I grabbed it!

I took the photo of the tree fungus near the Temperance River in Northern Minnesota and had it printed on canvas many years ago.  It hung in our hallway in Arizona, but it looks perfect here, like it's another window!

The asparagus ferns have been given a chance to survive indoors now that it's too cold outside.

On the top shelves so the cats can't get to them.

The fabric on these cute slipper chairs had gotten damaged in the past 10+ years, and I was planning to recover them until my Mom suggested that I try slipcovers and they work very well!  

Reality is that the other side of the big room in the basement still looks a bit like this (a tad better since I took this photo, but not much).  We're working on it, but it's slow, and that's mostly okay with me.  We can spread the work and the excitement out over more time.  Also, we don't entertain very often at the moment and we don't NEED to go down in the basement all the time, so it's the perfect place for Greg to fix on things.  We need to figure out some closed storage options and get organized, but we're well on our way!

My parents are helping us recover these beautiful chairs they bought before I was born!  I recovered them twice on my own, but now they need not only recovering, but repadding.  The padding is smooshed down and the nails are poking through on some of them.  If you come over, I don't want your behind poked!



This is the glorious pattern and color from the early 1970s.



Isn't that a lovely chair?

My Mom and I got to go shopping on my birthday in late October!




I wore a newish sweater that I love because of its balloon sleeves and stripes.

And my new Adidas platform sneakers!

The plants are pretty even in the fall.

I bought these blue pants!

I bought some pumpkin placemats for the dining room table.





My recent thrift trips have been productive, too.  Here is my new olive bowl: a canoe!

I think I'll use these gold sailboats as centerpieces in the summer.

A rattan clock for our main bathroom (we hung it above the toilet and it's very convenient and CUTE!)

Not a thrift deal, but a precious gift from a student.  It's me!



While unloading a box in the basement, I found this creature, signed by Greg!  He made it in junior high and it's a pencil holder!  I couldn't be quite sure what manner of creature it was; he says obviously a dinosaur!

It is proudly displayed in our living room bookcase:

We harvested our cayenne pepper plants and got about 20 peppers this year.  Not as good as last year because this year was hotter with less rain (and I don't water enough).




My parents came over to help us plant some trees (and other plants!)

Apple tree #1 (with protection from nibbly deer):

Then I made burrito bowls and cobbler to thank everyone for their hard work!

One morning on my morning run I saw a great white egret in a tree!




We also got to babysit our neighbor's sweet dog, Whiskey, in September.  We loved it and so did she!