Falling Into Fall.... For Real Now....

Hello !

It seemed a few weeks back that folks were pushing fall a bit early, but now, the season has finally caught up with all the hoopla. I wasn't really complaining, I know we all need something happy or fun to look forward too and if grabbing onto the next season or holiday helps that, then it's all good in my book.

I wanted to make a post this morning, no matter that I had no exact idea about what I wanted to post. As I sorted through my photos I kept seeing pumpkins and pretty leaves and Jack-O-Lanterns. It reminded me I needed to put my Jack and Flag on the porch and so I stopped and did just that !

I have these two big ceramic Jacks. The last few years, I have opted for fewer, bigger things to use for the holidays and less little things. I still want to do something that makes me smile around here, but putting out lots of stuff and then needing to take it all back down later is no longer a desirable thought to me....except for Christmas. Although I have paired down a tiny bit of Christmas too, you'd probably never know it as I still do a lot of stuff for that and occasionally still acquire something else to add to it.

I like happy things and not scary things, you've probably already noticed that about me. You can have your scary and dark stuff if it makes you somehow dementedly happy ( LOL !!! )....and leave the happy stuff for me.

When I went back in my files for the photo below, I thought I had just taken this photo of my dogwood tree a week ago, but turns out it was two weeks ago ! (Slow down time !! ) The outer most leaves were just beginning to tinge red.....

Here it is this morning..... with a warm red glow beneath the evergreens.

Sidetrack !... to a conversation I had this morning.

I have a friend, Tommy, that I have not seen since my High School days. He lived in the same general neighborhood I did growing up, but we never really hung out. He is a year younger than me. When I was in the fifth grade and he was in the fourth, he had a mutual kid friend give me a ring with my name on it. I suppose that meant we were girlfriend and boyfriend... right ?? ha ha ... It was a surprise to me, but I wore it anyway. He WAS really cute after all and we all know that is all that counts. 😂 A few weeks later, that same mutual kid friend, came to tell me Tommy wanted the ring back. It seems he met another girl with my same name and now wanted to give it to her.

You know about how that set with me ...right? ... so I promptly took it off and threw it as far as I could into a field of high weeds and told the mutual kid friend to let him know where he could find it if he wanted it back.

ha ha.... and life went on.

I have a FB where my friends, present and past and my family are on my friends list. So at some point Tommy and I crossed paths through mutual friends. He still lives in the same state, but not close to me. We type-chat on messenger once a long while and so today was one of those days. He's an intelligent person persay, but has a few issues of the mental type, which leads him astray on occasion. I'm saying this with affection, but it is the truth. This morning he posted something negative about Walmart, so, on his page, I asked him what Walmart had done to him now ?? I was just being a little funny. It seems that he had been looking for some iron-on patches for his jeans and could not find them so he asked this "young green-haired girl" Walmart employee if she might suggest where he could find them. She responded to him by saying she didn't know and immediately walked away.

In our messenger chat, he expanded on the story and then told me that when he did find the patches, he got the ones he wanted and then took the rest of them off the rack, walked to the paint department and hung them on a hook there..... with the thought that..... now nobody really DOES know where they are. I suggested that the offending young woman would not be affected at all as she didn't know what he had done (and mostly likely wouldn't have cared a bit if she DID know).. and that the only one that would be punished was the next person like himself that came in needing some.

He was unaffected by my pointing that out and responded that "It made him feel better" 😄 I did figure that was the whole point of the action already and I also knew me pointing out the obvious was wasted, but I had somehow felt compelled to do so anyway. Silly me !

Anyway, although I didn't say this too him, it reminded me of several things I've seen lately about how you can't change what the world does to you sometimes, but you do have control over how you react to it. I realize on some things he may not be on a level playing field sometimes, but he still has plenty of intelligence and he definitely was totally aware of what he was doing.

Negative things are going to happen now and then, large and small, that's life, but you do have a choice to not perpetuate it by passing it negatively forward. I realize it is not always a natural thing, but if you counteract it by passing something nice forward instead, you will be making someone else feel good and yourself too. Sort of a self-healing kind of action.

Now !... back to my happy fall post.

The garden markets are now brimming with pumpkins and fall decor. I never get tired of seeing pumpkins and scarecrows and the such.

Even the warty pumpkins are delightful

Can't forget the Mums !

About a mile down the road there is a house that is already decked out for Halloween. I took this about a week ago. I need to ride back down there one evening soon as other houses on that street do the same, as if they are competing with each other. I'm sure there will be more decked out for Halloween by now. I kind of love that giant Jack-O-Lantern, don't you ?

It is now almost 2 PM.... so much for having a post out before noon. LOL ! I do have the rest of the day ahead of me and I don't have a plan, although there certainly is plenty to do around here.

The only thing I am sure of is that I need to cook some porkchops that were delivered on Saturday before they go bad. That's not really a chore though and the reward will be some tasty food for me !

Hope you are all well and happy.

Love you !

Jacey