Each of us is born into a family, raised wherever the parents choose to live.  In my case, my childhood was lived on a farm.  That farm is the reason for today's post.  On November 16th the family farm will be auctioned for sale online and at a local auction house.  To watch a short video of the farm and how it's being offered for sale, go to www.highpointlandcompany.com.   

At 10 bells, or in 15 minutes, our doorbell will ring.  Today is a boys trolley day, and the boyfriend and his buddy down the hall are going for a spin, lunch and whatever it is that boys do when they're away from us girls.  When they leave, the plan is to shower, change into leggings and a sweatshirt, then cozy in working as a hooker!

Overcast sky, looks very Hallo-weeny.  One can easily conjure up disturbing thoughts about who might be in the neighborhood.  This time of year anything's possible.  

Today is announcement day!  Two more gnomes were found outside our unit door.  Come to find out it was Dale's cousin/sister who left them after she heard the story about Odin, our large gnome.  

They are absolutely adorable.  A couple days went by, and my brain churned thinking of names for these two boys.  I name everything, and the name has to perfectly fit whatever it is I'm christening.  So, let me introduce on the left:  Biscuit.  On the right is Shmo.  Yup, Biscuit and Shmo join Odin in our home of silliness.  

The G-clan has set a date for Christmas.  It's wise to schedule in advance, cuz then you're sure to toss out an unplanned day with all families.  We're blessed to be included.  

Well, the boys have left, and I'd best get busy.  I wished them well as they went out the door.  Told 'em not to do anything I wouldn't do.  I thought that was pretty generous of me, cuz at this stage I think I'd do anything that presented itself as a possibility!

Ta-ta. 

A gorgeous autumn Sunday.  We're thinking about taking an afternoon trolley.  Temperature is perfect, and the remaining colored leaves are asking to be looked at. 

Have been crocheting the throw I wrote about.  Yesterday morning I noticed a major problem when I took a measurement.  To make a long story short, I ripped three days of work, took a few deep breaths and started over.  Now things are looking much better.  

The other day Debbie sent home with us a decorative pumpkin.  Took a photo of the only decoration out on the deck.  

Thanks, Debbie!

One week until Halloween.  I keep a close watch for eerie little creatures that may be lurking nearby.  We literally live in Gnomeville, so any sighting is possible.  Tis the season for pranksters and scary ones flying the skies.  

Ta-ta till the morrow.

Our northward trolley was fun.  The leaves were elegant, 'specially the crimsons and the golds.   Got our car serviced, spent time at Trader Joe's.  I bought myself an olive tree.  The Lord only knows if it will actually grow, but couldn't leave without one.  The label reads that it should produce actual olives in three years.  Am placing no bets, but will nurture it best I can, despite my lack of green thumbs.

News Alert!  Our Christmas Cactus Mabel is shooting forth buds.  When we first inherited the family jewel, she was in sad shape.  Goes to show what love and attention can do to perk up even a plant!  She lives now along with the other plants in the household in the main bedroom, on top of my hope chest, beneath the beaded curtains.  Mabel is flourishing, as are the two offshoots that are planted in separate planters beside her.   Maybe she's a Halloween Cactus....

My crochet project is underway.  I spent time thinking of a pattern and at the last moment chose the V-stitch.  The yarn is a bit bulky, in variegated earth-tones, and it's working up nicely.  Think I mentioned that the yarn was brought to me along with a request to crochet a throw.  I'm thrilled that the dear gal would want a homemade throw made by my hands.  There's something warm and fuzzy tucked in here somewhere.  Oh, let me say, she's a special someone.  The boyfriend calls her his sister, and that ain't no small deal, trust me.

The sun is shining.  We got a bit of rain the other day, and the Venny grounds are green.  We're only 11 days away from November.  Where has 2023 gone?  Whoever authored the saying "time flies" mustve been my age.  Neither of us looks forward to our birthdays anymore.  The faster time goes, the less time we have left as earthlings.  

Another way we watch time go is by the Friday day of the week.  Seems it's always Friday.  Last week was a Friday the 13th.  Even though I'm not superstitious like my momma, I watched every step and peeked around every corner.   No goblins encountered, and Saturday couldn't get here fast enough.

Anyone have their brooms stolen?  The ladies wearing tall peaked hats are gonna need transportation in the coming days.  I'd suggest putting them under lock and key.  Ours is parked beside the refrigerator. 

We're up at 7 cuz we're taking a day trip, pointing the car toward the North Star.  A glorious sunrise greeted us through the patio doors, and I hastened to capture it and pass it on to my followers just in case they don't get up in time.  

Just think, we would have missed out on this morning miracle if we didn't make plans for the day.  

Today includes a last-minute invitation to a wild rice soup luncheon.  Haven't had wild rice soup in such a long time, so this will definitely be a treat for us.  I can't eat wild rice without thinking of Native Americans and their culture.  Years back, we bought a wooden boat that was used by them to collect the wild rice in Northern Minnesota.  It was an impulsive "must-have" until we got it home.  Then we wondered what the heck we were going to do with the flat green thing!

Frost on the roof tops.  Another of October's announcements.  

Yesterday I stayed in my jammies all day and savored every relaxing minute.  Once in a while it's therapeutic to declare and celebrate jammie day.  It's something that should be required of us retired worn-out souls.  My mother wouldn't have dreamed of doing that, but, here's another example how every generation loosens the reins. 

Better think about a shower and changing into leggings and sweatshirt, my favorite attire.  Should be a perfect day for a trolley with the boyfriend.  Ta-ta 

Did I ever get a good giggle from one response to yesterday's post.  Gotta share what came to me via text from my faithful follower, Robin..........

Thank you, Robin, for making me laugh!!!!!

The sun is shining, the boyfriend got in for a last-minute dental appointment, and I'm kicked back relaxing.  This is the day I start crocheting a throw for Dale's cousin/sister.  She left skeins of beautiful yarn for me to crochet in whatever pattern and size I want.  The first thing I noticed was one of the skeins is darker with a different dye lot number than the rest.  I asked Cuddy's Mom what she would do, and her suggestion was to crochet that skein in the center part of the throw so it'd look like it was intentionally placed there and would give a fading appearance.  Heck, that was the perfect approach.  That's why it's good to ask for input from other hookers!

Am going to work the project in the classic V-stitch.  Am thinking of going with the large throw size of 60 x 72.  A small throw is really not of any use.  I like a blankie that I can throw over me, including my toes.  Have no earthly idea how this thicker yarn will work up, but am going to pray there's enough.  If there's too much yarn, I can crochet a pillow to match.  Too much isn't a problem, but too little is.

Yesterday on our way to the celebration of life, we trollied over toward the town where we used to live.  Couldn't resist taking a photo of a gorgeous crimson-colored tree.  I took the photo from inside the car, trying to not get the power lines, but didn't quite manage that.  

Autumn Elegance

The celebration of life we attended was simple and simply heart-warming.  We each sprinkled ashes along the pond on the family farm.   His sister reverently scattered the remaining ashes in the fountained pond.  A short spiritual ceremony was led by one of his cousins.  Some of us shared special memories.  Following this, we all went to a nearby brewery where we celebrated with pivot (Czech word for beer) and pizza and other appetizers.  This was the first time I'd had Chicken Alfredo Pizza, and it was really delicious.  All in all, the occasion suited the lonely departed soul.  One gleaming example of how sometimes less is so much more.

Well, I'd best go find a crochet hook and make that beginning chain of stitches.  My intent is to complete the project and maybe have it be her Christmas present.  Yup, think that's what I'll aim for.

Ta-ta.  Again, tend to your brooms.  Just look what happened to Robin's!!!!! (giggle)

We had a warm fuzzy evening with Cuddy's parents.  They're two of the nicest people one could hope to meet on one's journey through life.  The missing sweet little soul we shared has left a huge void in our four hearts.  Little guy is resting in his little bed, with his favorite little monkey toy, near the flower garden in the front yard of their home.  I needed to know this.

Today we are going to a celebration of life for who I refer to as my non-biological brother.  His ashes are being scattered on his home farm, the place he dearly loved.  Old-fashioned funerals are slowly changing to celebrations.  I'm 100% in favor of that, and have already made it clear that if I unexpectedly get on the bus, I want no church funeral.  Why cry over spilled milk.  I've always been a free thinker and always will be.  The herd mentality drives me slightly nuts, to be honest.  

Spending time with friends while we're alive is one of my favorite things.  Laughing and teasing and celebrating the good side of life is as good as it gets.  I guess I was born with more than one funny bone.  So much for that.

Temperature in the 40s, today's high is to be in the 50s.  Sweatshirt weather is finally here.  Dark gray clouds crawl across the sky, kinda spooky, actually.  Guess Nature is in sync with the approaching eeriness of Halloween.  Hide your brooms, people, cuz the witches might grab em and fly away!

Then we'll be looking at Thanksgiving, the most important holiday.  One of my favorite quotations is:  "Live a life full of humility, gratitude, intellectual curiosity, and never stop learning." ~Gza~  Am not sure if parents today are teaching their children the common courtesies of please and thank you.  For the fun of it, listen carefully for those words.  They're rarely spoken anymore.  Our generation knows that a simple 'thank you' means a lot.  Just like this morning......when I received a text from Cuddy's Mom thanking us for a fun evening.  Our human morals and courtesies are falling by the wayside, and unfortunately will change the human connectedness.  We must appreciate one another and let the other person know that.  Anyway, that's my personal feeling.  

There's a boxelder bug on our screen door.  It's staying in the same spot.  Isn't moving.  Hope the poor little thing isn't sick.  I remember lots of boxelder bugs this time of year at our first home.  

Best get a move on.  Ta-ta, take care and guard those brooms!  

 We're busy as bees getting ready for tonight's dinner guests....Cuddy's parents.  In yesterday's post I blabbed on and on about preparing foods ahead of time.  Well, that didn't happen.  We left everything for today.  Thankfully, most of the food is ready, and the table is set.  We need to shower and get the place tidied up before it's show time at 4:30 p.m.

Just received a text message from my beloved surgeon, who is now a professor at Harvard in Boston.  I wrote him a text asking if his family is okay in Lebanon, knowing that Israel is right next door.  His return message tells me that he is now with his family in Lebanon, close to the crisis area.  This just makes me sick, yet I know he is the type of person who would drop everything and put his family first.  He is a humanitarian, and he will live in my heart forever.   I'm hiking up my prayers for him and his family, all the people who are suffering in that part of the world.  More than anything, let us all pray for peace.  My mind cannot fathom the suffering and agony in the world at this moment.  Our everyday frets seem pathetic when compared to theirs.  

Please, Lord, comfort the suffering and give strength to those who care for them.  

Second day in a row with rain.  How blessed are we!  Reports tell over an inch fell in our area.  The wind took both of my wind spinners to the ground.  Something is telling me to put them in storage until spring.  The Black Hills in South Dakota saw their first snowfall yesterday, so the weather from now on will be iffy.  

Read this morning's news that our Navy's largest warship, the USS Gerald Ford, has arrived in the Mediterranean to support Israel.  The deployment of the "biggest, baddest warship" is meant as a deterrent against future attacks.  Horrific happenings in our world, people. 

The other book I bought on eBay, "Acceptance of What Is," will either be a humdinger or a fortune cookie.  The first words of Chapter 2 read:  Consciousness is all there is.  Pretty profound.  Makes sense.  When we're conscious, the world exists for us.  When we're unconscious, there's nothing for us.  The book has Eastern influence, I can tell that already.  

In preparation for tomorrow night's company, today I'll make the 7-layer salad, bake a carrot cake,  mix and shape the ham ball meat into loaves.  We like to prep ahead for when we are getting supper guests.  Remember that's how Mom always did it.  The more one does ahead, the easier the dinner day is for the hostess.  

The boyfriend has to go out in this goopy weather to fetch the vittles.  If it was me, I'd order online and go pick the groceries up and be home in a flash.  But, he prefers to walk the aisles and pick out what he wants.  That's okay, we each have our own ways of doing things.  I'd rather take that extra time and put it to better use.  For sure, the Covid lockdown redefined human connectedness.  Staying home is now my favorite stay-cation.  Spending content time together, at our age, is something we cling to with a death grip.  The epidemic also showed the world just how much money can be saved by not flitting around like butterflies.  Guess the two of us are like two peas in a pod, growing happily in the garden of life.  We pray nobody picks us off the vine.

There's a pizza supper tonight here at Venny.  We're gonna get take-outs this time rather than join the gang in the Great Room.  Maybe it's the drizzly day that makes me want to huddle and cuddle down in my recliner.  

  Ta-ta till the morrow.

The new book mentioned in yesterday's post is going to be an informative and interesting read.  What I love most about reading is learning new things.  For example, there's a river in eastern Ontario, Canada, with the name of Raisin River.  It was named 'Riviere aux Raisin' by the French-Canadian settlers because of the wild grapes growing along the river.  Bits of knowledge, to me, are the little nuggets of fun we discover along our trek through life.  

The new deck floor is wet along the edges, as there's a light rain and is very overcast and gloomy.  We slept in until 9.  A special someone is planning to visit us this afternoon, if the weather isn't too nasty.  Safety always comes first.

Cuddy's mom and dad are coming over Saturday for sips and sup.  My heart is happy that our friendship will go forward, even though Bubba is no longer with us.  I envision him in Heaven with my Emma.  It's that business of pointing the mind in a direction that eases the pain of loss.  Our thoughts control us, but we can control our minds if we work hard enough.  My reverence for self-help over the course of my adult life has given me an invisible doctorate degree in mind discipline.  Oh, for sure, there are times when I flounder and flail, but my stubbornness always trumps my overactive brain.  

The Venny newsletter is out early this October.  Now my job is to think of a topic for my November column.  This month's topic was Perspective.  We're living in an age where personal perspectives are causing craters in relationships.  It's a narrow mind that can't look at a subject from various points of view.  Right and wrong is only one's perception.  

Yesterday a sweet little elf left a tote outside our unit door.  Inside were apples, potatoes and candy.  Also four skeins of yarn that she's asked me to crochet into a throw.  I'm pretty sure she'll leave the pattern and size up to me, but I did leave her a FB message just to be sure.  This is the time of year when the thought of crocheting appeals to me.  Pinterest is the website that I go to for photos of patterns, as well as the instructions.  I like to make a pattern with some sort of texture in the design.  Will see what's out there.  Also want it to be a pattern that I can work on without having to concentrate.  I remember crocheting large doilies, and each row was intricate and needed close attention.  To me at this stage of life, that would go under the category "nah, I don't think so."

I found a recipe for an apple bread pudding I'm going to make for Saturday's supper.  It's topped with a sauce made of 1 c. butter, 1 c. heavy cream, and 1 c. brown sugar, brought to a boil.  When the cake is baked, the sauce is poured on the top.  Butter pecan ice cream will be its crowning glory.  The recipe calls for 1 cup of vanilla yogurt.  I find that an alternative to vanilla yogurt is equal portion sour cream.  Think I'll toss in a teaspoon of real vanilla we got as a gift from Mexico.  This is the season for desserts like bread pudding, plus I know that Cuddy's daddy really likes it.  

Best skidaddle.  My cup needs refilling.  Ta-ta for today.  

Yesterday the postman delivered another book in the Voyageur Classic series.  This one is "The Letters and Journals of Simon Fraser 1806-1808,"  I ordered it on eBay as a used book in very good condition, and it's obviously never been read.  Am finding that each book in the series is on the pricey side.  This is book #3, ordered in no special order.

The print in this book is rather small for my eyes to read comfortably.  That's when I switch my prescription glasses to cheapy cheaters with 2.5 magnification.  Works well.

On that note, I went in for an annual eye exam.  Once again, my eyes are extremely dry.  Treatment suggested:  Systane eyedrops 4 x day and Systane eye ointment before bedtime.  

My exam was over when the doctor highly suggested I have both eyelids surgically lifted, as they're affecting my eyesight.  Of course, this is again one of Mother Nature's pranks on us more mature mortals.  That explained why I'd find myself lifting my eyelid up when I'm using the laptop.  So, yesterday Gundersen called to schedule a consultation, and the first appointment open is March 26th at 8 a.m.  Yikes!  The receptionist did put me on a cancellation list.  

First thing I did was research what this involved.  Yikes!  Cutting out the excess eyelid skin and stitching them back up.   Wish this could've been done over winter, but, hey, does it really matter?  Nah.  

Naturally, I googled the referral doctor and find he hails from Puerto Rico.  His rating reviews are 4.8 out of 5.  Time will tell.  Can't help but giggle a little, cuz this is another case of the human body's tendency to droop and sag.  My approach is to take each age-related malady as a blessing rather than harbor any kind of woe-is-me attitude.  When I leave this world, I wanna be able to say that all experiences were given so I'd get the full feel of being human.  Some people appear to be spared from as many surgeries as I've had, but each of my scars is a remnant of medical expertise.  I pray for our doctors and nurses every night, asking that special graces and blessings be given to them in their personal lives for all they do to better the human condition.

Best get crackin' and work my three daily NYT word puzzles.  Light frost on the rooftops this morning.  It's again the miracle of how our planet obeys the laws of the universe.  Ta-ta till the morrow.

CONTEMPLATIONS

As Santa sez.....there are 76 sleeps left before Christmas!  Yup, ten weeks and we'll all be embroiled in the hectic season.  For us oldsters, we don't get sucked into the hoopla like the newbies.  Our sentiments remain with the days of having less and appreciating more.

Have been away for a while, watching life unfold and no longer being included in it.  That's the tough part of aging.  We lose our importance.  We're like colors that fade with time.  Two days ago, I ordered an eBay book, 'Acceptance of What Is:  A Book About Nothing' by Wayne Liquorman.  

My postings from now on will probably include my feelings about the later stage of life, mostly to warn those who are walking not so far behind me.  We're all free to choose coping mechanisms (I call them weapons) most suited to us.  My choice weapons are silly humor and good sense. Without them, my brain would resemble the hamster running on the circle to nowhere.  

We humans think we can author how our lives will turn out, how people should treat us, the whole shmeer.  How soon we learn that's not how life works.  We take what's appropriated to us.  When we have expectations, we ultimately have disappointments.  The two go hand in hand.

Tis a beautiful autumn day.  The boyfriend and I are cozy and content in our safe place.  As for the rest of the story.....well, it is what it is.