Gobble, gobble...

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Fresno's Fabulous Fall Foliage

I think Fresno gets a bad rap when it comes to weather. Sure, it's hot, but, hello, have you been to Phoenix or Palm Springs?? I lived in Phoenix for six years. It did not make me happy. So we we get a couple weeks of unbearably hot weather in summer, and a couple weeks of foggy drippy weather in winter (my favorite kind of days...., which probably explains why I'm in love with Seattle and Portland). But other than that, we spend a lot of time enjoying beautiful and balmy weather. Okay....maybe 81 degrees at the end of November is a LITTLE unreasonable and there is that little thing about crummy air quality. Nevertheless...

The other thing I'm always amazed at in Fresno is that no matter what time of the year, most businesses, office complexes, even gas stations, are beautifully landscaped. That's something you don't see in the Midwest.

So I know you're thinking, "and your point is....?"

My point is that last year Mark and I finally got to go see the fall colors on the East Coast. Having never been further east than Chicago, I couldn't wait to see the fall colors. At least seeing fall colors is what we were anticipating as we went from New York City to Montreal. Here is what we actually saw:

Green.

More green.

Hey, wait, is this actually the slighest tinge of fall color??

So today I went for a walk around my neighborhood here in Fresno, and this is what I saw:

This is what I'm talking about. *sigh* Now if only the temperature would cooperate a little...

Time for a Cough--ee Break

I'll be honest. The only reason for this post is that I so amused myself when I came up with "cough-ee break."

So I have had a cold all week. Not that bad actually, as colds go. A little congestion during the day. However, every time I get a cold, and I mean EVERY time, I always a develop a cough that usually shows up just at night. A few colds back, I started having trouble with cough syrup. Made me feel really yucky and didn't help the cough all that much anyway. With this cold, I have been waking up at about 1:15 with a cough. Tickle in throat, clear throat from yucky phlegm, cough, cough, tickle...well, you get the picture. Oh, and take a cough drop...and worry about aspirating it during a bout of coughing, and needing the Heimlich maneuver....

Last night, I again woke up at 1:15, thinking to myself, ha, time for my middle-of-the-night "cough--ee break."

Still, I can't help wondering if that bottle of Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat beer that I guzzled right before bedtime had anything to do with thinking that "cough-ee break" was so, well, funn-ee.

One More Sock Monkey Jumpin' on the Bed

Sock monkeys always bring a smile to my face. Those big red lips crack me up.

They have actually been around for quite awhile, since about 1932 when the Nelson Knitting Company of Rockford, Illinois, added the red heel to their socks.

Anyway, a couple of years ago I made a quilt with sock monkey fabric (although apparently I only thought it was cute enough to take a picture of one corner...)

But this is the cutest little sock monkey I've ever seen, and he can jump on my bed anytime he feels like it!

Hey....it's Vertical Day!

Years ago, our niece, Becky, dubbed 11:11, either a.m. or p.m., a "vertical minute." Get it? Everytime I would look at the clock and it was 11:11, I always thought of Becky. So then November 11 rolled around, and it became Vertical Day. In the midst of concentrating on other things today, I forgot what day it is! Until the phone rang a few minutes ago, that is....

Now the cool thing about Vertical Day is that Becky and I try to share a vertical minute. She lives in the Chicago area, two-hour time difference. So when it is 11:11 a.m. here, it is 1:11 p.m. there. We try to call on the exact minute and share our vertical minute on Vertical Day. I know, probably kinda dorky. But it's still fun. And no matter where I am, day or night, if I look at my watch and it is 11:11, I always think of Becky and say a little prayer of thanks that she is in my life.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Enough about truck break-ins and out-of-sync time. Back to the reason for writing in the first place: COLOR.

I got a brochure from here yesterday. The first thing I noticed was the addition of more absolutely stunning photographs. Mark and I are huge fans of photography. That is mostly what we have on the walls in our home. From Scanlan, we have this one, called "pail yellow," taken in Ireland:

and this one, called "three pear," taken in Italy.

When I saw them, they just had to go home with me.
In order to be as economical as possible on such a splurge, we purchased the smallest size, 8x10, and then bought white frames and oversized white mats to make them each a more substantial size, and I framed them myself.
Well, that was quite a few years ago and, whew, have their prices gone up. But even so, two more pictures are on my dream list: "pedals & petals," taken in Italy,

but most especially this one, "a wave of color," taken in Ireland.

Would I ever love to live upstairs on this street.
While their pictures used to be primarily in Europe, they have added some stunning pictures from the United States. Having lived in the Midwest, this one really caught my eye:

So if you feel like doing some sightseeing but your pocketbook says "no way," check out the Scanlan's website and do some colorful dreaming. You'll be glad you stopped by.

If you just give things enough TIME....

...they will sort themselves out, as is the case with so many things in life. My two atomic clocks are in sync with each other, as well as with my cell phone, which is in sync with the "official" time clock. Enough whining. Things are ticking along quite nicely.

What is the CORRECT time?

So the time officially changed at 2 a.m. today. We went from daylight savings time to standard time. First of all, why do we keep going back and forth, and who gets to decide which day it starts and ends. And didn't it start earlier and last longer this year?

Okay, enough about the reasons WHY.

We have two atomic clocks in our house. Up to this point they have always shown the identical time. I love clocks. We have a LOT of them. So an atomic clock is very useful to carry around with me to each room when I change the clocks twice each year.

Do you notice a problem here? The two atomic clocks are a minute off. My two cell phones actually say 12:45! (Well, the green one says 1:45 but that is clearly a user programming glitch--fairly easily taken care of.)

So I googled atomic clocks. And you can go here to check out the "correct" time. Really? Okay, if you say so. Turns out, it matched up with the cell phones. Am I spending too much time thinking about time. Probably so. Maybe I should just listen to one of my favorite Chicago songs: "Does anyone really know what time it is? Does anyone really care.....?" Besides me, that is...