It's One of Those Days

The pink super bells grow vigorously on my deck. The red geranium was a gift from Laura Wasilowski!

Today is a beautiful crisp sunny day. My husband played golf, so I had the house to myself, didn't even have to make lunch for anyone.  So what's the problem?

I can't figure out the passwords for all of my Amazon's accounts. There are many, one for being a book customer, one for author central, one for the author's page, amazon advantage, and last of all the publishers page vendor central.  I'm locked out of all but one, they won't even send me anymore temporary passwords because I answer the test questions wrong. I'm trying to get everything set up for my book A Black and White Tale. It happened last night, I tried again today with similar issues, so I'll deal with this "another day!"

This isn't the best way to begin the day, it brings a black cloud over everything else.So I've started a new book which interests me, had a cup of tea, and I thought it was time to write another blog.

September is a wonderful month in Wisconsin.  It is sunny and dry, very comfortable weather all month.  It also means shorter days and winter is coming. My garden looks beautiful. The black eyed susans have lasted a very long time.  I have put them in bouquets throughout the house.

A corner of my container garden on the deck.  The frosty white clematis is in its glory today. The magenta geranium was a hold over from last year. Don't the angled boards of the floor look wonderful?

One of the joys for me is to have flowers filling the house.  While I'm making dinner I'll make one or two little arrangements for every room. This is what makes gardening worth the effort. Here's a little tour of my house.

This is the kitchen sink bouquet.  It gets the left-overs or flowers with broken stems.

In the living room there is a little bit of goldenrod mixed in with black eyed susans and a few other things. You can read more about the quilt here.

Today the diningroom table gets this little old vase with a sprig of the first mums to bloom.

The vase is hand made by the potter at Winona Lake. This one sits by the stove in the kitchen.

Here is that wonderful purple vase that is immortalized in 2 of my quilts. In front of my

 Purple Iris quilt.

So you've had a little private tour of my floral arrangements and deck garden.  I have saved the best until last!  At lunchtime today, I went to change the water in my birdbath. I carefully slid open the screen door and Oreo shot out of the door so fast, she was a blur. Forgetting to slide the screen closed I rushed after her, down the stairs, where she had already cornered a little chipmunk.

She grabbed it in her mouth, ran up the stairs, through the open door and dropped it on the carpet in the middle of the dining room! It was stunned and had no idea what had happened.  I was yelling and knew I had to pick it up, but with what? I ran to the kitchen, there was an empty oatmeal carton on the counter. I dumped out the newspaper that was rolled up inside and ran back to the dining room.

The chipmunk was gone!! Oreo was chasing it around the table, around the xmas cactus, behind the clock, under the sofa and back again.  She caught it and dropped it back in that "favorite spot" on the rug in the dining room. I put the oatmeal box on top of it, slid a newspaper underneath it. I was shaking after all the excitement.  This time I carefully opened the screen door again, set everything down on the deck, taking a moment to calm myself, quickly lifted the oatmeal container, backed into the house and closed the screen.

Let me collect myself for a moment.  My heart is beating fast just thinking about this! The little guy limped away, and hasn't been seen since.  Oreo keeps looking for him, but he is not to be found.  Just think I could have had a chipmunk in the house wondering around all night.  AAARRRGGGHHH.

And you thought I was giving you a tour of my flower arrangements.  I was showing you most of the places that a chipmunk had visited today.

Have a better day.

Ann