A Summer kind of Fall kind of day

Or, of course, one could call it a fall kind of summer day. Take your pick. The point was, the weather started off as deceptively fall-like, duping us into wearing long pants, socks, and sneakers and then, right as we were out with no shade to be found, the sun blazed beyond the clouds and sent us running for cover. Temperature in the car said 90. That is not Fall folks. Not unless you live in Death Valley. Ok, well, Sacramento is close. It is hellish hot here sometimes… sorry… as usual, I digress…

Home after my liver-wrecking week in Chicago, and, prior to that, hot off the heels of our weekend in San Francisco, Sunday was family day. Hubby and I reveled in the opportunity to do normal stuff together, like shop at Trader Joes and eat a late lunch at La Bou (a local bakery/cafe.)

Then, feeling the pressure to do something tangible to welcome in Fall, our favorite season, we decided to do some early pumpkin patching with Daisy to decorate our doorstep. We’re planning on doing a big family shebang later in the month with Daisy’s cousins and the pumpkins we find there will be the ones we carve.

(I say “we” but, of course, I mean me – Hubby will be selling houses, Daisy will likely be napping, and I will be feverishly trying to carve a masterpiece out of smushy pumpkin flesh with a bendy, 2” plastic knife, before she wakes up and runs around the house holding said knife and smashing wet pumpkin seeds into the carpet. I live in hope that my life will become a Norman Rockwell painting someday but, in the meantime, I have to be realistic.)

So, anyway, again tangerines, I mean tangents, I mean… PUMPKINS!

Big ones, small ones, lumpy ones, gnarly ones…

Our final selection

We would have spent longer and had more fun dashing around the almost-empty pumpkin farm however, as I said earlier, our beautifully-breezy first-fall day, rapidly turned into a blazing-sunshine, 90-degree afternoon. Daisy turned beet red in the face, Hubby’s jeans started sticking to his family jewels, and so I pulled out the plastic, paid and quickly put us in the air conditioned car home.

We then decorated the front step with our pumpkins and a few other things we’ve picked up over the years.

Of course, Daisy’s task was to make it as difficult as possible.

Then, despite what our new doorstep display might suggest, we conceded it was basically still Summer and head back into the back yard for a BBQ.

It was just the kind of day I needed after being gone for what felt like forever. Back to life. Back to reality. And thankful for it.

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On a completely unrelated note, I found a new way to write, edit, and publish my blog posts. Can’t remember where I learned about it but Windows Live Writer is seriously cool. It makes writing blog posts that include tons of pictures WAAAAY easier than before and it has some cool borders and stuff that you can play with to make your posts more unique.  You can also write, edit, and save your posts offline, meaning that, if your internet connection is suddenly lost, you’re not tearing your hair out wondering what you wrote that has disappeared into cyberspace.

Hope you like what I did with the pics in this one. All feedback and thoughts welcomed, as usual!