What On Earth Did I Plant That Blooms In November?

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What on earth did I plant that blooms in November? This morning, I was letting Charlie out and saw a strange bloom. I knew there was an odd vine crawling up the fence. Some of the leaves have turned a pretty burnt red color.

Was it just another weed vine, of which there are many around here?

Then I recalled planting some vine from seed there in that space, but I can’t remember what it was. This was back last March, probably.

Do you recognize it? I don’t think I’ve seen a flower quite like this before. The bloom is kind of intricate and fascinating. And I could see that others were about to open.

The cold doesn’t seem to bother it. However, I’m not sure if it’s gotten down to freezing yet this fall. I know it’s been very close.

The Peanut Butter On My Shoe Incident:

How on earth, you must be wondering, did I manage to get peanut butter on my shoes? Not just ordinary shoes at that, but sneakers. Which means peanut butter in all those little lines and ridges on the sole.

I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night hungry. So I wander into the kitchen and get a bit of peanut butter to tide me over.

This morning, as I was getting all of Charlie’s medications together, I happened to look down and thought: Oh, what a pretty golden brown leaf Charlie must have tracked in.

Then I started walking around the kitchen and realized that that was not a pretty leaf. Because my shoes were sticking to the floor. No, it was peanut butter. And I’d tracked it all over the place.

So, I went into the bathroom and sat on the closed toilet, then opened the bottom drawer of my bathroom vanity. Hearing this, Ivy came running. She knows that the Q-tips are in that drawer, and Ivy loves Q-tips.

I sat there for some time, using multiple Q-tips to try to remove the peanut butter from all the ridges in my shoes.

And Ivy happily took off with a couple of Q-tips I accidentally dropped on the floor.

What I’m Currently Reading:

This book just came out. And oh, is it a great thriller. I’d have to say one of the top 3 of my best books read in 2020. And you know I read a lot of books.

Two women meet on the evening train. One, Selena, is on her way home from work. She is upset about what she saw on the nanny cam between her husband and the nanny, and finds herself telling this stranger about it.

The other woman introduces herself as Martha. She also tells Selena a story that she’s having an affair with her boss.

Both women had been keeping these secrets, but it seemed safe enough to divulge them to a stranger on the train. They’d never see each other again.

But then the nanny disappears.

As the story unfolds, Selena learns that the meeting on the train was not a coincidence. Then Selena begins to get texts. They say, for instance, “Hey, how’s it going? Great meeting you last night.”

And the texts always end with: “It’s Martha, by the way. From the train.”

As Selena is pulled into the mystery of what happened, and as the fractures in her marriage grow deeper, she begins to wonder, who was Martha, really? But she is hardly prepared for what she’ll discover.

Christmas Decorating:

I put up my tabletop Christmas tree yesterday. But it isn’t decorated yet.

I knew I wasn’t up to getting the skinny 7-foot tree down from the upper shelf in my closet. And I’d given Kendra my other tabletop trees for the grandchildren to put up in their bedrooms.

So I ordered one from the National Tree Company. I was surprised when I opened the box.

The tabletop tree was all in one piece. And it had a hefty, solid base that would not get knocked over. There were no little plastic pieces to hold it up the branches.

All I had to do was reach into the box, take it out, and start fluffing the branches.