almost fall...

it's almost fall... leaves are turning, some are even falling! pumpkins are growing in the garden, corn is ripe, nuts are falling, squirrels are hoarding. today was gorgeous but only 65 degrees. checking on the pumpkins, i saw that the leaves are beginning to curl at the edges. it won't be long now till they die off, revealing lovely orange pumpkins... lovely miss vanessa over at A Fanciful Twist, has me getting excited for halloween coming. i think i have even seen a few ghosties... this is a time-traveling picture of my cottage. it's really a picture of a picture someone took many, many years ago in the fall, back when the willow trees in the far left corner where still small enough that you could see the house from the road. nowadays you can't. but i love the ghostly quality of this picture.

and this wonderful black cat crosses my path many times every day and i love him dearly. but let's pretend he's a spooky harbinger of halloween to come... and let's say you found a frilly, crazy quilt of a black lace skirt...wouldn't you just HAVE to HAVE it?!!

and what if a friend just happened to gift you with some black lacy tights...wouldn't you just WANT to wear them with a frilly crazy quilt of a black skirt?! i mean, WOULDN'T YOU?!

this is just too lovely to not wear to all the gala parties this season. black satin and lace... mmmmmmmmm..

so just be prepared to see some spectre flitting past just outside your peripheral vision someday soon as the long days of september edge down toward october... but relax. it'll only be just little ol' me... tee hee hee...

where did i put my broom? i need to sweep/dance to some gypsy music... wishing all the loveliness of fall to descend on you and bless your lacey socks off.

the weather sprite in bohemia is in a MOOD today. one second it is dark and gloomy and yes, even raining. then next second, the sun peeks out and it gets all golden and warm... then a minute later, back to dark gloom. our bohemian washed her jammies and put them out on the clothesline to dry... hmmm... any bets? the bohemian has worn her "resident artist hat" this week and has been "playing with paper dolls". here is an example:

this paper doll fairy has no name as of yet. the bohemian made her with someone in mind, so the ideas are percolating...

the magical playmate came out to play today but alas, our bohemian had lots of mundane chores to do. so the magical playmate joined in and made it so much more fun! isn't it always more fun WITH someone than alone? well...work, that is. our bohemian actually finds PLAYING alone quite fun and satisfying.

chore #1: folding clothes.

chore # 2: sweeping.

off they went to the kitchen, where there was much work to be done. the magical playmate visited with the bohemian's fairy in the bottle, which lovely carmen the mermaid had made her (visit her blog, Writing From Life, there on the side bar...), whilst our bohemian danced with her broom to the music and the dust bunnies scampered for cover.

chore #3: baking.

the bohemian wanted to turn some over-ripe bananas into tasty muffins, so the magical playmate studied the spell (recipe) to see how to do it and what ingredients were needed. sweetest honey and the bohemian's harvested hazelnuts were called for, as were eggs of the chicken and grated peel of lemon.

soon, tasty muffins appeared from out of the magic oven and at once, the bohemian and the magical playmate sat down to enjoy them...

they were interrupted by that evil device, the cell phone. the playmate fielded the call and asked them to call at a more convenient time (never)...(unless it's a dearest friend, then of course...anytime is convenient. well, almost... but i digress...).

wi wi, mon cheri! but of course there was coffee to go with the tasty banana muffins!!

chore #4: preservation.

next on our bohemian's list was the job of getting the giant zucchini into a more manageable state and then hide it away in the royal freezer, to be made into warm, delicious zucchini bread during the long, dark winter months ahead...

yes, folks, all from just one zucchini!!!

whew! time for a break...

wishing you all: rewards for your labor and fun for your spirit and a lovely day, no matter WHAT the weather's mood is turning out to be.

the proper use of imagination...

"The proper use of imagination is to give beauty to the world... the gift of imagination is used to cast over the commonplace workaday world a veil of beauty and make it throb with our esthetic enjoyment." -Lin Yutang "If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being." -emerson "Beauty seen is never lost..." John Greenleaf Whittier morning page: play your heart out...

play your heart out: *with a friend

*in the backyard

*at the beach

*at the fair

*in the art room

*on the computer

a gratitude fling:

*coffee

*rain

*berries for picking

*home-canned vegies

*BBQs

news: 248-dimensional math problem solved!

(wow! it's a mind boggler, isn't it?) morning page: imaginary places to live:

morning page: aging

i grow more intense as i age...Florida Scott-Maxwell other aging-related quotes:

Gilda Radner: "I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn't itch."

Pearl S. Buck: "Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked."

anon.:"Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life - it gave me me."

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients."

so here i have shared with you some of my thoughts which someone else besides me has written down. let's keep reading and enjoying each other's thoughts! my life has been blessed richly by other's sharing... thank you all!

masquerade...

"How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains."-John Muir the morning sky greeted the bohemian with wild exuberance and she smiled and soaked the magnificence up into her soul...

she saw again upon her windowsill the wonderfully magical and complex creation of her young friend... saw and was amazed even still. paper folding... what a wonder!

and passing on through the royal dining room, her mask collection upon the wall caught her eye and made her smile.

the glorious green and blue feathered one.

and the molded leather one from Haiti.

and the porcelain mardi gras one from New Orleans.

and the green man mask she had painted.

and the black/white faced mask she had painted.

and the joker mask she had created with tissue paper and glue (the magic comes when you combine the two elements!)

What is her thing about masks? she doesn't really know... they just really have a magnetism about them which she can't ignore. there are just these certain things that call out to her spirit and catch and hold her attention... bubbles, for example. fragile and beautiful, floating away and bursting into little pops of joy. anything that floats on the wind, actually. balloons, kites, dandelion seeds, birds, clouds, hot air balloons, flags and banners, flapping and dancing in the breeze. there is surely some scientific or psychiatric explanation of this phenomenon but our bohemian knows... it's just simple magic.

hope your day is filled with an abundance of simple magic...

classic black...

His Majestic Blackness, trying on his halloween costume for ms. vanessa's halloween party on her blog: A Fanciful Twist... looks pretty catty, doesn't he? i know. that was corny. go ahead and smile anyway. smiles make your heart feel better and tone up your face muscles. pre-fall-ish blessings on all of you...

magic playdate...

the bohemian and her magic playmate went out to play... they soaked up their vitamin D on the warm bricks of the front porch while they tried to decide what to do for fun... they decided they would go exploring. there was so much to discover in their own back yard...

what was this weird and wonderful magic "thing" they discovered in the grass? was it something the faeries had left behind? what kind of magic did it perform? the bohemian squeezed it gently and out came magic dust...was it good or evil? she couldn't tell. and her magic playmate didn't have a clue either...

does anyone know what it is? the bohemian and her magic playmate picked some juicy berries, taking care not to be pricked by the evil spell-binder vines that guarded those lovely blue-black gems.

next they ventured on to the luscious transparent plum tree, which was absolutely loaded!!

the magic playmate decided to climb up and pick some. oh, they were delicious indeed!

then the magic playmate discovered some faerie plants growing beneath the ginkgo tree and tried to crawl up to touch the lovely orange-colored berries. "Oh no!" cried the bohemian! "don't touch those berries! your skin will begin to itch terribly!" she scolded. she knew this from experience, when the royal children had tried playing with the colorful berries years before. they came running with tears and complaints to their bohemian mother, who rinsed their stinging hands under cool, clear water and healed them with hugs and kisses.

and so the magic playmate heeded the bohemian's warning and climbed back down and was safe. they went on to have many more adventures that day. the bohemian will post more of them later, if you care to join in on their fun... at any rate, DO have you OWN fun adventures with your own magical playmates and tell us all about them... another piece of wisdom from cynthia copeland about the important stuff her kids taught her:

"if your feet don't touch the ground, let them swing." our bohemian's feet rarely the touch the ground when she sits in all kinds of chairs! and she gets teased when she swings her feet like a child, but swing them she does, none-the-less. and she has fun while she's doing it!! never let someone else take your fun away by pretending to be more "grown-up" than you. they are BIG-TIME missing out! don't you miss out, too.

ON WITH THE CHILDISH GLEEFUL FUN AND FROLIC!!!!

heading into autumn...

august is ending. it doesn't seem possible but here comes the end of summer and fall is hard on its heels. SIGNS OF THE CHANGING OF SEASONS: my bohemain mountain is in its summer attire...almost bare naked of snow. weather getting cloudier...

helicopters ready to whirl...

squash is getting fatter every day...

green beans are getting canned...

the ginkgo leaves are beginning to turn yellow...

look at this moth trying to mimic a ginkgo leaf!!! how amazing...

and lastly, a piece of advice:

from the book: Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught Me, by Cynthia Copeland...

"You can make chores more fun by telling everyone you're Cinderella." Always choose the FUN option!!

Happy weekend to all...