Poppy Was Right [or was she?] & November Catch Up

On my post of October 4th I asked help identifying a volunteer plant in our garden that had beautiful leaves. Poppy of Poppy View commented that the mystery leaves were lantana, just like the beautiful one in her garden. 

But did I have sense enough to believe my friend?

I'm ashamed to admit I didn't for the simple reason that the pot of lantana we had on our kitchen porch looked nothing like this plant, its leaves much shorter.

But Poppy, I think you were right even though the blooms look nothing like our other lantana. 

Maybe because the two flower buds the plant put on in late October were stunted with frost? I cut the two buds and brought them inside and eventually they opened up to these blooms.

But one bloom--the first picture above-was white, not like the purple bloom, below, that is my favorite color of all.

Is that usual for a lantana? To have two colors on one volunteer lantana?

RH remembers two summers ago planting a purple lantana there. Did a seed lie dormant for two years and gift us with this beautiful plant in late autumn? 

Speaking of purple, here's the Goodwill hand towel I hung next to the vase of mystery flower.

 Why am I showing you a humble little $1.99 Goodwill hand towel? Because I'm wondering if any thrifters reading this ever lose their heart to such an inexpensive old towel in a thrift store?

I mean, I was as happy with that purchase as people are buying a brand new car. Anyone else out there understand? RH loves taking me to Goodwill because he says I'm such a cheap date, happy with an old purple towel. 

There's always room for more linens so I buy them instead of tsotchkes that I don't have room for.

 There's another thing sitting by the vase in the bathroom that also makes me very happy.

That cute little candle from Milkhouse Candles in their Sweet Tobacco Leaves scent! 

Karen of Over the Backyard Fence passed this candle company on to her readers and I'm doing it here because I love these candles so much--no they did not ask me to do this. I've lit three of their autumn scents for two months now and have three Christmas scents waiting for post-Thanksgiving, wonderful fragrances and they're soy-beeswax candles.

Here's their website!

Now for more November catch up pictures that should have been posted after our first freeze of the season. I am such a laggard.

 Did you go out in the garden gleaning all you could when the first freeze was predicted? Isn't it funny how we treasure those late autumn blooms? 

And did you notice those dill flowers hanging over the zinnias above?

I went crazy cutting dill before our first freeze.

I had big vases of it in our living room and bouquets of it in the kitchen. I faithfully changed the water every other day and snipped dill into everything but ice cream for a week. The house smelled wonderful!

And then the beautiful stalks just wilted and drooped and I reluctantly threw them out. 

I always seem to want to hold on to a little bit of the past season when it's time to move on to the next.

Our dusting of snow was on the pumpkins in the garden, and I've already begun decorating for Christmas, and yet I'm just not ready for all the pumpkins to be broken up and thrown out for the deer, possums, racoons, fox family and our one skunk who only has a white topknot, not a stripe down his or her back. 

Garden pumpkins are still there...

 But all the small white pumpkins in the house have been gathered up and saved for a Thanksgiving table. (The bat in the kitchen went back to his cave after Halloween.)

But at least I'll be willing to let the wildlife have all the pumpkins after Thanksgiving. There was a year at Valley View, our last Christmas there, that I was so in love with our orange pumpkins...

that I incorporated them into a pink, purple and orange Christmas theme in the kitchen. 

It was only on New Year's Eve that I was ready to tell my orange pumpkins goodbye and move to a crisp clean look for January.

Okay, time to fess up...have any of you begun decorating for Christmas? Maybe even finished?

Are the pumpkins still on your porch or does a Christmas wreath already hang on the door?

Or like me, is there a little of both?

Are any of you US readers knee deep in cooking Thanksgiving Day dinner?

Or have you chucked the whole thing and headed to Bora Bora like some people I know? 

Thrifters out there, what item do you most flip out over when discovered in thrift stores?

And Poppy dear, are you still convinced that this plant is a lantana? Because I'll feel really stupid if I proclaim it's a lantana and then someone else says "No way!" I promise to believe you this time.

Later: The mystery is solved! See Gretchen's comment below!

 

RH and the CMA Awards

Wednesday night at 7 p.m. CST, we'll be watching the CMA Awards, same as we do every year. 

And we'll think back to the CMA Awards of 1997 when RH was there.

Okay, maybe he wasn't exactly inside watching the show, but he made it as far as the Red Carpet with some pretty ladies on his arms. 

Walking up the carpet in a tuxedo.

Over and over.

A friend asked him and two of our sons to escort various lesser known attendees up the magic carpet before the celebrities arrived in their limousines.

So maybe he didn't actually get to see Garth Brooks win Entertainer of the Year but then neither did Garth, who was on the road.

He didn't get to see Trisha Yearwood sing How Do I Live (without you), used in the soundtrack from Con Air. 

And just think--eight years later Garth and Trisha were married, although that totally has nothing to do with RH, he says.

He really would have liked to have been inside that night to hear Deana Carter sing her Strawberry Wine or Shania Twain sing anything.  

But it was not to be, he was just another pretty face on the red carpet that night in 1997.

There was a rumor floating around that the crowd outside thought he was a millionaire Texas oil man.

Sounds about right to me.

So we will be watching the CMA Awards on November 13, 2019. I'm looking forward to seeing three female powerhouses host this year--Carrie Underwood, of course, but with Dolly Parton and Reba, who I understand will once again be singing Fancy. Will she be wearing the famous red dress again?

There are going to be some similarities with RH's special time back in 1997. Again Garth Brooks is nominated for Entertainer of the Year, and Brooks and Dunn are again nominated for Vocal Duo of the Year. Both won in 1997 but will they win again 22 years later when up against all the youngsters?

I must admit that I enjoyed watching this awards show more back in the days when Johnny Cash and June Carter were sitting in the audience and performing. The Man in Black and his wife were customers at our garden center. 

Those were the days when country music stars were our neighbors, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs living right across the street from us, with my best girlfriend living between them and Brenda Lee going to high school with us.

But RH and I will be watching the CMA Awards on ABC Wednesday night, by golly. Because that's what you do here in Nashville.

Will any of you be joining us?

[added 11/16/19: when I texted a link to our kids for this post, our youngest son wrote back that he and another guy managed to get backstage while Shania Twain was on stage rehearsing. They yelled and waved at her and she smiled and waved back at them!]