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!