Just a few more days and the Thanksgiving Hoo-Ha will begin! I was feeling a bit smug at my ability to be ahead of the game. My front stoop is all decorated.

Trees are blazing orange, red and yellows.

Pumpkins are piled to really set the fall theme.

Ok. So maybe that was last week. This is what it looks like today…two days before company arrives.

This is so sad! I kind of pride myself on having a pretty setting outside on the back deck and walking up to my front door. Not this year!

Inside, I decorated my door panels with beautiful, extra large leaves.

Check it out! One was a foot wide! Gorgeous!

Wellll, now it looks like this. All brown and shriveled up. Not quite the same effect I had when I first put them up. What am I going to do? Thirty or so guests are showing up and everything I’ve planted is dead. I say…Go with the dead stuff!

I was dog sitting last week and in their back yard were some sort of pine trees that were dropping their needles. I gathered up an armful and took them home. My friend thought I was crazy, but after showing her a picture, she agreed it looked pretty on my mantle.

As I was clipping the light brown grass from the side of the road, a friend driving by questioned my aesthetics. What? Does she not use roadside weeds to decorate her house?” Hey, you know what? It won’t die on me, like the $10 per pot of flowers and loads of rotted pumpkins I bought.

This is my kitchen mantle. I don’t think any of this will die either.

I was so tired of cleaning that I really just wanted to do something with my hands. I found some fall colored yarn and started crocheting these cute little hearts and garland. It might just cross the line into too cutsie, but I don’t care. I like it.

As for my dining room…still nothing living.

Just some really sweet forest animals. Love the little hedge hog.

I’m thinking I needed to be reminded that this gathering of friends and family is not about the decorations, but about the relationships. Worry not about outside adornments, but about the lips that will speak, ears that will listen, arms that will hug and the heart that will love.

Thanks for dropping by!