This Perfectly Imperfect Life

A snippet of my John Carpenter's Halloween collection. Inspired by the many recent discussions and essays floating around the inter-webs about John Carpenter's  Halloween  + the upcoming David Gordon Green sequel of the same name, and with one week to go before the official opening, I decided to take a look at the roots of my own  Halloween  fandom.  Back on October 25, 1978, I was nearly three and a half years old, and not at all aware of the soon to be phenomena that was John Carpenter’s Halloween released in theaters on that date. Three years later, when the movie aired on NBC TV for the first time on October 30 th , I didn’t realize that the opening music and flickering jack-o-lantern would be stored away in my memory for a much later time. My mother quickly got up, switched the channel, and Halloween was forgotten. Growing up, my mother wouldn’t allow me to watch horror movies on TV (not that many of those movies were on regular T...

Good morning & happy Monday 💛 Stunning sunshine & blue skies with crisp breezes now that Matthew's moved along on out. 🍁 Scarf weather! 🍁  Unfortunately, I think I've caught mom's cold (on top of the mono) since she wasn't very cooperative about letting Big inside yesterday when we dropped off her groceries because she was in her pjs so I had to go inside her place with them instead. (And when you're compromised immune system is practically shut down, you can pick anything up at the drop of a dime). So much for her stepping things up a notch now that I'm the one who isn't well. 😐🙄😠  Anyhoo! I'm off to make another cuppa tea & get myself situated for a while. Find joy in your day no matter what!  #jojosmonodiaries #spoonie #autumn #fall #october #gardenwalk

Happy Fall everyone! Welcome Autumn! My favorite time of year is finally here again - le sigh!  From my garden today as I'm still getting back into the swing of things here at home since coming home from #READSavannah and I don't have any decorations out yet. 

#READSavannah has come & gone, and I have so much to tell you, but first I have to finish wrapping my mind around it all.  A big shout-out to Marybeth Mayhew Whalen and Ariel Lawhon of SheReads for making it happen! What an amazing and inspiring experience. The people I met - readers and authors alike! If I go on there will just be too many "!!!" right now. (And please send some healing love & prayers out to Marybeth who hit a "bump in the road" so to speak on her way home from Savannah). *I already had Truly Madly Guilty, but since #LianeMoriarty was the keynote and it's her latest, I had to include it here! (She signed The Husband's Secret).

September morning's are so quiet... Especially with "Hermine" (the Labor Day storm that wasn't) still off our shores keeping things cloudy and gusty. Well, it's quiet... Once the garbage truck comes & goes (can you spot it in the bottom photo?), and the school buses finish their routes, and the commuters are done streaming down our road to & fro the highway & ferry, and the bluejays have their morning fights over the acorns... 😉 But after all That! Then it takes on a kind of quiet that only seems to happen in the fall. 💛 Find joy in your day no matter what!

Autumn is well under way at our Northwestern NJ home as you can see here. We awoke this morning to a crisp 37*! Such a beautiful day. Well, let's see... Autumn arrived on a Monday and I threw my back out on Wednesday. And that triggered the worst sciatic nerve flareup I've ever had and the worst pain I've experienced in a decade. This past Wednesday, a week to the day this all started, I went to my Rheumologist and was treated to two shots, one in my spine and the other in my upper right... Glute. Heh, hem. He increased the anti inflammatory and nerve meds I'm already on for at least the next two weeks. In two days I go for a MRI to see exactly what's what because it's not getting significantly better. On a pain scale of 1 to 10, I started at 1,000 and I've been hovering at 990-995 since the day after this all started.  I have to alternate between lying down and taking short walks because sitting only aggravates the nerve something awful. Of cou...

Happy First of March everyone! For those of you counting down the days, Daylight Savings Time begins on March 14th, St. Patrick's Day is on March 17th and it's officially 19 days until Spring arrives on March 20th ! ( Brenda , that's for you!) It is a Gorgeous, albeit very gusty, morning here at the Jersey Coast, which leads me to wonder if that means March is coming in like a Lion (gusty winds) or like a Lamb (stunning blue skies & sun)? Perhaps both! At 9am this morning, it was 65 degrees in the sun on our patio! (38 degrees elsewhere). Windows are cracked open all over the house. Either way, faster than Spring will arrive, the Ides of March will be here; March 15th, the anniversary of Julius Caesar's murder. In Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," Caesar was warned to "Beware the Ides of March". We all know how Brutus made that warning an omen. I've got some fun and not so fun things on today's to-do list like laundry, writin...

Let the Fall & Halloween decorating begin! (Click on pic for a better view)

Yesterday I also switched out some of the books on the back of the couch with late Summer and Fall ones like Sunflowers for VanGogh (rght), Country Roads (lft) and The County Store (cntr), not to mention the Organic Gardening book on the little end table with the Tomato Plants on the cover! (Books are a BIG part of our home, in case you had not noticed by now!) Sorry, I thought this pic came out better!!!

This is my knitting basket in the living room, which I referenced in my last post. Each season, I switch out the skeins with other colors appropriate for the new season! I always do it a little ahead of time to get me inspired! (Sitting to the right of the basket is a UFO from last Fall! I cannot believe nearly a year has passed already!)

Visited a new dentist today. I do NOT like going to the dentist. And this place was a real peach. Nuff said! After having some soup at Panera, Mom and I went over to AC Moore (in the same plaza). I wanted to take a look at the new Fall and Halloween merch. As soon as I started seeing Scarecrows, Sunflowers and Pumpkins and caught a whiff of Pumpkin Spice potporri, I felt my entire being relax to the point I nearly cried! (Fall and Halloween are my FAVORITE time of year!) I picked up 5 packets of Seeds, only 33cents ea, (Autumn Beauty Sunflowers, Nasturtiums, Snapdragons and Old Fashioned Garden Mix) a Yellow Ribbon to tie to the porch (for our Nephew in law who went bk to Iraq) for 60cents, a tiny vine Pumpkin for $2 and all sorts of yarn skeins for $1, $2.49 and $2.99! (12 skeins of yarn for about $27! Original price would have been well over $60 or $70!) Total purchase? $33 and change! The smile it all gave me? Priceless!