Cat friends

Our neighbors have three indoor/outdoor cats who apparently are very curious why our cats stay inside.

Make yourself at home, cat. I'm not sure what this one's name is but she's a beauty.

This one is funny with their black cat, Frankie, sitting on our air conditioner. The other cat is just chillin' on the sidewalk. Our cats are in the window checking Frankie out.

Thanks, neighbors

Our neighbor, M, stopped by last night to give us some treats in exchange for letting them have packages delivered to our house. It's a homemade onion and cilantro flatbread and an Armenian honey cake.

The flatbread was warm so I had to try it. I tasted more cilantro than onion, but I like both so it's all good. The "kids" are alright.

The grass is greener

It was so warm yesterday (almost 70) I opened the windows to let some fresh air in the house. A few hours later, the neighbors sent a video of their cat watching Piper, who was sitting in the open window above the kitchen sink, with the caption, "The grass is always greener."

Free cat tree

One of our neighbors set out a table of free stuff so we drove by and found a like-new cat tree. Our cats either like it or they're trying to tear it apart. We shall see.

Family Bingo with friends

Andy and I met our friends, M and R, at One Lake Brewing Sunday afternoon for their Family Bingo. Here's my winning board and my prize - a small draft of the beer of my choice. Everyone at our table won a game, except Andy.

We ordered wings which ended up being our dinner since we talked for at least an hour after Bingo ended. We even saw one of our neighbor couples there. It was a fun night.

Messy tree

Our neighbor's parkway tree drops all of its needles seemingly overnight. The needles are even in the street.

The village has a map of all of the parkway trees and this one is a bald cypress. It's the state tree of Louisiana and typically grows in swampy areas. It's planted elsewhere as an ornamental tree. Seems like an odd, messy choice for a Midwestern parkway.

No wonder the needles fell yesterday. It was so windy with gusts up to 50 mph. Even made our lighted trellis tilt. (The tall grass is pretty this time of year). When I got home from work the wreath from our back door had been blown into the yard.

Fall colors

It took quite a while for the trees to change color this year. I just noticed how pretty pur neighbor's tree is.

This is another neighbor's tree as we drive east toward our house.

Puzzle delivery

I claimed a puzzle from the local puzzle exchange Facebook page and my neighbor, B, asked me to pass it to her when I was done with it. I did, and she said she had lots of puzzles she needed to clear out and offered me first dibs. I controlled myself and asked for three. She dropped them off on our back porch while we were out.

The Halloween one will be the first I tackle from this pile if I'm able to start it mid-month.

Raccoon vs. cat

This isn't what you want to see when you walk out the door in the morning. I had just transplanted a chick and hen in this pot and now it's knocked over. Andy suspected a raccoon. I suspected our neighbor cat, Frankie. A review of the Ring camera showed a raccoon on the porch eating the cat food that I set out for neighborhood cats, but it also shows Frankie at the bottom of the stairs. The raccoon got spooked by Frankie and scurried off the porch, knocking the pot over. I found the chick and hen on the side of the stairs.

The stand-off with the raccoon looked very similar to this incident the other day. This yellow cat wandered into the yard while Andy and I were sitting outside. Then Frankie hopped over the fence, they both started hissing at each other and I thought things were going to get ugly. Frankie may be scary to neighborhood animals but he's essentially a scaredy cat, at least when it comes to me, so I walked over and he jumped back into his own yard. Crisis averted.

A new feline friend?

This cat was hanging out in our yard when I went to check the milkweeds for Monarchs (none yet). So friendly. Pretty sure it's the neighbor's indoor/outdoor cat.

When I opened the door to go inside, the cat walked right in.

I put it back outside but it definitely wants to come inside.

And then the neighbors sent this pic of a cat they found (I think) and adopted. I said they need to find a cat for me.

Neighborhood freebies

Our neighbor set this garden trellis by her garage. It's suburban law that if you put something by your garage, it's fair game to take so I did. She also had set out two flat trellises and I told Andy I wanted to go get them too. He said I should knock on the door and ask if the neighbor was intending to toss them out. Um, not going to do that.

So when Andy was preoccupied, I tossed some garbage outside, scurried across the street, grabbed the other two trellises and stashed them by the basement door. Later as we were leaving the house, he looked over to the neighbor's house and said, "Someone took those trellises." I said that someone might have been me lol.

Congratulations, kids!

The "kids" next door got engaged a couple of weeks ago. We finally got around to buying them a celebratory bottle of champagne. Cheers!

They asked us Thursday if we could bring in packages from their front porch. Andy and I were both at work so I asked B to do it. I didn't realize they had so many packages (and B said they weren't light lol). Anyway, when I got home I wrote a card (saying congratulations and thanking them for the Thanksgiving surprise), attached it to the gift bag and set it on top of the packages so they'd see it when they pick them up.

We were surprised Friday morning when they hadn't picked up the packages yet but then they texted Friday night to say thanks for the champagne and told us they got married! What?!? Shortest engagement ever, they said.

I'd say so! Guess the chamapgne is doubling as a wedding present.

This is a great picture, looking very old Hollywood with the lighting.

Thanksgiving

There will be seven of us for Thanksgiving dinner today so that gives us to spread out.

I set out water goblets and bread plates. We usually don't have space for that. Andy made fun of me for trying out different napkin folds the other night then deciding to go with a boring triangle fold. I think he will be on napkin-folding duty for Christmas.

Our pre-gathering tradition - a margarita when the house is clean, the table is set and everything is ready for the family to arrive.

Our next-door neighbors (and their dog) stopped by and surprised us with an Armenian dish - rice and spices baked in a pumpkin. So pretty. I believe it's ghapama.

All cut up and ready to serve.

So much food.

Ready for dinner.

Good thing I used two plates.

August tries to convince Julie to share her pie. Interesting tidbit I heard on the news: Thursday's high temperature of 35 degrees made this our coldest Thanksgiving since 2014. And temoeratures are expected to get colder this weekend.

L sent this picture of her and T's Thanksgiving dinner.

Welcomed home with wings

The gift waiting on our tables Sunday morning was an embellishment tray. You can put little die-cuts and sticker sheets in it when you're scrapbooking so they don't get lost among your other supples. Genius.

I didn't get around to working on B's album but I got 15 single pages done in my album and 13 in L's this weekend. My album is now caught up to Steve's wedding in August.

Darla showing off the pages she did. So much detail!

Alice showing Cindy how the new trimmer works. Initially, though, Alice didn't have the blade in. It does work when the blade is in place.

Me and Cindy.

I do like seeing the catsup bottle on the way to and back from Fairview Heights.

I drive through Normal and stopped at Avanti's to pick up two gondolas for dinner but they are now closed on Sunday! I didn't stop for lunch because I was expecting to have a good portion of a gondola for dinner and thought I could wait.

When I got home the "kids" next door had their TV in their back yard and had friends over for the Bears game. They gave us two beers and when we sat down in our back yard they offered us wings they made, saying they made way more than they'll eat. Since I was pretty hungry, I said sure. We ate them in the back yard but Andy got cold and as we were going inside they asked if we wanted to come over and watch the game with them. I said it was too cold out for Andy so we were going inside and they said, "Tell him to put a jacket on." Lol. Those kids are OK.

Crazy squirrel season

Hard to see but there's a squirrel in my hanging planter.

And these two squirrels were playing tag on our front lawn and steps for quite a while. The neighbors, whom we call "the kids" because they're young enough to be our kids, sent us a video of a squirrel swinging in their hanging basket. We're all on crazy squirrel alert.

Leaning liberal

We live a very liberal town so it's no surprise there's a lot of Kamala Harris signs.

The variety of signs is impressive though.

My favorite so far.

Even a sign with Jesus.

And we have to have a rainbow.

Same message minus the rainbow.

Obviously.