monkey update ~ and hello to autumn

 Thank you for all your good thoughts, prayers and lovely messages for my cat, Monkey. He's doing much better after several cold laser treatments on his bladder. That technology is amazing! He's still not 100%, but he has one more laser treatment next week. This morning, I was in the backyard and happened to capture this photo through the screen. That's Zippo (my 16-year old kitty) on the left and Monkey on the right. Kiss-kiss!

 We said goodbye to a beautiful summer and autumn slowly slipped in, leaving us with stretches of blue, sunny skies and fields tinged in gold. Temps have been in the 70's. Just perfect.

 Most of the summer perennials - purple coneflower, black-eyed susan, phlox - in my gardens are drying up now, which always makes me kind of sad. Now the autumn sedum takes over.

Every fall, I photograph the color change of my neighbor's maple tree, simply because it is one of the most beautiful trees I've ever seen. It ends up turning a bright orangey-red. I noticed this morning that the leaves on top and on the right (in the photo) where the sun hits are just starting to change. Can you see it?

As for fall decor around my house, I'm keeping it simple. The front porch got the obligatory pot of mums...

and a new welcome mat from Target. I might add some pumpkins in October, but that's it.

 

 

In the living room, I decorated the buffet with the old window that I had outside all summer (rescued years ago from a rehabbed house in my neighborhood). The runner is really a scarf. I was going to donate it since I never wear it, then realized the colors matched the colors in the bird wall hanging. Ta da! The two vintage books in the middle are from our recent getaway to Galena. One is a scrapbook of brief sermons and poems and the other is the poems of Henry W. Longfellow.

Of course, every vignette looks better with a kitty.

 

The console table in the living room entryway...

Edited the day after the original post...I was just looking through the photos on my laptop and saw that I missed posting the photo of the ladder bookcase in my living room. So, here it is.

 

In the kitchen, I kept the china cabinet simple, too and added just a few decorative fall items that I've had for years. That little painting in the background is from one of those paint-and-pour classes I took last year. I know...it looks like I had too much pour and not enough painting instruction. ;-) In reality, I only had one glass of wine - and no instruction. My friends and I were not too pleased with that venue. But, I digress.

Some of the owls from my collection in the downstairs family room came upstairs to add a touch of autumn whimsy to kitchen shelves.

 

 And, that's it! The living room and kitchen are the only two rooms that I change up a little bit. How about you...do you go all-out with fall decorating or just add a few autumn touches here and there?