This is a sign at the corner of NE Fremont & 57th Avenue. I don’t think they turn it on anymore and it seems someone started to paint over it and gave up at some point. I really enjoy old signs like this, pretty grand for just a mini-mart. I wonder what it was before.

Portland has a lot of Neon Signs and other grand old signs I want to take photos of.

Peter and I have always had a lot of books – mostly reference, because we aren’t really joy readers. And when I do get fiction to read, it’s usually from the library. We have never had a decent bookshelf so our books have lived in boxes and on random shelves. Finally for this house we bought some Ikea Expedit bookshelves for the conference room.

I was trying to decide how to arrange them. Since we don’t read by author it would be pointless to organize that way. We don’t even really know the formal titles of the books we reach for frequently, either – we just know what they look like. So, it seemed of no hindrance to go with an organization method I have seen done many times and always wanted to do – rainbow!

It took about 3 hours to do. We have a LOT of white and black spines, and though it is much less obvious, I ordered those in rainbow too – red letters on the spines first, for example.

We are very happy with the way it turned out; it’s like functional art for the conference room.

I really don’t want to think about taking all the books out when we get around to painting that room, though.

Part of moving into a new house with plants, if you’re me anyway, means you have no idea what most of the plants are going to do. So the year may bring surprises.

We got a pleasant surprise last week when the large bushes in our front yard exploded with deep red blooms. I think they are chrysanthemums, but if you know better please share.

So pretty, I had to take photos:

I like how it almost looks rainbow in the background here:

I gave this one a different color treatment and liked it so much it’s my desktop background now:

I have been taking walks with Lucy every day, enjoying the beautiful colors of the changing leaves in the neighborhood. Unfortunately it is near-impossible to take photos with Lucy on the other end of the leash. She tugs and wants to go-go-go (except when she wants to stop-stop-stop and smell, that is). Anyway she was napping with Peter this morning so I sneaked out of the house and took a leisurely solo walk to get a coffee and snap some photos.

The walk was pleasant, except that I noticed almost all the people I passed today were either antisocial or deaf, because I said “hello” to every passer-by and got either outright ignored or a bewildered stare.

Thank you to the lone man I passed as I neared home who finally answered me with an enthusiastic HELLO!

Carving pumpkins can be fun as a group activity, I suppose, but I always hate how messy it is and how temporary your hard work is.. the carved pumpkins tend to look wilted and sad in a matter of days. I prefer to paint my pumpkins. I unpacked my acrylics and got to painting the pumpkins we got from Roloff Farms.

Classy Argyle Pumpkin

Two sides to a Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) pumpkin:

So far I am pretty sure their only audience is the mail lady. I am hoping we get lots of trick-or-treaters for halloween… at our place in St. Louis we got zero children. Oh how we drowned our tears that first Halloween in a bag of fun sized candy bars. I need to ask a neighbor how much candy I should buy… I do NOT want to be stuck with tons of leftovers. Or worse, run out.

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