Time slows to a crawl when you don't have coffee...

Can you find the fall invasion of ladybugs?

(Read that as, correction, they're Chinese Beetles

that have no natural enemies in our area,

but oops... the DNR used them anyway!

As a result they drive us nuts!)

I love the sun reflecting off these bright leaves!

Fall is marching onward... and unfortunately, due to a couple of very rainy & windy days... we've lost most of our peak colors. I missed getting pictures of all the lovely maple reds before they were gone, but I'm still feeling post-surgical limitations.

I have been pulled up short in the last few days, I feel so good that I forget and do something I shouldn't. Whatever it is that causes pain ends quickly... along with a forehead slap and a mental note to self.

I started this post well over a week ago... it just seems like I have no time. No, scratch that... I have the time, just not the ambition. It doesn't help that I broke my coffee pot.

I was rinsing it out and dinged it on the end of the faucet. It barely made contact... Seriously, for a mere second... (Well, for anyone that drinks coffee understands that very distinct sounding "tink" that a pot produces just before the glass shatters.) I thought perhaps it wouldn't actually happen.

I was wrong.

One moment I'm holding my coffee pot... the next I'm holding the plastic handle while the glass of the carafe is dropping and shattering in the sink. My only regret at that moment was that it wasn't my second pot of the day. Now I was stuck with none. Yeah, I needed that like a needed a charley horse.

As my outward appearance negated the possibility of just running to the gas station for a 20 oz. mug to tide me over, as it was too warm to wear a hat to hide my greasy hair, and some of the last vestiges of my makeup from the day before were still there. (Which oddly enough, kinda looked like war paint.)

So scrutinizing myself one more time in the mirror confirmed my sad fate... if I was going out to get coffee, I had to take a shower first. I'm not completely sure when the last time I actually was able to even attempt a shower without having coffee first (possibly the mid-90's)

So I took in a big, deep, lung filling breath...

...and went back to bed.