October 30th, This and That

Can you believe tomorrow is the last day of October?  2020?  What a year, right?  I hope you're enjoying a beautiful autumn wherever you may be.  We have some pretty colors here in our town, but we've seen prettier.  Weekend before last, we drove up to the mountains for the day, and the colors were so dull; it was as if the leaves were seriously considering just skipping the whole show this year.  It was a disappointment, for sure.  Chalk another one up to 2020.  I am thankful for mostly blue skies and puffy white clouds today.  Yesterday, we suffered the leftover wind and rain of  Hurricane Zeta, and I realize that what we had was mild indeed compared to what the people of Louisiana have been hit with.  There were several large trees down in our neighborhood and the surrounding town; this morning we heard that about 100,000 residents in North Carolina are still without power.  In looking at pictures of the Gulf Coast, we were very fortunate.   

   

My mom and I spent two days in Hendersonville, N.C., the week of my birthday in September.  We stayed at a charming bed and breakfast, The Charleston Inn.  It was great fun.  I'll do a later post with more about the trip, but I just want to show a few pictures of the Charleston Inn today.  Above is a partial view of the exterior; it was so tall that I had trouble getting the whole facade in a picture without crossing the (very busy) street.

   

  

You know I love to photograph churches, especially  in the mountains.  This one was right across the street from our bed and breakfast.        

     In my previous post, I mentioned that I was reading When Christ and His Saints Slept, by Sharon Kay Penman.  I finished it, and it was very good.  It wasn't crude like the Ken Follet book I read first, so if you are interested in this period in history, I can recommend this book.  I'm not sure what I'm going to read next, as I don't currently have anything in mind.  I have a feeling I'll be looking at lots of holiday recipes and decor online and in magazines.  😊   Last weekend, we went to the beach house on Oak Island.  Our weather was good, and we were able to spend a day and a half with our son -- even better.  He had to be back at work on Monday, so it was a quick trip for him.  We continued with our family movie night on Saturday, watching two movies back to back.  Since it's Halloween month, our son wanted to do scary movies.  We watched "Jaws" and "The Thing" -- both were quite creepy.  Will and I had seen "Jaws" before, but Mr. Forest Manor had not.  It was appropriate for the beach, especially since we had no intention of swimming in the ocean while we were there.        

      In reading online, I saw that several sources had selected "Jaws" as one of Steven Spielberg's best movies.  That's really saying something, as he has made a lot of movies over the years.  Robert Shaw was excellent as Quint, the crusty fisherman, who seemed to become almost as obsessed by this great white shark as Captain Ahab with the whale in "Moby Dick."  Some of the photographic shots of this small fishing boat on the water at dusk and sunrise were just beautiful.  The movie also captured the solitary feeling of being on a small craft in a very big, lonely ocean.  The story took place in the fictional town of "Amity Island" and was actually filmed in Martha's Vineyard.  The scenery was beautiful and the iconic music score fit the movie to perfection.   

"The Thing" -- our son had already seen this movie, but Hal and I had not.  It was quite creepy and really played upon the pure isolation of an American and (briefly) Norwegian Antarctic research station in the dead of winter.  It was one that kept us guessing and on pins and needles until the very end of the movie.     I'm planning to share my fall decor here next week.  We've made some changes (additions) in our living room, and I almost feel like we have a whole new room.  More on that next week, but for now, here's a picture that was passed down to us from Hal's mom and dad.     

   

   
Hal's grandmother made this needlepoint picture, and it really does look just right in our living room.  I love the Swallows and the cottage, and the words in the center are wisdom for us to ponder on.      That about wraps up this post, except to say that Hal and I voted early this year, for the first time ever.  We've always gone on election day, but we decided to go ahead and cast our vote.  We're used to finding out the results on the same night we vote, so this is quite different for us.  However, we didn't have a wait on Tuesday when we voted at our local library, and that was convenient.  Have you voted yet?     I hope you have a great weekend, and thank you so much for your visit today!