181st I Like Thursday Post

 Welcome to my 181st I Like Thursday post.  Each week a handful of bloggers create a post sharing things that they like or love throughout the previous week.  Perhaps a recipe, pattern. TV show, movie, book, perhaps just the beauty of a day or an item.  Thank you LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color, for encouraging us to cast aside feelings of sadness, despair, loneliness, anger, frustration or hurt and throw some positivity back into the universe.  

I won't lie it has been a tough week.  But when life gives you lemons you make lemonade.  Tuesday was one of those sparkly autumn days.  The sun was shining, the world is bathed in gold, yellow and orange, and even though the wind was blowing and it was chilly it made your heart smile.  My daughter always laughs at my plants.  I keep heliotrope which smells like vanilla.

Hyssop which smells like licorice.

 

Citronella plants that smell lemony to keep away the mosquitoes.

The mums that I purchased a couple of years ago and that have been kicking around on my porch looking all sad and dead were planted a couple of months ago and they are blooming.

Finally the pineapple sage has bloomed.  I love the red flowers. And yes if you bruise the leaves they smell like pineapple!

To stay on the plant tangent I loved these pots full of plants at work.

Aren't these fun with the pumpkins, mummy and Frankenstein's monster pots?  Or the little bronze looking pumpkin?

Then there are the sugar skulls full of tiny roses.  

I got some squishy mail this past week, just a wool applique kit, but I really loved the mailer that it arrived in!

I have been working at catching up on the SAL that I have been doing with a friend on Facebook.

Senior Moments
 

Card trick 1

Card Trick 2

Flower Power. 

I think I am only 4 blocks behind now instead of 7.  

I am sure I have mentioned the Autumn Jubilee at the blog From My Carolina Home, one facet was a book recommendation called First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen.  I was intrigued but noticed that was actually book two, the first book was called Garden Spells.  One of the county libraries had the book so I requested it, and I will admit that I could not put it down.  I think I read it in about a day, even with work!

Being a Waverly is not a good thing in the small town of Bascom, North Carolina.  Claire lives in the family home with a garden surrounded by a tall fence, and purportedly an apple tree that if you eat the fruit will tell you the future.  When her younger sister Sydney returns with a small child there are huge life changes. Claire and Sydney struggle to heal their past-- Claire's resentment of her mother Lorelei for providing a home for Sydney which turned into a resentment of Sydney.  Sydney's resentment of their grandmother Mary who seems to love Claire more than her and share the Waverly secrets. Throw in Aunt Evenelle who just seems to know when a certain person needs a certain item, and you find a sweet tale full of love, healing and a little magic.

First Frost is the 2nd book in the Waverly Family.   This is the book which was recommended in the Autumn Jubilee post.

Claire is married to Tyler a college art teacher that she met in the first book and they have a daughter Mariah--who doesn't seem to have any Waverly magic.  Claire is no longer catering, but putting her Waverly touch on candy.  Sydney is married to Henry and she has bought the hair salon.  Sydney's Waverly gift seems to be able to do anyone's hair and it come out spectacular.  Bay, Sydney's  daughter is a 15 year old and it seems headed into the same mistakes that Sydney made which caused her to leave Bascom years before.  They are all waiting for 1st frost when the apple tree finally blossoms and things settle down.  At that time the Waverly family heaves a big sigh and life becomes normal, well as normal as can be for them.  

Since it is just a few days before Halloween I have some more enchanting books.

A Spell for Trouble by Esme Addison.  Alexandra Daniels left Bellamy Bay 20 years ago after the tragic death of her mother.  Her father has forbidden her to have any contact with her aunts and cousins all that time.  Alex accepts an invitation to visit and help in the family business, an herbal apothecary.  

Rumors swirl around the apothecary shop and her aunts which Alexandra ignores until a local is found poisoned and her aunt Lidia is accused of murder.  Alexandra uncovers forbidden affairs, family rivalries, and the truth about her ancestry.  

Caught Dead Handed,  Tails, You Lose and Look Both Ways by Carol Perry are books one, two and three in the Witch City Mysteries.  Salem, Massachusetts is associated with witches, but it is also the former home of Lee Barret.  Lee has returned home to live with her aunt Ibby after the death of Lee's  husband an up and coming Nascar driver.  Lee takes a job at the local television station hosting a call in psychic/late night horror movie show reluctantly.  When Lee starts seeing events in an obsidian ball it appears that Arial Constellation the previous host of the late night TV show was murdered, and Lee is determined to get to the bottom of it. 

Tails, You Lose.   After losing her job as the TV psychic, Lee accepts a job as an instructor at the Tabitha Trumbull Academy of Arts also known as the Tabby.  When the  school's handyman turns up dead under seemingly inexplicable circumstances on Christmas Night, Lee's clairvoyant talents begin to re-emerge.  Lee and her students uncover lots of secrets about the Tabby a former department store, as well as tunnels and secret, including fan mail to FDR while filming a documentary about the former Trumbull Department Store.

Look Both Ways, it is summer and Lee is looking for something to do, so she accepts the job as the property master for a handful of plays being performed at the Tabby during break.  Lee can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.  She can refurnish her newly renovated apartment which was burned in the previous books, as well as look for the necessary items for the plays.  Lee discovers a bureau with hidden compartments, just like the one she lost in the fire.  But when the antique store owner is discovered dead after Lee takes delivery, Lee questions what was the killer looking for, and did it have to do with things she has discovered in the secret compartments in the bureaus she just purchased. 

 Ghouls of Engagment and Sledding Away with Murder are books 20, and 21 in the Wendy Meadow's Sweetfern Harbor Mysteries.  

A mysterious guest, rumors of a haunting, and a Halloween-themed murder which will leave you scratching your head.

One of the guests shows up dead in the middle of a sledding contest Brenda is baffled.   Will this murder become a cold case?

Pumpkins and Poltergeist by Nyx Halliwell is book one in the reluctant Medium series. 

Ava's aunt Willa summons her home, but when Ava arrives, Willa is dead, back by the stream at the rear of the property.  Convinced that Willa's death is no accident Ava decides to investigate, but she is thwarted by her gift and a very angry poltergeist.  

Hounds, Harvest and Homicide is book two in Carolyn Ridder Aspenson's Pooch Party mysteries.  

Missy Kingston brings her pooch party program to the annual gala fundraiser for the local women's shelter, she doesn't expect to find a dead body.  Especially the body of the most prominent financial contributor.  

Have a fabulously spooky Halloween!

Thanks for stopping by, now head over to LeeAnna's and check out the other I Like Thursday posts!