Good Diwali and a Photo Blog of Autumn For You Today

My goals today have already taken a beating, and it's only a little after 6:00 am! First, I awakened at my usual 3:15 am and settled down to my morning meditation. I'm working through a workshop on "Insight Timer" called "10-Day Setting Boundaries Challenge" which has been pretty good, but afterward, I started in on my daily puzzles and got wrapped up in those for too long. 

Let me start by wishing a good Diwali to those 
of my friends who may celebrate the day. I've 
always been fond of Diwali - a festival of light. 

Then I scurried down, changed into my exercise clothes and did a quick 2-1/4 mile on the treadmill followed by a shower. I got dressed for work, made my morning cup of tea, and settled down to write this, almost 1/2 hour later than usual because I got caught up in my on-line jigsaw puzzle game that I've been playing for several months now. I can officially declare that I'm as relaxed as someone running 30-45 minutes late on their daily schedule can be - LOL. 

I've mentioned my neighborhood wild turkeys before, 
but last week on Monday they were in my neighbor 
Chris's yard when I got home from work. So I snapped 
a few pictures before heading into the house. 

As you can tell, they've grown up quite nicely. They'd 
make a great Thanksgiving Day turkey dinner, but I'd 
rather not have to kill anything, or pluck it, clean 
it, etc. No, the turkeys are completely safe with me - LOL. 

So what I'm doing today is giving you a lot of photos - Autumn photos, mostly from yesterday in my backyard, but a few from my neighborhood. And my neighborhood turkeys are back. They were in my yard two weeks ago, and one week ago they were in my neighbor's yard. I got a couple of photos of the turkeys to share with you too. So, today is a photo blog. 

I'm going to start with this tree, which isn't mine, 
but is in my neighborhood. I consider this a 
tree that just can't make up its' mind. It has 
yellow leaves, it has a lot of red leaves, and there 
are still some green leaves on it also. It's truly 
a tree for all seasons - LOL. 

The rest of the photos are from my backyard 
yesterday afternoon. It was a beautiful day, 
warm and breezy. We still have a lot of leaves 
left on our trees, so it wasn't worth the effort 
to bother raking yet. We'll end up doing that 
in the cold, as we usually do *sigh*. 

This red tree is at the southwestern corner of 
my house. It's a lovely spray of colors to brighten 
up the upper back yard. The open expanse ahead 
of us is usually filled with ferns. Of course, they 
are long dead now - killed by the frosts and 
cold temps we've already had. 

Ahead of me when I'm sitting in my chair on the 
patio is this lovely golden tree. You can see a 
few of my maple tree's red leaves above me, 
trying to photo bomb the golden one. LOL

A bit to the south of the golden tree are my taller trees where 
my squirrels love to nest and my hawks also loved those 
trees to perch in. My Tuff-Shed utility shed is on the 
right side. 

To my right and above me is my silver maple - a 
tree that's getting on in years, and not as healthy 
as it used to be, but it's a gorgeous tree and we're 
hoping it can hang in there for a few more years. 
It always gives me glorious golden-orange leaves. 

So, there you have it. A photo blog for a change without a lot of chit-chat. I wish all of you a wonderful Fall (or Spring) day and a day of joy. I'll be back tomorrow, and maybe be more on-time and on schedule too. Shocking, I know! LOL Slava Ukraini. 

A Week of Diwali

This week is Diwali, also known as Deepavali. It is the Hindu New Year and begins two days before the new moon, sometime between October 14 and November 13.

Ganesh always looks so happy. Let him cheer you today

Today is Dhanteras, two days before the New Moon. Today homes and businesses are cleaned and renovated. Doors are adorned with torans, entryways are decorated with rangoli and it is a lucky day to purchase dhan - gold, jewelry and new kitchen utensils.

Lakshmi is beautiful. Notice the elephants in the background.

Tuesday will be Choti Diwali. The home is cleaned thoroughly and the broom placed near the alter. Lakshmi visits the cleanest homes first (she wouldn't be visiting mine, that's for sure!). Her small footprints are patterned onto the floor with a mix of rice flower and vermillion powder, or rice paper and a red pen can mark footprints to be taped onto the floor. Bathe in fragrent oils and purchase new clothes. Food for the alter include sweets made from coconut, almonds, pistachios, nutmeg, ginger, sesame and poppy seeds.

I'll revisit Diwali on Wednesday, my favorite of the five days, but here are some pictures of Ganesh and Lakshmi for you to enjoy. Happy Diwali to my friends in India.