Pumpkin Love

I've always had a "thing" for pumpkins. Those who know me in real life (or who have gotten to know me through Facebook) know this to be true. Peter just recently asked me  why it was that I get so excited over pumpkins - I couldn't tell him. All I know is that it has been a life-long love affair, as proved by this picture of me shortly before my second birthday...

I was so sad that our garden didn't produce any pumpkins (or much of anything else!) this year, but then Peter came in with a big surprise for me over Labor Day weekend...and he made my day week month!

A surprise pumpkin in our long dead pumpkin patch! It had started to turn orange, but the vine died and Peter didn't want the whole pumpkin to rot, so he pulled it off for me. {much squeeling occured} Best fall gift ever. So why do I love pumpkins so much? I can't pinpoint any one thing - they are cheerful, I love the colors, I love the shape, and they just say "fall" to me. When we lived in Indonesia over the fall season, I hunted down a "pumpkin" to use for decoration in our house (I'm pretty sure the Indonesian friend who went with us to the market thought I was nuts - pumpkins are food, not decoration!).

My Indonesian pumpkin ("labu") and the orange candles I found in a local store - SCORE! The "blanket" on the couch? That came with us from Tanzania. Hooray for world travel!

My Little Pumpkin That Could is now sitting on the table in our library and I smile every time I walk past it. Sometimes I wonder if my pumpkin love started when I used to watch "Raggedy Ann and Andy and the Pumpkin Who Couldn't Smile" as a child. But once I found the picture of me as a very little girl having a make out session with the pumpkin - well, that no longer seemed to be the reason. So I go back to I just love them because they make me happy, simply by being pumpkins. Am I nuts? Possibly. But Peter loves me anyway and I wonder if he secretly did the Happy Dance when he discovered our little hidden treasure in the pumpkin patch. I bet he did. :-)