A sight for sore eyes

Last weekend brought several images to light that I'm holding near and dear to my heart. The first one is this:


Yes, that's a gas station sign, and it says $2.25 a gallon! Woohoo! Even better, tonight on my way home (when I didn't have my camera handy), I spotted $2.09 gas at the Westerville UDF. Remarkable, isn't it?! That's just 10 cents away from $1-something gas...wow.

I wasn't sure I would ever see numbers like this again in my lifetime, let alone just a few months after choking down $3.89 rates, ever so fearful of hitting $4/gallon.

When I filled up today, it cost me a mere $33—almost half what I had been paying. It's refreshing to think I can float my tank three times for $100... in fact, I'm a little giddy about it. When two cars make the drive from Mount Vernon to Columbus nearly every day of the week, the gas bill adds up... and fast!

I know that at its worst a few months ago, our gas budget each month was nearing $1,000—yes, $1,000! That's more than our apartment used to cost when we were first married... talk about painful.

Because I know it won't last, I wish we had some giant container where we could stash some gas for days down the road when it spikes to $5 (you know it will!). Since we're not cool, and we have to buy it in 15-gallon increments, we will instead do a little happy dance each time we pull into the UDF until the price starts creeping up again... around Thanksgiving, don't you think?

But wait, the falling gas prices weren't my only happy sight over the weekend. I snapped these pictures on Saturday in our front yard and driving down the road on our way to Westerville. I just can't get enough of fall in Mount Vernon. It's so pretty, and so peaceful. It almost makes that formerly $1,000 gas bill worth it...

Front yard left view

Front yard right view—and look at that glorious sunshine!

And you can't tell so much from a picture this small, but driving down the road the trees were stunning, and this treeline was lit up with sunlight. Fabulous stuff.