Yesterday morning started out rainy but soon turned to sun. I quickly got my camera and went outside to take advantage of the sun-kissed raindrops on plants and flowers. I had a wonderful time taking picture after picture, and when I got home and downloaded them, I was delighted with the results. So last night, after getting home from a marvelous concert of jazz-influenced Middle Eastern music at the Arab American National Museum, I stayed up until 3 a.m. preparing these photos to post in a new gallery. Anything for art! I call this gallery "After an October rain." CLICK HERE to see it. You might be surprised to see lilies and roses blooming next to fallen maple leaves, but that's what our unseasonably warm temperatures have done--mixed everything up!

With that in mind, I dedicate this gallery to the newly-announced Nobel Peace Prize winners Al Gore and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for "their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about manmade climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."