you need to add a line of code, per codex page
http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/get_posts
.....
foreach($myposts as $post) :
ADD THIS LINE ----> setup_postdata($post); ?>
<li><a>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a><?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?><div class="sidebar-excerpt"><?php the_excerpt() ?></div></li>
......
I went over that codex page 3 or 4 times, and somehow overlooked that little line.
Worked, thanks so much!