Making Peace with Fall

"It is better to embrace all the seasons than to be hopelessly in love with spring".

I've always struggled with the end of summer. Fall seems depressing, a place -holder until that most dreaded of all seasons, W.I.N.T.E.R.. This year I've decided that as a matter of personal growth (!), I'd work on embracing this season. I really like so much about fall - the warm days and crisp, cool nights, the bright sunny skies, apples, pumpkins, county fairs, and the beautiful colors of falling leaves. It doesn't make sense to deny myself the pleasures of today because of the brutal, nasty, god-awful days of winter that follow. (This personal growth embrace-the-seasons thing is obviously a work-in-progress).

I usually wait to do any kind of fall-themed decorating until late October. I go out and buy the last three ratty mums available and dutifully plop them in the garden. (Speaking of mums, even though I'm trying to embrace The Fall, I do think that nurseries that start selling mums in July are pushing it - like stores that are selling Valentine's candy before Christmas)!

This year, I bought mums in September, pulled out some of the still-blossoming summer flowers and started my Fall -appreciation program. Funny how the nicer mums look, well, nice!

One sure sign of fall at our house is acorns, hundreds of acorns. We are surrounded by huge oak trees, and in early September they start dropping acorns. It's really a fun sound - acorns dropping onto the driveway, the top of the car, the roof, and rolling off the roof of the car as I drive off. Sweeping up all those acorns is a production - yesterday I swept up a wheel-barrow full. I am hearing more falling as we speak......