Goodbye, Summer...Hello, Fall

Goodbye, summer…

This will likely be the first (and last!) time I say this:

I am glad summer is over.

I will probably be paid back for those words tenfold in the next few months when Mother Nature dumps on me the worst, coldest, snowiest, iciest winter ever. But I don’t care. Right now, at this moment, I am glad summer is over, for lots of reasons that don’t really matter. I’m ready to move on to a new season, and I love the clear, crisp days of fall with their bright blue skies and mild temperatures.

I actually “celebrated” the last day of summer for the first time ever. I was ready to say, “Adios!” to pots of droopy sad flowers and brown crunchy grass and mosquito bites and 110 degree days and $300 plus electric bills. On the last day of summer, I drove to one of my favorite places—Theis Farm—and I bought a big bag of peaches and a big bag of apples and a couple of pumpkins. I came home and said a fond fare-thee-well to summer by baking a peach upside down cake and covering it with homemade vanilla ice cream and homemade caramel sauce with cinnamon. Oh my heavens…that dessert was a perfectly yummy last hurrah before I began filling my house with the aromas of apples and pumpkins and simmering pots of soup.

 Which brings me to Hello, fall…

Cooler days have settled upon us. I am so grateful for that as a couple of weeks ago, our air conditioner decided that it needs a rest from the summer heat. I don’t blame it one bit--*I* need a rest from the summer heat. I am quite thankful that it chose a cooler time to go on sabbatical rather than a couple of weeks ago when it was still near 100 degrees every day.

The first day of fall was Lauren’s birthday, and she wanted to spend it baking cookies. What better way to spend the first day of fall, huh? She had a basketball game that afternoon, and she wanted to take cookies to her team. She gave a little tug at my heartstrings when she told me, “When we were little, you always made cupcakes if we had a game on our birthday, and I’m kind of sad you don’t do that anymore.”

I did do that. On one of her birthdays, I made cupcakes that looked like basketballs. I remember several birthdays of Justin’s and Rachel’s when the big day fell on gameday, and I decorated cupcakes to look like baseballs. While I don’t miss sitting on metal bleachers in the sweltering sun, I do miss baking those cupcakes. One year, instead of giving the cupcakes red baseball stitching, I used bright pink for Rachel’s birthday. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that the kids miss that, too. It seemed like such a little thing at the time, but I have found that little things are often the biggest things of all.

So on Lauren’s birthday, she had her good friend Mary over to bake cookies. I admit, I cringed a bit when she told me Saturday morning that was how she wanted to spend her day. I was home mostly alone all day on Friday, and Saturday morning as well, which meant my house was pretty clean. My kitchen was sparkling and immaculate, which so rarely happens.

 

The thought of Lauren baking was not a pleasant one as she is a very messy cook. I bit back my initial reaction of “oh, Hell NO you aren’t baking today!” put on a happy face and told her I thought that was a fabulous idea. The smile on her face when she said “Really?” was worth any mess I knew would ensue. Mary came over, they baked two batches of chocolate chip cookies, they made a mess that mostly I cleaned up, but they had a blast, and it was worth it.

Other than cookie baking, on the first days of fall, I turned my pots of sad petunias into pots of autumn splendor. Not really, but I like that word…splendor. It just has a nice ring to it. My pots may not be splendorous, but they certainly look better now than they did when they were spilling over with yucky brown plants.

 

 

Now, they look like this

 

 

I also bought some mums. I love these orange mums. Usually, I buy yellow and red mums, but this color just jumped out at me. I've never seen it before. It's called Outrageous Orange. How could I pass those up?

 

 

 

I really got carried away. I've never planted so many flowers in the fall. Normally, I just buy a few pots of mums and put them on the porch surrounded by a few pumpkins. This year though, maybe because my summer flowers were such a bust and didn't do well in the heat and drought, I couldn't stop myself. I bought some pansies and small ferns for hanging baskets on the porch. I love pansies but rarely plant them. It gets too hot here, and they don't usually last long. I can't wait to see how these pots look in a few weeks.

 

 

 

I even planted the hanging pots on each side of the garage door with some new life. At the nursery, I saw a plant I'd never seen before called Japanese Fern. I love it, and it looks like it will end up bushy and trailing over the pot. I added the orange flowers for some color. I've never planted those either, and I'm not even sure what they are called. They caught my eye because they look so cheerful.

 

 







The inside of my house is just as decked out as the porch, but I didn't even wait for fall to bring out the fall decorations. Every year, I end up loving my decorations and take pictures so that NEXT year, I will be able to recreate it all. Then, NEXT year arrives, I look at the pictures, and mostly do everything totally different. This year was no exception. I guess since I love decorating for fall, I am always on the lookout for something new. This year, thanks to Pinterest, I had all sorts of new ideas. Unfortunately, my house isn’t big enough to incorporate them all. Neither  is my budget. This though, was something I saw on Pinterest that I knew I had to do. I thought it was so clever, and cheap too. Cheap and clever. Two of my favorite words.

I spent less than three bucks, and I love it. All it cost me was 88 cents for a bag of split peas, 88 cents for a bag of dried red beans, and $1.50 for a bag of popcorn.

 While I have been enjoying the cooler first days of fall, I am also feeling a bit down. My life is changing along with the seasons, and I am not sure I am up for or ready for the changes that are coming. I can only remember one time in my life when I have been more apprehensive about what the future holds for me, and it’s not a good feeling at all. I have tried, but I can’t seem to put my feelings into words on this subject. My marriage is changing, the boys are leaving…some days, I feel like it’s all too much at once. Too much change. Change is supposed to be a good thing, and I do have faith that in the long run, the changes we are going through now will end up in very good places. That is what is keeping me going right now

 I will end this post with a list of joyful simplicities since I haven’t done that for a while:

Finding the first bags of pumpkin coffee at the grocery store.

Turning this

 

 

into a crock pot full of homemade applesauce. Oh, it was so delicious! I’ve always wanted to make it, but I never have. It was yummy warmed up and poured over pancakes, and the kids told me I can't ever buy applesauce again because it's too good.

Discovering a pile of sugar pie pumpkins at Schnucks. They are sitting on my counter ready to be baked into all sorts of yummy pumpkin-y treats.

New glasses

 

 

 Last year just after Thanksgiving, I bought these glasses. When they were delivered, I was in the midst of decorating for Christmas, and I so I packed them away. I forgot about them until a few weeks ago when I was unpacking my fall decorations. What a surprise! I love them. At the same time, I bought this little dish. I think I could have a new addiction, to amber glass. Thank goodness I have no room to store more dishes. I love dishes, especially old dishes, but that's a topic for another time.

I started knitting a new scarf. A couple of years ago, I knitted this really wonderful twirly scarf. I love it, and I decided to make the same one in a colorful yarn. I do hate winter, but I love scarves. Especially scarves I knit myself. :-) Another addiction. Maybe that should be my next blog post--Crazy Things Rose is Addicted To.

 Last week, I went to a bead show for the first time. Holy Moly…it was so overwhelming, and I was almost high on bling. I was smart and took cash and left my debit card at home. I did buy some beads, and I am anxious to get started on creating something with them. And, I was proud of myself because I didn't even spend all of the money I took. Not even half of it! I know, what's wrong with me?

 

 

Nothing says "fall" quite like a cross country meet on a beautiful Saturday morning.

 

 

Enjoying a rainy day. Yeah, something else I don’t typically write, especially when it is dreary and chilly on my day off. But today, I have enjoyed it. The kids slept in because they are on fall break, I got a ton of laundry done, I watched a movie, and I baked a batch of brownies. I had planned on going for a long bike ride on the Katy Trail, so I was pretty disappointed when thunder and a downpour woke me this morning, but I decided to make the best of it. I haven’t left the house or even gotten out of my sweatshirt and pajama pants.

Oh, and best of all, I’ve had some uninterrupted time to sit down and write. It seems the more I take the time to write, the more I seem to have to write about, and I’ve got a whole list of topics I’m looking forward to writing about. J