Things I love about fall

• waking up in the morning and putting on a sweater
• the availability of apple cider
• being able to make a broth or bake bread without having to time it because of how hot it will make the house
• wearing slippers
• drinking hot cocoa
• making hearty soups and stews
• seeing scant snow on the mountaintops in the distance
• cold mornings followed by warm, sunny days, followed by cold evenings
• the smell of wood stoves
• the smell of leaves
• the colors in the landscape (though it’s only yellow here, but still better than no changes!)
• pumpkins and funny looking gourds
• pulling out last year’s sweaters and scarves out of storage
• Halloween decorations
• Halloween candy (a blessing and a curse, if you know what I mean)

I know there’s more, but this is what comes to mind right now.  What did I miss?  What are some of your favorite things about this time of year?

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I can feel it coming on…

Taken in October, 2009

When my nose and toes start to get cold on a regular basis, I know fall is in the air.

I grew up in New England, so fall is a holiday unto its own.  Like a local holiday.  The whole dang season.  And it deserves to be celebrated.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE fall.  The cooler weather, the smell in the air – especially in the evenings – the warm, rustic colors (though I only get to experience a much milder color variation than when I lived in CT).  And then there’s the urge, almost instinctual craving, to make things like apple crisp, soups and stews and anything with pumpkin.  Sure, every season has its foods, but nothing so quite comforting as the fall.  The transition from hot to cold.

In case you haven’t been able to tell throughout the course of my blog, I really enjoy the cold weather and hate hot, particularly humid weather – a large part of why I left the East Coast.  And every year since we’ve been in the mountains, we’d had a freak snowfall in September.  Nothing sizable but enough to let you know that things are a’changing, and quickly!  That’s probably my only complaint – that fall doesn’t last a little bit longer before transitioning to winter.

Crested Butte, 2009

One of the best things about fall is Halloween.  I just love that dang holiday and I particularly love that my adult friends still love it too.  One of my best girlfriends is the Halloween Queen.  She doesn’t have any kids, but that doesn’t matter.  Come labor day, she gets all her decorations up and even has a timer on her wall counting down the days to the beloved day.  She dresses up each year at work, hosts a party (click here to see my post from last year about it, complete with pics!) and in the months before, plans out what new decor she’ll be ordering.  I was just at her place last week and we salivated over her favorite Halloween catalog, dreaming up ideas of all the props and large scale decorations she could use.

With all this in mind, I’ve been drumming up ideas on how to incorporate my favorite season and holiday into my crafts and shop.  Here are some sneak peaks:

My latest girl - Witchy girl

What do you love most about fall?  Please share and reminisce with me!

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