A is for Autumn

 ***I’m going to try to post something every day in the month of November. I definitely may not- it’s just a goal and I’m not going to be upset about missing it! Hopefully in my spare time, I can come up with a post per day. My prompts are going to be the letters of the alphabet. I will write about something that starts with the day’s letter- think Sesame Street meets the blogsphere. Of course there are more days in the month of November than there are letters in the alphabet. I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it!***

It’s November 1st and it feels very fall/ autumn (I’m using the terms interchangeably.). November seems quintessentially fall to me. It’s middle fall as October is early fall and December is late fall. Here, anyway, October is usually a mild weathered month while December ushers in winter and cold. November is never (or very rarely) warm yet it’s rarely extremely cold. It’s just fall. The in between.

November and its “middle fall” season are not favorites of mine but there’s plenty about November/ middle fall that is good. The good: 

    * Minimal outside tasks (for us in the ‘burbs anyway whose house sits on a small lot). Mowing the yard is no longer necessary, the garden is all but done producing so no weeding/ tending to that, etc.

    * Thanksgiving. I view this holiday as complex though overall good. If you’re hosting Thanksgiving, you have a lot of work ahead of you in terms of planning the meal, shopping for items for the meal, preparing for guests and then the preparation of the food itself in the days before and day. If you’re a guest, then you have it much easier but you have to coordinate travel if you’re going far, actually travel and then hope you are going to someone’s house whom you truly love because you are at someone else’s house... But any opportunity to practice gratitude is good and intentionally spending time with loved ones is good as well. (Now I will need to remind myself of the good when I am stressing over some obscure item that I need to make something that I could have sworn I purchased and probably did but can’t find.)

    * The anticipation of the Christmas season/ the beginning of it. Our town has a picture perfect Christmas festival. The only problem is that the festival is the weekend before Thanksgiving. That makes for a definite blurring of the line between the two holidays. Thanksgiving has not even happened and we’ve got a lit Christmas tree on Main Street!! But seriously, I love the beginning of the Christmas season which is undoubtedly sometime in November (whether that should be before or after Thanksgiving is debatable for sure!). The beginning of the Christmas season is lovely for a variety of reasons. For me, the effects of my inevitable procrastination regarding all that needs to get done by Christmas have not manifested themselves; in the beginning of the season, I can just truly enjoy the season. 

    * Like I said earlier, the weather here tends to be cool to cold but not freezing cold during most of autumn and I like that. I love to run in the cool or cold and then I love to be cozy inside with a fire in the fireplace, a throw blanket on me as I sit on the couch reading a good book or watching something on TV with Donnie. The cold of winter gets old really fast but the cool of autumn is fine by me! 

Autumn is also the name of a girl whom Jacob used to date so I can’t help but think of her.  If I remember correctly, her birthday was not in the fall- her parents just liked that name. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with naming your child a season’s name if they weren’t born in that season... Thinking of Autumn’s A name naturally has me thinking about my favorite A names- Abby and Alyssa! Love this picture of my girls on a fun fall day

Happy November 1st- if your Halloween was anything like ours, the cold weather kept many costumed clad kids from trick or treating. We have never had so much candy left over....