Fall

Fall gets the short end of the stick.   The stores display Halloween costumes and decorations as soon as school starts in this neck of the woods, and now, on the first weekend in October, it's all on clearance to make room for.... Christmas!  If you're hosting a Thanksgiving gala, and need some of those cute little pilgrim salt and pepper shakers, or a festive turkey tureen, you'll need to get your accessories soon, because poor Thanksgiving starts to get pushed out of the way before it even gets on the shelf!

I'm not much of a fan of the fall season, but I do enjoy the changing colors of the trees, and the crisp, cool mornings.  As a serious allergy sufferer, though, I do NOT enjoy the harvesting and the ensuing junk that blows around in the air, and those burning leaves in every back yard almost kill me.  I also despise - DESPISE - the shortening days.  I love sunshine.  I love long days filled with sunshine.  In fall, every day gets shorter and shorter, and the dark of night just takes over by the end of the season. We'll all be leaving for, as well as coming home from, work in the dark every day.   I hate that.  : (

This year, I'm oh-so-very Thankful to be going to Florida for a week.  I'll get a good dose of sunshine to carry me through the following months of blah-dom until spring. 

Besides being the season of sneezing and coughing and uh, um, oh....  I mean the season of harvest, and raking leaves, and wiener roasts (I'll be hitting up three of those this month!), fall is also the season of cleaning and organizing.  Whether it's just been pounded into our heads to clean in the fall, or it's an instinct, or some other sort of other-worldly phenomenon, I must admit it sort of feels natural to get things in order this time of year. 

I cleaned and re-organized my bedroom closet last night.   It took hours.  (It was previously recognized as a natural disaster in there.... )  I cleared out lots and lots (and lots) of clothes that I don't wear.  I threw away a big, black garbage bag full of stuff.  I even got rid of shoes! I moved the shelves around and changed the entire configuration of the thing.  It felt good.   Anyone who's known me for a long time, knows that I used to have a bit of a "hang up" about being organized.  I like a tidy closet.  I keep my clothes sorted by color, then by style (long sleeve, short sleeve, tanks).  I like to have everything facing the same direction.  Having things in order makes it much easier to find what you're looking for. The addition to my life a few years ago of husband, step-children, lessons, practices, and last-minute changes to every routine even imagined has wreaked havoc on my organizational methods.  So the closet re-org really did my soul good.

I wonder if I can keep the cleaning momentum going today....  I guess I'll give it a try.  I have a few hours before all that leaf burning, fire building, hot dog roasting stuff begins.