Finally Fall

I know that I will automatically alienate some people with this first post, but my excitement and glee overshadows that possibility right now.  It is finally FALL!  After three months of summer, my least favorite time of year (and there some of you go, clicking away to distance yourself from this self-proclaimed heat-hater), the season of change has come at last.  Leaves are beginning to color, days are growing shorter, the air is crisp, and heaters are brought out of their dusty closet hideaways.  I've also noticed that apples are suddenly cheaper, and while most people wouldn't blink an eyelash at this fact, I found myself beaming at the grocery store last Monday.

Call me un-American or inhuman, I love the rain and snow and gloominess introduced by Autumn.  Naturally, the reason that I love this time of year so much is that its coming means that something else even better is on the way... Winter.  While most people I confide this to find me endearing but slightly crazy, others understand completely... and most of those are from Oregon.  I think that there is something inherently programmed into people born and raised in our little green state that allows us to see the beauty in what so many others despise. This is probably due to the fact that we wake up to rain on most days of the year, and therefore have to learn to love it or be depressed.  So maybe it is not so much a genetic quirk as it is a survival instinct.  In either case, I love this weather!  The darker and gloomier the day, the brighter I smile.  Most people dream of retiring in Florida or Arizona... I might consider Alaska.

And so I have spent the last couple of weeks hauling out my crockpot and heating up my oven whenever I get the chance... two things I had been ignoring for quite some time.  When your apartment doesn't have air conditioning, cooking gets very creative because the last thing you want to do is add heat to the already-sweltering house.  Since the weather has cooled, I have made cinnamon swirl bread, cookies, beef stew (about four times), stir fry, tuna casserole, and whatever other dishes I can find that require the use of my stove.  My husband is elated... we can finally stop living on pasta.

Fall is here, praise the Lord!  I can wake up to a mug of hot chocolate and end my day with a cup of tea.  Book reading can be done under the covers and I can snuggle on the couch under a fleece blanket while I watch "24," keeping warm from head to toe with a hoodie and Uggs. Halloween is coming... then Thanksgiving... and then the Christmas season begins. While most people consider the last three months to be the best of the year, I vote for the next three: October, November, and December.

It's the holiday season!  You can't beat that!