Blustery

I spent last weekend in Spokane and I was shocked by the cold! Yikes! I was not ready for 20 degrees while we set up in the shade. Sans gloves and forgotten hat. Not to mention the boy scouts that were parked up next to us outside REI selling their popcorn...they were prepared. Damn mottos.

I returned to Portland with visions of last week dancing through my head. Blue skies, perfect temperatures, sunshine for days. Sunshine? Where did it go? What happened to summer?

I am in never-ending denial that this year will slow down any minute now! Surely...it has to! Unready and unwilling I have been dragged into fall. How could this happen? I want to go back!

But then I remember...I like fall. I think I spent too much time in Florida and learned to ignore this amazing time of year. Palm trees don't change. But the maples and the oak and the aspens, they most certainly do. And it is beautiful.

Yesterday felt like a holiday. A vacation day spent at home reminded me of so many other things I love about the fall.

Snuggling into a warm, fluffy bed (but not down fluffy. Synthetic fluffy. I recently learned those birds aren't plucked...they are killed! How naive am I?)

The crazy wind creating little twisters of red and yellow leaves.

Delicious mulled wine with friends in a comfortable candle-lit restaurant.

Cooking breakfast at noon and brownies at nine. Both hearty and warm!

Sweaters. Big comfy sweaters.

The crisp, clean air. You can almost smell the breeze.

Movies in bed and more snuggling. (If you have not seen Triplets of Belleville you should)

Oh...and galoshes. Mine are worn straight through. Too much dancing in the rain and puddle splashing last year.

SO it's fall. It's time to be excited and let the summer go. It will come back again. Always does.