"Autumn is marching on: even the scarecrows are wearing dead leaves."
~Otsuyu Nakagawa

I've been waiting three years for this

"Swinging on delicate hinges
the Autumn Leaf
Almost off the stem."
~Jack Kerouac

Three years ago when Ryan and I were in our favorite spot during the month of October (Dillard, GA) I saw some ice cream that I just had to try. It was Ben & Jerry's Pumpkin Cheesecake. I didn't buy it in the grocery store in Dillard, Ga because I figured I'd find it once I was back in Gainesville. WELL, I have looked for three years and haven't ever been able to find it in Gainesville UNTIL today!!! I stopped to pick up something to make for dinner and as I was walking through the parking lot I thought ice cream sounded good tonight (not for dinner - but for after dinner). :-) I found what I was looking for (Breyer's Reese's ice cream...chocolate and peanut butter - it doesn't get much better than that!) and I started walking away. I then did a stutter-step as I turned back around and looked at the Ben & Jerry's section just to check since all of the autumn stuff is now out in the stores. Holy freaking cow - I found it!!! I brought it home and have had just a spoonful so far and it was good! Yay!!! During my quest to find it over the last three years I've found some other pumpkin ice creams from a few different brands and I have always been disappointed...BUT NOT TODAY!! It was just what I've been wanting - and just what I was hoping it would taste like. That just made my day! :-)

Here is a picture of the yummy awesomeness...please excuse the blurry picture. I may or may not have been so excited that I was shaking! :-)

"Vari-colored leaves
waft at wind's gentle prodding--
Autumn rites recur"
~Victor Gendrano

"Autumn truly is what summer pretends to be: the best of all seasons. It is as glorious as summer is tedious; as subtle as summer is obvious; as refreshing as summer is wearying. Autumn seems like paradise."
~Gregg Easterbrook

"A tangerine and russet cascade
Of kaleidoscopic leaves
Creates a tapestry of autumn magic
Upon the emerald carpet of fading summer."
~Judith A. Lindberg

Fall ladies lunch

"The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold."
~Autumn Leaves, Lyrics by Johnny Mercer

This afternoon was my 2nd annual fall ladies lunch and, as always, it was wonderful to spend some time with some of my favorite people. Chatting and laughter accompanied lunch which made it a perfect get together. I had a great time and love getting together with these lovely ladies!!

Here are a few of the pictures of me and the ladies today...

"If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It's a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it's time to reflect on what's come before."
~Mitchell Burgess

"Fiery colors begin their yearly conquest of the hills,
propelled by the autumn winds. Fall is the artist."
~Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka, and Toshihiro Kawabata

"It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life."
~P.D. James

"For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad."
~Edwin Way Teale

"Come said the wind to the leaves one day,
Come o're the meadows and we will play.
Put on your dresses scarlet and gold,
For summer is gone and the days grow cold."
~A Children's Song of the 1880's

"Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods and day by day the dead leaves fall and melt."
~William Allingham

This was my last weekend before all of my fall activities start! Next weekend I'm having my 2nd annual fall ladies lunch. I can't wait! I love having the ladies over for lunch. The weekend after that we'll be into October which means FALL FESTIVALS EVERY WEEKEND!!!!! And then the first weekend in November is the next Girls Weekend! Absolutely can't wait for all of that! :-)

This weekend has been very low-key. Libby got sick on Friday afternoon so she came home where she got sick again and just felt bad all night long. As soon as we got home I set her up in her bed so that she was comfy and put her tv on the Disney Channel and she dozed off and on. She wasn't very hungry but she ate half of a bowl of chicken noodle soup about 7:00pm and then around 9:00 she was hungry again so she ate half of a banana. All of the rest did the job for her because by Saturday morning she was feeling great again. Even though she was feeling better I didn't want to chance it so we stayed home. I cleaned the house and did the laundry and then watched my Gators beat Tennessee in football - which is always a wonderful way to spend your day.

"I know the lands are lit, with all the autumn blaze of Goldenrod."
~Helen Hunt Jackson

"Autumn is my fvaorite season."
~Johnny Kelly (but really, you could list this quote as coming from me, too!!!!)

"By all these lovely tokens September days are here, with summer's best of weather
And autumn's best of cheer."
~Helen Hunt Jackson

"The breezes taste of apple peel
The air is full of smells to feel
Ripe fruit, old footballs, burning brush
New books, erasers, chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive, well-honeyed hum
And Mother cuts chrysanthemums
Like plates washed clean with suds, the days
Are polished with a morning haze."
~John Updike, September

"Through the crisp, swirling launch of our recall
Memories smile at yesterday's replay
September guides us gently into Fall
When woods begin to hear chill winter's call."
~M. Jo Taylor, Autumn Poems

"Autumn begins with a subtle change in the light, with skies a deeper blue, and nights that become suddenly clear and chilled. The season comes full with the first frost, the disappearance of migrant birds, and the harvesting of the season's last crops."
~Glenn Wolff and Jerry Dennis

"I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend most all the daylight hours in the open air."
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Summer makes me drowsy, Autumn makes me sing. Winter's pretty lousy, but I hate Spring."
~Dorothy Parker

"Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees."
~Faith Baldwin

The most ironic thing I heard today: Libby said that she got a lollipop today as a reward for good behavior. Then she told me which teacher rewards with candy...it's their P.E. teacher! Isn't he supposed to be teaching about physical education and promoting healthy living, etc? NOT that I'm opposed to candy...i just thought it was funny that the P.E. teacher rewards with candy. That's almost like getting a lollipop at the dentist's office after an appointment, isn't it? :-)

The funniest thing I saw today: Libby and I stopped at the little grocery store that is in our little country town that we now live in and as we were walking past the deli where they have premade food I noticed this sign "Peacan Chicken" There's no doubt how it's pronounced by countryfolk in the South, is there? Instead of pecan it's pronounced pea-can...and they even spelled it out that way. Now that to me was funny! :-)

"Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree"
~Emily Bronte

Last night while I was going over Libby’s homework she told me that 12 of the 18 students in her class received letters yesterday that they were being moved out of her class and into another class. She told me that she then said to her teacher, “Wow, our class is going to be vacant after they leave” and her teacher told her that the vacancies were being filled with 4th graders because their class was becoming a 3rd/4th grade combo class! Libby was put in a 2nd/3rd grade combo class last year which at first made me nervous. I volunteered once a week for two years at her elementary school and I know without a doubt that teachers don’t have enough time to get through everything that is expected of them with the students – and those were classes that the students were all on the same grade level and now 1 teacher was going to have to teacher two different grade levels?? But, even though the teacher last year was a horrible heifer of a woman it worked out wonderfully for Libby to be in that class because in 2nd grade she was exposed to the entire 3rd grade curriculum. She came home writing in cursive and doing multiplication which was never in her homework. I asked her how she knew cursive and multiplication because it was never on her homework and she said that she learned it listening to her teacher teach the 3rd graders. I know that this year will be just as educational for her and she’ll be working on 4th grade curriculum. And to make it even better she gets to stay in her same class with the same wonderful teacher. She lost most of her friends because they had to be moved out to an all 3rd grade class but she did keep her favorite friend in her class, Emma. So, she has the same classroom/teacher, her favorite friend, and 4th grade curriculum when she’s in 3rd grade. Not bad!

The cutest part of my day: this morning Libby wanted to wear earrings that dangle so I put them on her and she was sitting at the table eating breakfast and asked if I put the “stopper” on the earrings because they were French hook earrings. I told her I did but asked why she was asking. She said, “Because I’m going to be bouncy today.” I asked if she had P.E. today and she replied, “No, I just feel like being bouncy today!” How cute. :-) Oh to be a kid and just think, “hey, I think I’ll be bouncy today.” :-)

"No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face."
~John Donne

The highlight of my day today: My boss asked me if I was born in the 80's! Ha, I have him fooled! :-)

"Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all."
~Stanley Horowitz

This morning I picked up Libby from her friend's house at 8:45am and we came home and she slept for an hour. She's turning into a teenager! Spending the night with friends, staying up all night, and coming home and sleeping! Dang it, she's too young to already be acting like a teenager. It didn't help much when the lady taking Libby's pictures yesterday kept calling her a pre-teen. I told her that Libby was only 8 years old and didn't need any ideas that she was already a pre-teen put in her head and the lady said she thought Libby was 10 or 11. That made Libby's day. :-)

This is my favorite spot in my house right now...I just love my wrought iron pumpkins! :-)
And here is a sweet little basket that my friend Tanja sent me a few years ago (filled with pumpkin bodycare products). I bring it out each year and fill it with new pumpkin bodycare products and each time I bring it out it makes me think of Tanja. :-)

"Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn."
~Elizabeth Lawrence

This morning just as I was about to walk out the door to go pick up Libby I got a call from her...asking me if she could stay at her friend's house for the rest of the Labor Day weekend! I told her that she had to come home today because #1) I wanted to spend time with her and #2) she was getting her picures taken today. So, I picked her up and told her that she could go back to Avery's house tonight at 7:00pm and spend the night and then I'd pick her up again Monday morning. She came home and ended up sleeping for two hours! Apparently they didn't go to bed until 1:00am this morning so she was definitely overdue for some more sleep. After her nap she got ready and we went to have her pictures taken for her 3rd grade pictures. After we were finished there we went grocery shopping and then came home and I played in her room with her for a while and we had pizza and not too much later it was time for her to head back to Avery's. I'm glad she's having so much fun but I definitely miss her!!

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."
~Albert Camus

Today was the start of Gator football!! I've been waiting for this day for a long time! The Gators had a very shaky game - they have A LOT to work on but they won and that always makes me happy.

Today I also finally had the itme to put up my fall decorations inside my house. I decorated my office yesterday, the inside of my house today, and I'll put up my outside decorations tomorrow.

Today little Miss Libby went to her first sleepover. One of her friends was having a slumber party for her birthday and Libby really, really, really wanted to go. She's never been to a sleepover before and she was very excited. She hardly slept last night. She woke up about 10 times wondering if it was Saturday, yet! :-) I dropped her off at 6:30 and she was so excited to be with all of her friends. I called at 9:00pm to check on her and to say goodnight and she asked me to come pick her up. What?? She was nervous about actually spending the night. I talked to the birthday girl's mom and she told Libby that if she wanted to try to stay longer and decided later that she really wanted to go home that she'd call me (no matter what time) and I'd come pick her up. That made Libby feel better and she told me that she'd try and stay longer and see how it went. :-) I hope she is having fun!

Another of my absolute favorites...

"Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile."
~William Cullen Bryant

This is definitely my favorite autumn quote:

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." ~George Eliot

September is here!!!!!

September 1st (for me) is the beginning of fall. I finally get to put out my fall decorations and wear more autumn colors (I sneak them in a bit throughout the year because I just can't help myself). :-) I love fall so much I've decided to post an autumn quote every day from now through Thanksgiving. I don't know how that sounds to you but that sounds fabulous to me! :-)

However, instead of listing an autumn quote today I'm going to list 30 things I love about autumn!
Here is my list (in no particular order!) :-)

1. smelling cinnamon, nutmeg & cloves
2. PUMPKINS!!!
3. Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte
4. falling leaves
5. Gator football!!!!!
6. chocolate covered apples (or caramel covered apples...I'm not picky!) :-)
7. chicken chili
8. wind blowing through leaves
9. warm glow of fall scented candles
10. cherished moments with friends and family
11. beautiful shades of burnt orange, brown, crimson, goldenrod, and dark green
12. Yankee Candle Harvest scent candle
13. "jeans & long sleeves" weather
14. pumpkin crisp
15. pumpkin patches
16. corn mazes
17. hayrides
18. fall festivals
19. Indian corn & scarecrows
20. pumpkin fudge (mmmm...decadent!)
21. wearing scarves
22. candy corn/autumn mix
23. mums, pinecones, nuts & acorns
24. pumpkin butter
25. Annual Girls Weekend!!!
26. hot apple cider with cinnamon sticks
27. crisp cool air
28. bittersweet vines and berries
29. corn stalks & hay bales
30. popcorn balls