Autumn

 It has officially been autumn for a few weeks now.  Here in Greensboro, it is finally starting to feel like.  The air is cooler and crisper.  I wake up in the morning and am happy to have the blankets on my bed. I enjoy these colder mornings.  It makes the coffee taste better.  Autumn was always Mom's favorite season and the older I get it is becoming one of mine as well.  There is something very nostalgic to me about autumn.  It is the one season where I feel like the page is turning in my book of life.  I love seeing the leaves turn but you have to pay attention to them.  You blink and they are no longer on the tree but in crumpled piles on the ground. While I do not find raking the fallen leaves very fun, I find the idea of that very sentimental.  It's part of autumn. But believe me, if you spent your childhood raking and gathering gum balls, autumn yard work is hardly an ideal!

Fall means soup weather to me.  While I can make and have made soup all year long, there is something about eating homemade soup in the fall that is simply magical. Growing up, I don't recall eating soup during warm weather unless I was sick and then it was Campbell's chicken noodle soup.  Mom would make and can soup in the summer in anticipation of the colder months.  I love making soup and have so many great soup recipes that I look forward to this time of year to really get the most out of my soups. Autumn also means the coming of Thanksgiving, another big food tradition.  The memories of Thanksgivings I have had fill my heart at this time of year.  In addition to autumn being Mom's favorite season, Thanksgiving was her favorite holiday.  She looked forward to that every year.  Being surrounded by friends and family and gathering together to share the day meant the world to her.  And she loved hosting it with Grandmother.  Those were grand times.

Growing up, autumn meant packing away your summer clothes and taking out the winter ones.  No more shorts and tee shirts outside.  Time for jeans and sweaters.  How I love a good sweater. I used to have so many of them.  I either wore them out or outgrew them.  I still have a few sweaters that I cherish and still wear.  Autumn meant Friday night football games.  We went almost every Friday.  Once Bill and I were in the marching band, at different times, going to the football games was a staple of our lives.  In October, that was always followed by a Saturday marching band competition. We rarely came in first but it was always fun. And the fall festivals.  There was always a fall festival at school.  It was almost as if that was part of the curriculum.  These days, fall festivals have bled over into the community a lot more than when I was growing up.  And these can be such fun to go to.  A good way to support local businesses. 

Autumn is such a wonderful time of year.  With a lot of the things going on in the world, I am determined to make the most of my autumn and create wonderful memories to carry with me the rest of my days.  That is all.