I saw a pick up load of pumpkins today!
I was waiting in the usual after school pick up spot and the whole truck load just drove by! The sight made the entire neighborhood of walking kids stop in their tracks to gawk as the truck rolled down the street. The mounded up squash looked like a pile of giant orange marbles. Cat eyes rolling around in a blue bed. The sight kind of changed the mood for me.

Suddenly, it is Fall! (Though some would argue that we never actually had a summer.)

I love Autumn. When the mountain boy and I were first married and living in Texas, we came up with a tradition of having a big, elaborate thanksgiving type meal complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, green beans.....the works...... when the day time high temperatures dropped below 80 degrees. We almost always enjoyed the festivities by ourselves because the temps sometimes didn't cool into the 80's until late fall so we had 2 full thanksgiving meals just a few weeks apart. Most of our loved friends and family thought we were crazy. What they didn't know is how my mountain boy suffered in the Texas heat. And the cooling temperatures were a true reason to celebrate. I can vividly remember sitting in a comfortable room chatting with family only to glance at my beloved and notice that he was beet red in the face and was intensely damp around the collar and forehead. He was sweating like a pig. Being from the North West, he just never got used to the humid heat of Texas. He didn't complain about his uncomfortable-ness too much. But his beacon red and perspiration slick face pretty much gave him away. So we thankfully ate turkey in the coolness that was late October/ November (I even think I remember eating our "thanksgiving-summer-is-over" meal in December one year)..... very happy indeed.

Anywhoo, it is fall.

And we don't live in Texas anymore.

And we are happy.

(We are happy not because we don't live in Texas anymore. We are happy because it is fall! Least anyone misunderstand.......sorry Nana.)