fall is in the air

I really love this time of year.
The humidity is for the most part, a thing of the past.
It's just chilly enough for cozy sweaters and fall fashion.
I love cooking inside again.
Nothing against my barbecue, but nothing beats the smell of something delicious baking in the oven.
And what's not to love about all the amazing produce at this time of year?
Bring on the squash, apples, pears, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and pumpkin. (just to name a few)

I also love the return to routine.
Having a regular schedule always makes me feel more balanced and together.
It's still a busy time of year, yet things also feel like they are slowing down a little bit after the whirlwind of summer.
I've actually found a few seconds minutes here and there to reflect and actually think about my life.

I was compiling a bunch of photos to be printed for a school project that lulu is working on and it made me realize how fast it all goes by.
The beginning of each season tends to reiterate that even more.
The older I get, the faster the days tend to disappear.
It's as though it was yesterday and Lulu was in grade one and then I blinked and now she's in grade three.
How the heck did that happen so quickly?
Even scarier is that the pre-teen days are right around the corner...shudder...

So I'm going to try to savour every moment this fall.
Get outside as much as possible, breathe in the fresh crisp air, pause long enough on the walks home from school to let Lulu stop to collect the colourful fallen leaves.
Hold her hand tightly while I still can.
Curl up with a good book in front of the fire, watch less t.v. (that's what winter is for...not to mention only one more week left of Breaking Bad!!...sniff sniff)
But most of all just be in the moment.
Because before I know it all the leaves will have fallen and I'll wonder where did the autumn go..

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

Shana Tovah

Because I'm a bit  lazy  busy today, I just read this and it kind of sums up exactly how I'm feeling at the moment.
Minus the part about me being Jewish (even though, according to big daddy, I'm kind of an honorary member of the tribe- by association.)

And even if you don't celebrate Rosh hashanah (I have to look up the correct spelling year after year..argh) isn't the beginning of September the perfect time to start fresh and make resolutions?
I know I am.
how about you?
Are you doing anything different this season and making any new commitments or modifications in your life?
Fall is the season for change after all.

Jill Kargman, Ready for the New Year Each December 31st, as millions of drunk, cavorting revelers smooch and screech in Times Square as the dropping ball demarcates a new year, I'm usually asnooze and wake up no more invigorated than the chilly night before. That’s because my fresh start has always been September: the feeling of turning a corner, pressing the reset button, and walking with a renewed spring in my newly-booted step. And not just because I'm Jewy Jewstein and I’m going the eat crisp granny smiths and honey to ring in a sweet annum ahead, but because (open door, enter confession booth, lower voice to a whisper...) I loathe summer. "That's right, you heard me over your blaring Robin Thicke." I hate strangers' flip-flopped feet. I hate midriffs, chipped blue pedicures, tanorexia. I hate sweating my balls off, slathering sunblock on squirmy children and eating like a bulimic without the purge part. I miss routine. I miss discipline and work. But also I miss jackets and scarfs and new packets of opaque tights. I worship fall. I truly believe I have RSAD: Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder. This may be because I'm the Addams Family relative who doesn't appear on their Halloween card. I choose black over teal. Charcoal over coral. As a die-hard New Yorker, I subscribe to the blustery cinematic version of a grey October day out of a Woody Allen movie - cozy layers on the way to an exhibition or walk in the park - watching a season's colors morph as the mercury drops with the fluttering orange and red leaves. Fall is exhilarating, inspiring, and also sexy: July always yields a birth boom in most city hospitals (I was pushing my first out in a supply closet as a result) because peeps get chilly then bizzay come the wind-whipped months. "Fall is exhilarating, inspiring, and also sexy..." But long before an interest in the new stylish threads emerged, I always loved that back-to-school feeling. Fresh school supplies, a new book bag, grade level and classroom are not a distant memory to me - they’re all a lovely hangover from the ghost of student past, in sync with my Jewish New Year experience as well. I'm not entirely great at sitting still in temple (in fact I am so into my Soulcycle class, I call it Spinagogue). That said, I crack out new duds, sit with my family and basically listen and think. My mind often obviously drifts to other places but in this insanely tumultuous chaotic world it's nice to press the pause button and feel that momentary beat between seasons. Rosh Hashanah is like the top of the roller coaster after slowly inching my way up through an interminable August. And then (deep breath!) we go speeding gleefully into fall, hitting the ground running in heels to meetings, dismissals, activities and parties. And I love it all. Maybe when winter’s sniffles start and I'm blizzard-weary I'll have a fleeting pang for summer's snail's pace. But knowing my ants-in-my-pants, sun-loathing vampire self, I highly doubt it. So tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 5774. "...a lovely hangover from the ghost of student past..." Jill Kargman is a writer based in New York City. Besides contributing to major publications such as Vogue, Elle and Travel + Leisure, she has also published several books. Her memoirSometimes I Feel Like a Nut was a National Bestseller and her latest is The Rock Star in Seat 3A.