Fall Favorites

Fall Favorites

I love autumn.  It's (usually) one of the best seasons in North Carolina, long and beautiful with gorgeous keep-your-windows open weather and amazing color.  We've got the beauty this year, even if the weather is holding out on us and giving us overcast, cloudy days.  But there are still plenty of reasons to love the fall--and here's a list of my (somewhat shallow but true) favorites:

1.  Fall food. 

     I'm not talking fair food, although the State Fair is going on right now and judging by my FB feed, lots of my friends are indulging in fried oreos, giant turkey legs and barbecue sandwiches with Krispy Kreme buns.  (Ugh)  Nope, I'm talking good, homemade comfort food for when the nights start coming earlier and the temps dip down in the evening.  We had pot roast tonight.  And that is one meal that every one of my picky eaters love.  Soups, chili, casseroles--and the baking!  Fall puts me in the mood to bake.  We've already been through a couple batches of chocolate chip pumpkin muffins this year and a big batch of cookies this week.

2.  This is where the weather would usually go, but see above.

3.  Fall TV!  

    Here's where the shallow comes in, but I love veggin' out with a good TV series, and the fall season is always fun after the summer drought.  I'm digging Castle again, now that they are back in NYC.  I just enjoyed the finale of Project Runway last week.  I've recently discovered Face Off, which is fun.  We love The Big Bang Theory and I'm enjoying trying out some new shows to see if they stick--still up in the air about Sleepy Hollow, but I'm hooked on Orange is the New Black.

4.  Fall clothes. 

    Am I the only one who loves to dig out the long sleeves, the yoga pants and the soft cashmere sweaters after shorts weather?  I love switching seasons in clothes..it's like a whole new beloved wardrobe every few months.

5.  Costumes

     We are a costume family and Halloween is the perfect excuse to go gangbusters!   The kids and I have been working on our costumes and having a grand time.

So there you have my faves!  Will you share yours?  What's your favorite fall food?  Do you love yoga pants?  Costumes?  The hot guy who plays Ichabod Crane?  Spill, please!  

Originally posted at Lady Scribes

One of Those Days

I'm writing this at the end of a very long day--one of THOSE days.

I used to have those days all the time when the kids were little.  The days when you never got a shower because one spilled bottle of hair spray somehow led to the next kid digging ashes out of the woodstove and spreading them across the carpet.  (Yes, that really happened!)

Today I started out already behind, with more to do than I could possibly get done.  I had a writing goal that I got mostly done.  I did get briefly distracted by a Twitter discussion of the new Castle premier, but the real reason I didn't completely finish was because I had a lightbulb moment about one of my characters that I had to get down. A good distraction!

But then came the forgotten paper that must be emailed to school right away, the after-schoolI"m starving hours, the pages of college applications that must be discussed and dissected before they are entered, the missing work shirt, the discussion of how best to model a brain for school (I lost--one of the old bike helmets has been sacrificed in lieu of modeling clay) and the crap-I'm-missing-an-ingredient-in-the-middle-of-getting-dinner-ready moment.

Poor Valiant Husband got sent out to fetch vital ingredients and brain parts, I got to do the dishes, fold the laundry and figure out why new episodes of Adventure Time are not getting recorded as scheduled.

But it's all good.  I love my kids and my career, even if they do butt heads most days.  I'm NOT wishing my days or my kids away, so please no one lecture me.  I don't have time to listen.  I have to go post this blog and finish my words for the day.  And then I'm going to take a shower.

And tonight, I might consider squeezing in a coconutty girlie drink before bed.

What about you?  Do you have THOSE days?  Do you have dueling parts of your life?  What do you do to handle it?

*Originally posted on the Lady Scribes blog