Summer took her sweet time showing up in Seattle this year.  The same cannot be said for Fall.  FALL. IS. HERE.

While Summer was beautiful, her visit was {very} brief & interspersed with a deluge of days that didn’t look or feel much like Summer in the slightest.  I didn’t think I would be welcoming Fall with any enthusiasm at all.  But I am.  I’m ready.

Ready for a kaleidoscope of colors.  How do trees do that?  I want to do that – have a last, glorious “Hurrah!”, just before I get all crinkly & brittle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ready to hear the furnace “whoosh!” as it fires up when the temperature is down.

Ready for walks in the park – kicking up colorful leaves in the lazy, dappled sunlight on crisp, autumnal afternoons.

Ready to curl up on the couch on damp, chilly evenings with a favorite blanket, a pile of cats, a few good books, & a steaming mug of something tasty.  Oh, and a secret stash of deep, dark, rich chocolate.

Ready for the lawn-mowing to be over, so I don’t feel like a terrible neighbor because the lovely Trisha mowed my lawn before I remembered, yet again.

Ready for my annual pilgrimage to England to snuggle in bed & eat treats, early in the morning, with a gorgeous, tousle-headed blond 3-year-old named Charlie.  Ready for kippers at breakfast.  Ready for wooden train sets.  For Lego.  For lying on the floor.  And giggling.  High-fiving.  For sloppy, 3-year-old kisses & small, chubby hands holding mine.  For welly-wearing.  For jumping in muddy puddles.  For my sister-in-laws scrumptious fare.  I’m even ready to watch Bob the Builder – every day, even 3 times a day, for 2 weeks.  Can we build it?  Yes!  We!  Can!

Ready for delicious sweaters & toasty gloves.  For red noses & steamy breath.  For deserted beaches & frothy frenzies of sea-foam whipped up by the wind – all the while getting hair that I like to think resembles Kate Winslet’s as she stood on the end of the Titanic.

Ready for bowls of piping hot home-made soup, with chunks of baguette, slathered in butter, to dunk into them.

Ready for time indoors to think, and ponder, and write, and plan, and dream – wearing comfy sweats & fat, fluffy socks in colors that should only really be worn by people under the age of 7.

Ready for beets & parsnips & swedes (rutabagas).  Cauliflower, brussel sprouts & leeks.  Especially leeks.  Like outrageoulsy overgrown green onions, leeks sauteed in butter & finished with a splash of heavy cream will put my mouth in it’s happy place every single time.  Whatever the weather.

And…and I’m ready for Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate.  It’s the only time I’ll sidle into Starbucks.  Just once a year, or maybe twice.  Hot, sweet, salty, creamy.  I remember the very first one I had, in downtown Olympia, en route to a day’s shooting out on the Olympic Peninsula.  It was glorious.  I’ll never forget it.  And every year I relive that moment, although not usually in downtown Olympia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes.  I’m ready.

Fall, you are {most} welcome.