Harvest Season

My husband is a huge fan of winter - from colder weather to Christmas to snow. For him, every cooler night is yet another reason to celebrate autumn, if only as a bringer of winter. Me? Not so much. I'll skip the cold weather, skip most of the snow, and I'd like Christmas to stay put nicely between December 1 and December 25 thankyouverymuch.

I'm a fan of growth and flowers and sunlight, so autumn is a sad time for me. I hate that it's already dark every night by 7:30. I hate knowing that in a blink of an eye it'll be completely dark by 5. I hate knowing the leaves are going to change color and fall. I hate watching the plants prepare to die, or hibernate, or put all their energy into the next generation/spring.

But 'Harvest' - that I can make a happier time. After all, Thanksgiving is my favorite major holiday. And without Harvest, we wouldn't have much of a Thanksgiving. Or much to keep us fed throughout the winter months to come.

So instead of dwelling on the things I'll miss for the next few months, I'm trying to turn my attention to the things I do like about Harvest Season. Things like days that (usually) aren't 100 degrees. Sweaters. Boots. Legwarmers. Fingerless gloves. And yes, like just about everyone else, pumpkin flavors coming back.

Last weekend I made my first batch of the season of three ingredient pumpkin cookies: 1 can pure pumpkin, 1 box spice cake mix, chocolate chips as needed. Mix. Drop spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 8-13 minutes (depending on size of spoonfuls). Allow to cool slightly. The guys said they tasted like the best part of pumpkin pie. The whole batch was gone in less than an hour.

I haven't bought candles all summer - but I recently got sucked into Bath & Body Works and came out with these two scents: Pumpkin Caramel Latte and Bonfire Maplewood. Those certainly have me appreciating the cooler weather a bit more. (Also, meet my favorite mug ever. All I know is I got it at Target on clearance. Such happy things happen there.)

I went to the store for milk and grapes. I came out with milk, grapes, and these Pumpkin Spice Hershey's Kisses. I haven't tried them yet. I'm saving them for a couple recipes I've been eyeing.

I swapped from red/white/blue stars to sunflowers for August - and now that it's September I talked myself in to adding the colorful leaf clings as well. I'm still not ready to see leaves that color outside, but it's been a nice chance of pace to have so much color at the door.

Last night called for burning candles once again. Our house doesn't have much in the way of insulation, so even a single candle can make a huge temperature difference. Between that and the constantly running swamp cooler, we rarely burn anything between March and September. But the moment the swamp cooler gets turned off, and the house starts to smell like two people, a cat, and all the dust from the three dirt roads and numerous farms near us mixed together (or in the case of yesterday, burning used hay), it's time to start scenting the house again. And yes, it also helps warm the room - more than I would have guessed before moving here.

But even with my Harvest decor coming out of storage, and the occasional candle getting some burn time, and pictures of newly fallen mountain snow surfacing, I still plan to hold to summer as long as I can.