Five Fall Favs

 

Thank you, Shaunacey at confessionsofafrumpymommy.com for adding me to her Lifestyle Sistas linkup. I am such a novice at this blogging business but learning as I go by emulating the blogs of my virtual friends.

The Lifestyle Sistas posted their five favorite things about fall on October 3 so I am a little off schedule but have been busy working - ha, working!!! - now that I am retired!!! And flying to Ft. Worth for an opportunity to babysit my granddaughter Cady. So, here are my Five Fall Favs…a week late.

1. Sleeping with the balcony door open. This activity is not limited to the fall season but can also be enjoyed in the spring. Having the door open makes for such great sleeping. There is almost always a breeze blowing in from the southwest at night. Our neighborhood is relatively quiet, especially on weekend mornings and having the door open is heavenly.
2. Enjoying FINALLY, ONCE AGAIN my pumpkin/cinnamon/clove-scented candles, wax tarts and plugin oils. It just doesn’t seem right to fill my house in June with the smells I associate with fall. But beginning September 1 each year, I break out the pumpkin fragrances and my house smells like a bakery (without the calories) until well into winter.
3. Trying new crock pot soup recipes and making old favorites. I love soup and chili. There is something that I find comforting and nurturing about the thought of a pot of soup simmering in my kitchen. Soup served up with a warm slab of homemade bread. Chili and slightly sweet cornbread. “Mmm, mmm, good” to coin a phrase. When I was working, I would always do a series of lessons in the fall about folktales with my second graders. We would read different versions of Stone Soup, beginning with the traditional story retold by Marcia Brown. We would read Bone Soup by Cambria Evans and Fandango Stew by David Davis. We would talk about the moral of the story and I would tie that theme to the Pilgrim’s first Thanksgiving in Plymouth. And then, as a culminating activity, we would make stone soup. Which was actually a taco soup recipe that I modified in order to make enough for 120 of my closest seven-year-old friends. It was one of my favorite activities. And one year, my dear sweet Daddy even joined in the fun by writing Pedro’s Stone Soup, his own version of the Stone Soup folktale. Click here to see pictures from my library days and to listen to my father’s story.
4. Soaking in our hot tub with the chill of autumn in the air. We get a lot of year-round use out of our hot tub. In the winter, it is fun to feel the frosty air swirling about our heads while the rest of us is immersed in bubbling hot water. In the spring, as Paul begins warming up for baseball season, we will soak away his aches after an afternoon practice. In the summer, we will climb in with our Nooks and glasses of wine to sit under the stars and unwind. But the fall is the most perfect time of the year for enjoying the warm waters of our spa. Not too hot, not too cold…just right!
5. Celebrating favorite holidays. I have always liked fall holidays best. When my daughters were growing up, each Halloween we tried to come up with more creative costumes than in years past. I would often dress in plaid flannel, baggy blue jeans and black boots and read stories about scarecrows in the library. In fact, I dressed as a scarecrow to audition for the televised reading show I hosted for ten years. When we moved to El Paso, I was introduced to the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos at Jefferson High School, where I worked as the assistant librarian. La Jeff, as it is affectionately nicknamed by some of the alums, is situated not far from downtown and the Segundo Barrio, Chihuahita and the Mexican border. Many of the students there are recent immigrants to our country whose families embrace their rich native culture. When I moved to a library position farther away from the border, I realized the Mexican-American children I worked with had lost touch with the Dia de los Muertos traditions and I began teaching lessons to these children about their own culture. I had an altar in my library for this holiday for over ten years. The altar celebrated the all-too-short life of my nephew Andrew who, at the age of three, lost his battle with Wilm’s Tumor. The last few years, I also celebrated my father’s life on the same altar. You can read more about this celebration on my former library website http://hrmoyelibrary.weebly.com/2012-2013-school-year.html . And of course there is Thanksgiving…family and food, what’s not to love?