Sunday, November 11, 2007

pleasures of Fall...

Xander came over this week, took a look around, and said, "Judi, it's beginning to look a lot like Fall in your house!"

:) He is so right. This is my favorite time of year, and my house looks and (thanks to Pottery Barn's Autumn Spice candles) smells a lot like fall. Except for a leather chair in my gameroom, all of my furniture has slipcovers. I'm a big believer in slipcovers. The fire was an excellent reminder (whether I needed one or not) that stuff is just stuff, and as much as I enjoy my stuff (and I do), it must always come second to people. A well-lived life is messy, in many, many ways...thus, slipcovers...because when a glass of wine is spilled, a slipcover can just be peeled off and tossed into the washing machine, no big deal.

Xander and Katharine changed out the off-white denim slipcovers of summer for the brown velour of fall and winter for me this past week, with this result:

I love this time of year. The front yard is filled with leaves, and yesterday afternoon we tossed a frisbee around out there for a while. Xander will have the pleasure, as all of my kids did, of building leaf houses before those leaves are cleared away. It's 80 degrees today, but if the weather cooperates and turns cool (as I think it eventually must), soon it will be time for chili, served with crisp crackers, grated onion, shaved sharp cheddar, and dollops of sour cream; for steaming bowls of homemade onion soup with cheese and croutons; for James Beard's fragrant and delicious chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, served with slices of a crusty french baguette to soak up the the liquid...and this is the time of year for oysters on the half shell (I had some last week, and they were soooooooooooooooo good!) to say nothing of Thanksgiving...in just a couple of weeks, we'll have the pleasure of Mike's company again...life is good...

3 comments:

Lisa :-] said...

My DH was out in your neck of the woods a few weeks ago... He called me and said it was 11 pm and it was eighty degrees outside. Definitely not the crisp autumn weather I grew up with... ;) It barely gets that warm in summer here in Oregon...and never at night.

But...enjoy your autumn, anyway!

emmapeelDallas said...

Well, I'm ready for some crisp autumn weather...I don't like it this hot in November!

Erin Berger Guendelsberger said...

I love autumn, too! It's a great time of change & for change. I think of it as a new beginning even moreso than spring, probably because that's when the school year always started.

It snowed a bit in Ohio yesterday! Nothing stuck, just a little in the air. :-)