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Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits. ~ Samuel Butler

We’re on the downward slope of July. August will be here before you know it. Mom always said once you hit Independence Day, summer seems to just fly by. That’s been especially true this year. And, so, every year, round about this time, I start daydreaming about fall and the cooler, drier air that comes – blissfully, beautifully, serenely – as we venture into the loveliest months of the year, back-to-school September and the crown jewel, October.

Today, our dewpoints are firmly entrenched in the mid-70s, well into the ‘miserable’ range. Outdoor tasks, I do them quickly, eager to return to the chilling balm of air conditioning. This afternoon, I turned on my TV, navigated to YouTube and enjoyed a hint of fall by way of autumn asmr ‘ambience’ videos. Soothing rain, pumpkins, haystacks, crackling fireplaces, cozy sits with a steaming mug of yummy goodness, a colorful throw and lighted candles in every corner and on every shelf.

Looking a bit further down the road, I know there will be a multitude of Halloween asmr’s to make me shiver and put a creepy, comfy smile on my face. Truly, I cannot wait!

It’s still summer though and we just have to deal with all that glorious sunshine and her attending heat and humidity. We have plenty of time for boating fun, wineries, live music, riding bikes, margaritas out on the deck and, one of my favorites, the sound of cicadas turning our Chanticleer pear tree into a living, breathing network of buzzing castanets.

There are two kinds of people here in the Midwest, those who appreciate all four seasons (some more than others, like me!) and those who grumble about autumn’s approach because of ‘what comes next’. I love the change of scenery throughout the seasons and prefer to view the cyclical changes year in, year out with a more positive frame of mind.

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Per my weather app, 2.4″ of the lovely white stuff has descended upon us in the last six hours with an additional accumulation of three to four inches in the next twenty-four.

We’ve been living in a November landscape all winter. There were two minor snowfalls in December, I believe, but they didn’t last long, melted quickly, leaving us with nothing to look at outside our windows but a dull, dreary, brown terrain. More snow is forecast later this week and early the next.

We need the precipitation and I’m so happy it’s come at last!

Photos aren’t the best but, well, you get the picture…

😎

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The holiday hoopla is over and done. All fine and well and good. It’s a New Year. We’re moving on. Already, resolutions made and broken. Such is life.

And now, the COLD spell begins. I saw a headline in my Google feed this morning containing those dreaded, winter-month words, polar vortex. Yikes! I remember well, those frigid days and weeks, from just a few years back.

Ah, well. Bring it on, I say. We’re Iowans, Midwesterners. We can handle a few frozen temperatures. We’ve got Netflix and Hulu and Apple + TV. There are LOADS of books on our shelves and downloaded to our Kindles (and we know where to get more). There’s the Internet! Streaming! Painting tutorials: watercolors, Bob Ross, acrylics! We’ve got quilting, reorganizing, Sudoku, baking bread, crock-pot lasagna. Take-out, for crying out loud.

Knife sharpening!

The miraculous wonders of YouTube….

Yeah, we’ll manage alright. That doesn’t mean we have to like it.