A Southern Girl Yearns for Fall

Fall is in the air!!! Fall is in the air??? What air are you breathing? I am currently breathing a hot, muggy, dense air here in sunny Florida! Yes, I love going to the beach (a real tan rocks but not the wrinkles and fear of skin cancer). Yes, I love the Gators (the ones who wear orange & blue on Saturdays and not the ones in the sewers). Yes, I love wearing shorts in winter (but not looking at Northern tourists' pasty legs in shorts in winter). While there are many, many things to love about Florida (I can see Cinderella's castle from my backyard), I still need that taste, that smell, that look, that feel of fall.

So what's a Southern girl to do? Normally, we pack the car or jump on a plane to go where the leaves are changing. This year we can't. We are taking a Thanksgiving pilgrimage (more details in a future blog and not relevant to this one!) so our traveling dollars are spent and our weekends are accounted for (darn work and those pesky Gators again!!). So we hit the grocery store! We hit Yankee Candle! We hit JoAnn's! And we jacked down the air-conditioning! So while the rest of Florida is dealing with frizzy hair and make-up running down their faces, inside my humble abode, Fall has arrived! It's not much but it will get me through! We've got a pumpkin (not real, remember this is Florida!!) sitting on some books, a beautiful fall floral arrangement on the dining room table, pictures up from vacations of Fall past and the smell of fall in all the rooms (thank you Yankee Candle for the Buy One/Get One coupon, you saved my marriage!)

So while I won't get to see Fall happening this year with my own eyes (when our Palm Trees's fronds "turn" and fall to the ground, it just doesn't have that same look/feel and could really put an eye out!), I will think of all our Northern friends taking hikes in the brisk air and having outdoor fires and I will wipe the condensation off my heavily air-conditioned windows, drink my apple cider (with ice) and relive the Fall season this year with my Mac screensaver! The real beauty about Fall is there is always next year!