You knew it was coming after the Summer Fun List recap…
I love living somewhere with four seasons. Winter is an acquired taste, and spring feels like winter for quite a while, but fall is often lovely. There are summery days but cooler mornings and nights. Then, in late October, all the overgrown greenery turns bright yellow, orange, and red and the world is just extravagantly colorful. I’m also a big fan of fall flowers: Sunflowers, asters, zinnias, mums. There’s something so unexpectedly beautiful about blue asters or violet zinnias against the red/orange/yellow scheme of fall.
Of course, while fall is beautiful it is also fleeting. By mid-November, the leaves will be on the ground, leaving just the silhouettes of trees — visible for vanishingly few hours of the day as the sun sets by 5 p.m.
So…with that somewhat dreary thought in mind, here are a few things I want to do to really enjoy autumn while I can.
Visit New England…twice! I’ll go to Maine in early October for work. Then in later October my husband and I are going to a destination half-marathon. In both cases, the leaves should be about at peak. My running time may be atrocious if I’m constantly pausing to take photos of leaves! Of course, given the half marathon, I plan to…
Run long. Now is the time to be doing it, with the temperatures in a range that makes miles feel good. I hope to scope out a few new places to run (like within a 5-10 minute drive) as my neighborhood is non-ideal in some ways.
Bike. At least solo, but hopefully as a family at some point since we bought the extra bike.
Hike. Also, at least one longer walk in the fall leaves.
Visit a botanical garden. Possibly Chanticleer or Longwood, or both. People think of going to gardens in the spring, but professional gardeners can really make the fall flowers shine, and with the trees being colorful the visuals should be even more spectacular. I also want to do a picnic at Stoneleigh, given that it’s not that far from my house, and is free and open to the public during the day.
Go apple picking. We need to get on this as the kinds of apples I like (like Honeycrisp) tend to be best now, rather than during the usual October/Fall Fest times. I feel like apple cider donuts should also be involved.
Watch a football game. Probably just on TV, though other members of my family will be going to some live.
Take family photos. We’re actually doing this in a studio in late September, so it won’t be autumnal themed, but it’s something I like to do in fall so we have photos available for our Christmas cards. Doing this will not be “fun,” but I want to have done it. So, onto the fall fun list it goes.
Enjoy BLP Live! I’m headed to Ft. Lauderdale in November, and co-hosting this year as lots of us plan 2025 together. I’m looking forward to yoga on the beach.
Listen to Vivaldi’s “Autumn” part of the Four Seasons. Also, I will write some autumn-themed sonnets.
In other news: A little content round-up for the week….Over at Vanderhacks (my Substack newsletter) my piece behind the paywall was “Laura’s list of easy thrills” — 31 quick, cheap ways to add joy to your life. One of the freebies was to “Build a time emergency fund.” If you enjoy this blog you’ll probably enjoy the newsletter as well, so please consider a (free or paid) subscription.
Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community we’ve been discussing managing household employees’ time, how we’ve spent anniversaries (I celebrated my 20th wedding anniversary this week), and task management tools. Membership is $9/month, which gets you access to the discussion forum and monthly Zoom meet-ups (always recorded for folks who can’t make it).
The Before Breakfast podcast covered “How to keep your summer spirit,” and I recommended that you “Don’t decorate with cereal boxes.” Basically, anything someone can see is part of the decor, even if you don’t always see it!
I love that you make these seasonal fun lists, Laura, and I often get ideas from what you write down.
This year I have elected to go “goalless” and I’m doing fewer and fewer lists, so I’ll live vicariously through your list this time (knowing we’ll naturally do plenty of fun things; fall is my absolute favourite time of year), but I think it would be a fun New Year’s exercise to brainstorm a list of fun things for each of the seasons. I’m going to jot that idea down in my planner as a prompt for future me. My “Fun Framework” so to speak.
@Elisabeth – oh, I’ve definitely had some goal-less seasons. I’m taking two trips this fall anyway that will involve cool scenery so if nothing else happens, it’s all good. But we shall see!
I’m still plugging away on my Summer Fun list for two+ weeks, I do have my Fall (Frolicking) Fun list ready to go. It includes:
four days in Door County (which didn’t happen in summer for the first time in a long time) & it will be peak leaf season when we’re there
eating dinner on the patio while it’s warm enough (enjoy the patio in general!)
making a fire
hiking at a state park
day trip to a local port city
Day of the Dead celebration (at a cemetery too…)
this will all be fit in around the watching of Green Bay Packers games
I too love the fall flowers. I have one more botanical garden to visit this year, and that’s scheduled to happen Sept. 14. And after a summer void of patio flowers at my place (long story), I finally have a plethora of pots with luscious colorful blooms on display, so that may become my own private botanical garden for fall. 🙂
I’m salivating over the thought of apple cider donuts. Would love to hear about Chanticleer and Stomeleigh if you go. I have not been to either one and live in the Philadelphia area. Here is my list:
1. Attend the Chicago Seminars, which is a points and miles based conference. Travel hacking actually got us around the world this year, but there are always opportunities to learn more.
2, Attend a milestone high school reunion. I wasn’t that excited about going, because there has been a lot of Facebook….political divisiveness among my classmates which is super annoying, My best friend from my class just told me that 2 of our other close high school friends are attending, so I’m excited that we’ll be together again.
3. Figure out what to do with the about-to-graduate-from college son of Japanese friends who will be visiting us in November. I was worried about food preferences, but he wants cereal for breakfast, hamburgers and “all the American foods” for lunch and dinner, so I think we’ll be fine.
4. Spend time at our timeshare in Marco Island Florida, in part with our daughter and her West Coast boyfriend.
5. Pick apples and get some apple cider donuts.
6. Try out some new easy recipes, as I am in a rut.
7. Get into a rhythm of reading for an hour of a physical book and an hour of an e-book on nights when I am home and am not watching tv with my husband.
8. Go to a local trivia night. I’ve found that I’m decent at trivia, so it’s worth a try.
9. Continue working on decluttering, To my horror, I counted no less than 21 kitchen towels that were ready to be donated today. I donated them, and still have some left.
10. Use up the last of our summer produce. It was a crappy season, but my mesclun lettuce is growing like gangbusters, and we will still have tomatoes, peppers and beets to enjoy. Zinnias to admire too!
Fall is my favorite time of year! This year, I’m going to focus on Four for Fall Fun.
1. It’s the best time of year for horseback riding on trails. So, riding as much as I can to take in the fall foliage is at the top of my list.
2. Visit my favorite pumpkin patch and corn maze with my grandsons and carve our pumpkins afterward.
3. Watch some football, go to a Steelers game, and enjoy a visit to Pittsburgh.
4. Enjoy a campfire or bonfire with friends (at least once!).
I can’t wait to savor these special moments and all the others fall will bring!