Right Around the Corner

I love this time of year.

More specifically, I love the fall.

I love when the weather turns crisp at night, and the sky is a sharp shade of blue unmatched during any other time of year. Kids are back in school, waiting for the bus in the morning, with backpacks and lunch boxes in tow. I always looked forward to the first day of school. It was an event I never dreaded. In fact, I saw it as an opportunity - new clothes to wear, new Keds to break in, a new backpack filled with mechanical pencils, erasers, folders, notebooks and other goodies. Fall was just the beginning.

Spring may hold claim to new beginnings and rebirth, but I've always seen fall as a beginning as well (old school routines die hard I suppose). Falls brings with it a return to routine, to school, to football games and tailgate parties, yard sales on the weekend and pulling out the sweaters from the back of the closet. Fall means the end of a long, hot summer, and is the predecessor to the holiday season (another favorite time of year). Weekends are filled with raking leaves and putting extra blankets on the bed. Pumpkin pies are baked. Fireplaces are lit. Football games are watched.

I absolutely love this time of year.

So we wait out the final 90 degree days in North Carolina during September. We longingly look at our sweaters and hope for a crisp morning. We drink our steaming cups of coffee in the morning and anxiously await for the days when we need it to warm up, and not just for it's caffeine content.

Fall is right around the corner, and I for one cannot wait to welcome it to North Carolina.