FALL!

It's my favorite time of year! My favorite Holiday is Thanksgiving! I love the colors, the smell in the air, the comfort food and the fact that you can still be outside and enjoy the outdoors without being frozen in 60 seconds. I LOVE seasons, which is why I LOVE Ohio, but I prefer Winter inside with hot cocoa and a log on the fire and I prefer summer in the pool or inside with the air. I LOATHE mud so Spring has to lose top billing in my seasons list, but fall... AHHHHHHHH. PERFECTION!

And so as I begin to prepare for winter, I shall relish every spare moment during fall to prepare for gloomy days where hibernation sounds much better than going for a walk. I am making some small goals to myself, mostly in the areas of house work and meal preparation, but also in adding more activity to the kids' lives as well.

I want to do a leaf book with A1 for his preschool homework I give to him. When the leaves change, I plan to take a Saturday afternoon bundle everyone up and hit the trail at Teddy Bear Park collecting leaves. When we arrive home, I want to warm us all up with some chili for dinner. Over the week, depending on when Mother Nature touches the deciduous trees with her magic wand, A1and I will work on his "book" and I will have B and A2 make place mats.

I want to get all the outgrown coats out, washed and delivered to the Salvation Army with the kids in tow. They need to learn from doing.

I want to see when the Y has open swimming on Sundays so that we can attend and wear ourselves out since we can no longer play in our backyard pool. After Mass and lunch it would be a GREAT way to kill some time.

When the older boys were younger, we used to do Family Movie Night. While I am not a proponent of TV on school nights (I seriously do NOT allow it), this was something we all looked forward to. We would have a simple supper of soup and sandwiches, bathe early and dress for bed and then watch a family-friendly movie complete with popcorn. I'd like to go back to doing that.

I also want to make up a chore chart. That sounds like a no-brainer, like I should have had this done years ago. Before high school we had Friday night chores. After work, school and dinner, we would clean the house on Friday leaving the weekend free! I LOVED IT! What i want to do is FORCE myself and everyone else in this house to cleaning ONE ROOM a night. By Saturday it should all be done.

On Saturdays, I hope to be able to get over my fear of DIY. I have so many things that need to be done outside our home. Our shutters need to be cleaned and repainted. Our deck needs to be power washed and sealed. Our bushes need to be trimmed. Our flower beds need to be revamped and revised. Quikrete needs to be added to my front walk way. And even though my driveway is far gone, I'd like to go ahead and fill the cracks and seal it anyway. My downspouts and gutters need to be corrected and replaced. And I'd like to caulk all the windows outside before winter. After A2 bowls (and before) there is NO REASON for me not to get this done, with help from T and R.

HAH There, I set the bar for myself... let's see how far I go before I fall and have to kick my own behind AGAIN! :)