Don't You Just Love Autumn?

Don't you just love fall?  When the air is cooler and the leaves are turning into beautiful reds, oranges, yellows and browns?  The air smells of decaying leaves...  why is it that this should smell so GOOD??  Fall Mums and pumpkins and gourds and hay bales.  There's no other season that brings such happy feelings and  yet regrets to me.  When fall arrives, I suddenly realize that winter isn't far behind!  But then I think of November and Thanksgiving and then Christmas just four weeks later!

Today my dear husband got up and decided he was going to do some work in our yard, now that the weather is cooler.  There is much to be done!  My back prevents me from doing much yard work anymore, so I decided to do some work on my novel today instead.  (I still have far to go on it before it will be finished.) 

There is one thing I don't like about fall though and that is that now, we will soon be facing the daylight savings time change and our daylight hours will be shorter.  I love the longer days of summer and wish we could have more daylight all year long.  But then I guess we wouldn't feel that need to "snuggle-in" as we do when it begins getting dark earlier.

The above picture was taken several years ago when my Mom carved a pumpkin.  I still remember when we were all at home as kids and my Mother entered a pumpkin-carving contest.  She made the most beautiful pumpkin into a Cinderella Coach with horsemen and a Barbie-turned-Cinderella. She won first prize!!  Then one of the kids at the judging booth lifted it up and dropped it and crashed it into a hundred pieces.  I sure am glad she got some pictures of that before it happened! 

Well....  Fall.  My favorite season!  "Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes" --  and a good book.  Life is good!               

Spontaneity

My husband and I really need to take a few days and just get away!

Did you ever get that feeling that you just really wished you could go away somewhere in seclusion, hide away from phones and work and just take your Bible and some good books and tuck yourself away in a nice, serene surrounding and just have quiet... seek God's face and insight into His Word and read? I have so many good books I've been given recently that I really want desperately to get alone and read! I've talked to Hubby and we've agreed to at least take 2 days and go somewhere and tuck ourselves away for this very purpose! Yay! We probably won't be able to go tomorrow, but since it's a long weekend, we're planning on going on Friday and staying at least until Sunday somewhere. I want to go to the Smokies and stay in a chalet but at this late date, I'm not sure that will be possible as there are probably 9 million other people with the same idea! We should have planned better! But you know, when you're working and working and then all of a sudden it just BUILDS and you know you need to go or lose your sanity!! You have to do it! Spontaneously!



I go through this from time to time; this feeling of just "having to" get away for a day or two! Away from the routine and busyness and phones! I think the main problem is a longing for God; a starvation if you will. Needing to have that time with God alone and not getting it enough because of the very busyness of certain times of the year. You get up in the morning and there is so much to do that you rush to get showered and dressed and then right to the computer to start in! Ooops.... the day is over and you realize you didn't spend time with the Lord! you can go on like that for so long before you start to get deficient like a body trying to continue on without food or vitamins or fuel to operate on. Sigh.

I need some time in the woods... to hear Nature.... see the sun streaming through the trees and hear the sighing of the wind.... smell the dampness of a forest floor and hear a rippling brook singing as the water flows over the smooth rocks... see a doe come silently out of the trees and stop and look around, frozen, smelling the air to see if it's safe....... yes, I need this!

Time alone with God in His creation and with His Word.