Fall is in the air, fa la la la la! The white shoes are put away and the matches are sitting upon the mantel, just waiting for the weather to drop below 100 so we can lite the fireplace.  In the meantime, I will perk myself up by stopping by Starbucks and guzzling down a pumpkin spice frappe. September is that month when we really don’t know what to wear or what table decorations to use. It’s still hot to where we are needing to still wear our shorts and sandals, but because we know it is September, our minds automatically just think pumpkins and pies, fireplaces and lattes. It just seems weird to walk into Hobby Lobby to see if there is any new fall decorations that I just can’t live without in shorts and sandals. If it is like the past 60 years, I’m sure that there will be some that I just cannot walk away from. So to truly get in the spirit of Fall, I turn down the air conditioning in the house and car and get out a new fall outfit, stop and buy a Pumpkin Spice Frappe (since I cannot make myself drink anything hot until it is below 50) and head to see just what new shapes and colors of pumpkins they are selling this year.  Peter Pumpkin, (Randy’s name from Sept 1 through Thanksgiving), doesn’t know it yet, but I am thinking about having a pumpkin carved to look like him. I think he will be excited to see himself sitting right outside the front door, with “welcome ya’ll” carved at the top of his face. Things like this just get him so excited about the holidays. He will be thrilled to know that this is the weekend we go to storage to find all our fall treasures.

Last year, if you remember reading (Labor Day in Big Bear) it took us 3 trips to bring home all the treasures that are stored. We have since bought a little bigger car than the two seater, so hopefully we can make it in one trip.
This time last year, we were recovering from hiking down a mountain on Labor Day. Since that time, we have learned to go to Big Bear with “imaginary illness” that would not allow us such hideous activity and also “forgetting” the required shoes it takes to hike. Because of this new wisdom of ours, we actually did a little resting yesterday, instead of participating in something that would require knee surgery or a hip replacement, we sat and watched golf or read. We are learning. We are slow, and it takes us awhile, but we now know how to get out of things we don’t like to do. Lie and fake illnesses. Works every time.
In case you are wanting to drive your adult kids crazy (more than normal), do what we do. We record a really stupid message on our answering machine. It will keep them from calling so much, because they are afraid if we aren’t home, they will have to listen once again to…
“Hello, you have reached Peter and Penelope Pumpkin. Peter is hunting pumpkins and gourds and I’m shopping for s’mores, we’ll give you a call when we walk through the door”. Trust me on this, it will drive them crazy.