my anchored life:

Well, it’s October….just a few days from Halloween as a matter of fact.  Typically this is my favorite time of year.  The air gets chilly and crisp.  The leaves begin to change colors.  I want to simmer cinnamon sticks and cloves on the stove and eat all the things containing apples and pumpkin.  I envision myself wrapped in my favorite hoodie–sleeves pulled down so far that only my fingertips are sticking out–with a warm drink in one hand and my legs curled up under a soft, comfy throw.

This year, however,  I’m not taking the onset of Fall very well.  Since I live in the land of perpetual summer,  I’m having a difficult time coming to grips with the fact that it will be at least three long years before I wear jeans and boots again.  I long to see the colors, smell the smells, and just feel…chilly.  After a solid month of pouting about not even feeling the slightest chill in the air,  I’ve decided it’s time to suck it up, get over myself, & embrace my new reality.

So I started racking my brain, trying to think of how I can incorporate some of this season into my new tropical lifestyle.  Tonight, I’m going change things up and share with you a special Top 5 list:

Top 5 Ways I’m Planning to Bring a Seriously Legit Fall to This Fall-Forsaken Island (or die trying).

1.)  I’m wholly committed to decorating all the things.  In the past week, we have decorated around here like  nobody’s business.  I have almost found a place for almost all of our fall decorations and then some.  There are reds, oranges, and burlap scattered all throughout my house. My husband is also slightly obsessed with Halloween.  (Remind me to tell you sometime about how we spent almost the entire first month of married life making tombstones out of wood and painting them so he could have the graveyard of his dreams ready by Halloween.  We spent many hours with saws, sandpaper, and paintbrushes.  To this day I remain convinced that the marriage fairies must have sprinkled me with an abundance of love dust. That is the only explanation for how I could have found those weeks sweet and endearing).  His love of decorating for this holiday has actually made it feel slightly more fall-ish around here.  And lest you think that the picture in this post shows ALL our decorations, let me clearly state that he also has a “walking” zombie, a bag of bones, and a gigantic fuzzy spider which will make their appearance on Halloween night.  Truthfully, I don’t even care that it looks like Halloween threw up on our front yard.  But I’ll never admit that to his face.

2.) I bought all the ingredients.  I have plans to make some killer pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pancakes, apple dumplings, pies, pots of chili, and hot cocoa.  If the weather cannot make me feel like my favorite season has arrived, then I will cook and bake and eat like it has.  Also, I will have to work out like it’s swimsuit season because….well….it is.

3.) SPORTS!!!!!!!!!  I love them.  I will watch all of them because nothing, screams fall to me like football and basketball.  I’m a bit of a fanatic.  I love everything about these sports–the competition, the last-second buzzer shots, the amazing one-handed catches, the rivalries, the smack talk, the hands-down victories, the sting of defeat, and the hopes & dreams of winning championships.  This is my absolute favorite time of year because the two sports overlap. There’s football on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Thursday and basketball games on in between.  It’s glorious.  If I cannot watch them I stream the audio from radio stations on my computer or phone.  As far as I’m concerned we can have two seasons: “Fall” and “the season without NFL & NBA.”  I’ll give you one guess which one makes me want to lay in my bed with the covers over my face and just wait for the season to change.

4.) Two words:  Hiking boots.  We moved them with us all the way from Alaska.  Every family member has a pair.  I do not care if they look dumb with shorts.  We will hike (now that it is no longer 97, 000° and 150% humidity every single day) all the trails and climb all the volcanoes and explore all the waterfalls that my little heart desires.  We will be outdoors because Fall is meant to be lived outdoors.  And if any of my people have anything negative to say about it, I may just leave them on the side of a volcano and come back for them when I’m done hiking.

5.) I plan to spend as much time as we can at the beach. This has nothing whatsoever to do with fall and may make some people hate me.  But try to remember that I am trying to embrace a tropical Fall.  I’m not the biggest beach bum in the world. Truth be told, I prefer swimming pools where animals do not swim, pee, sting, or try to eat me.  I would much rather ski down the side of a mountain (okay, FINE.  A bunny hill.  But a bunny hill that feels like a mountain to me) than swim in the ocean.  But I am here.  And if I’m going to make this place my home, I feel it is my solemn duty to chill on the beach while everyone else in the free world shovels their driveways.  What can I say?  “When in Hawaii,” right…???