pumpkins and pigskin.

it's finally fall.  you can't tell it's fall here in collegetown by the calendar. oh no. it only becomes fall teasingly, in two or three day spurts, usually on the weekends. 

but it's best when it's on a saturday. that's football day, and it's the best day for it to feel like fall.  a little bit of a bite in the air, jeans becoming a viable wardrobe option for standing in a stadium for three hours, the need to pull a sweatshirt out of the deep recesses of the closet because the wall of chill you hit outside the front door sends you scurrying back inside.

i do love fall.

i don't care what people say about spring--fall is the time when i want to clean and organize and set my world to rights.  the living room window is open in our little apartment, the texas-oklahoma game is on, and i'm waiting for the floors to dry after i swiffered them.  the sheets are already changed and the bed is made, the bedroom is much more in order, and the bathroom shortly will too.

[mopping is too much effort for me today, but i am not thrilled with the swiffer performance either, so mopping is definitely in my future.]

in the next hour, i'll do dishes and dust (which i never do) and straighten the house and vacuum and clean the counters and burn an apple-smelling candle and try to welcome this beautiful fall weather in whatever way i can before it leaves again.

i'll pull on my jeans, put on my game colors, and head out to spend the most beautiful saturday that i can remember in one of my favorite places on earth...with my favorite person.  we'll walk across campus to the stadium hand in hand, through throngs of tailgaters and fellow fans, and find our seats.  we'll watch the plays and listen to the band, full of people that musicboy knows, and cheer loudly for the team that we both love.

maybe on the way back we'll buy a pumpkin from the little pumpkin patch set up by the church down the street. by then it will be dark, and cold, and the weather will tell us it's time for tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.  i'll make sure to mark tuesday on my calendar, when they'll show "it's the great pumpkin, charlie brown" so that i can remember to actually watch it. 

maybe i'll make this delicious weather and beautiful time feel so at home that it won't leave so quickly.