getting cozy ...

Fall comes slowly to the desert. So slowly. We look for signs everywhere. Instead of people talking about the heat (today is going to be a record), we start talking about the early mornings (“Wasn’t it just the perfect morning to get out in the garden?”) and evenings (“We sat outside and watched the eclipse under the perfect sky and a hint of fall in the air.”) This time of year, we try not to talk about the hours in between.

If you look hard, enough there are other signs that it is coming. The hackberry, that usually is a nondescript desert scrub of a bush, gets little orange berries that the birds, butterflies and even humans enjoy, if put in a green vase.

The roses start to bloom again. My tortoises are eating as much as they can to get ready for hibernation. Our lemons are starting to get closer to yellow than green.

With so little of fall outside, we bring it in, where the air conditioning is still running. It's is time for making the house cozy.

We buy pumpkins. I had already gotten some but WB found some with wonderful stems last night and brought them home to me. Better than a bouquet of flowers. Orange ones, baby boos, white ones, green ones, blue ones - I love them all.

I change the quilts on the bed.
This old one is my favorite that sits atop my grandparents’ bed.

I bring out the throws.

I have a favorite made by a dear friend, some vintage Pendleton blankets and I can't stop looking at this one from Parachute, a luxury bedding company. It would be perfect with my newly painted gray walls.





I cut eucalyptus branches. I bring out the candles that smell of the woods or a fire in the fireplace. I listen to James Taylor’s October Road. I have gourds in bowls. I start drinking hot tea again. I dream of nights in front of the fire with a bowl of soup, the family gathered around our table and our traditional October picnic in the mountains.

It’s coming. It will be here soon. I just know it.