Tag Archives: Leaves

Bucket List Ideas for Fall Fun

Fall is my favorite season. In my opinion, the weather is perfect … warm, sunny afternoons and cool, crisp evenings. I think it’s the best season for outdoor activities. There are some activities that are occasional for me, but others, like the Pumpkin Spice Latte I’m sipping as I write, are seasonal musts 🙂

Here is a list of some of my favorite (both past & present) Fall activities:

Take a long walk in the woods admiring all the beautiful foliage
Go apple picking; make sure to enjoy an apple cider donut with a cup of hot apple cider 🙂
Have a bonfire with all your friends
Navigate a tricky corn maze
Go to your local high school homecoming football game … amazing ambience
Go to a pumpkin farm and choose the absolute best pumpkin … don’t settle for less 🙂
Go on a hayride
Visit some of the many outdoor fall craft fairs
Go to a haunted house
Have your friends over for a leaf raking party … have fun jumping in the huge piles before bagging them
Bake an apple and/or pumpkin pie … yumm, plus your whole house smells wonderful

I hope some of these ideas inspire you to get working on whatever is on our Fall Fun Bucket List. Do you have a favorite activity that I missed? Please share the fun 🙂

I Love Autumn Camping

Autumn is my favorite time of year to go camping. I’ve always enjoyed camping, but I enjoy it even more now that the kids are grown. Now that it’s just me and my hubby, aka – couple camping, we plan one long weekend each month, May – October. Each month has its own charm, but I really love going in September & October.

One of my favorite things about autumn camping is the weather … not too hot, not too cold. As long as it is sunny, it doesn’t matter to me how chilly the temperature gets. I always dress in layers of clothes, so it’s easy to take one off or put another one on. Another plus to autumn camping is hardly any bugs … sometimes the bees are bad, but they only seem to bother you when there is food out. Continue reading →

10 of My Favorite Fall Activities

It’s Fall … or do you call it Autumn ? Either way, it’s my favorite season !

While I do like summer, heat and humidity are not my friends. I think what I like the most about summer is the longer hours of daylight and the relaxed, more laid back schedule.

I really enjoy Fall weather … warm, sunny afternoons with crisp, cool mornings and evenings. To me, Fall weather is perfect for outdoor festivals and activities.

Here are some of my favorite things to do:

1) Walking or driving through a wooded area (like a state park or forest preserve) to see the magnificent colors of the changing leaves.

2) Going apple picking at a local orchard. I love picking an assortment of varieties ~ they all taste so good. Speaking of tasting good, many orchards have bakery goods for sale … apple cider donuts … Yum 🙂

3) Going to a football game ~ NFL or a local college (more budget friendly and, I think more fun). The atmosphere is fun and exciting … and tailgating is so much fun.

4) Visit a pumpkin farm … most of them have fun activities like hayrides and corn mazes, besides picking out the very best pumpkin for Halloween.

5) Spending an evening sitting around a fire toasting marshmallows and sipping hot apple cider.

6) The weather is usually great for going to an outdoor Arts & Crafts show … I’ve been known to start picking up some Christmas gifts at these shows.

7) The cooler weather calls for comfort foods and freshly baked goodies … I just love anything made from pumpkin or apple cinnamon 🙂

8) Spending the afternoon raking all the leaves into piles with your family and friends and then jumping into them … then doing it again and again.

9) Fall Festivals are fun because it gives you one last opportunity for taste all the “fried everything” festival type food and ride some carnival rides before the snow blows and we have the long wait til next summer.

10) Handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters on Halloween … especially to the little ones … they’re just soo cute 🙂

What is your favorite thing about Fall ?

Outdoor Spring Cleaning in the Yard and Garden

Spring has finally sprung … well not quite, but it is trying 🙂 I can at least say all the piles of snow have melted. We had one nice sunny, warmish day last week. My husband and I took advantage of it to start the process of getting the yard tidied up a little.

Chicago endured a long and harsh winter this year … the high winds and 5+ feet of snowfall really took its toll on our yard. When it finally warmed up enough to be outdoors for a couple of hours, we found that the wind had tried to blow down a section of our fence … it didn’t succeed entirely, but it is leaning at a precarious angle. Repairing that is at the top of our to-do list when the ground is more thawed. After walking around and sizing everything up, we realized that we were quite blessed by only having to repair the fence.

Living on a corner lot, we’ve come to understand that our house is kind of like a windbreak. During severe storms, you can almost feel the wind howling all around us. All that wind blows a lot of debris and litter into our yard. We filled a whole outdoor trashcan with what we picked up.

I went around picking up lots of branches that had been broken off during the cold, hard winter. Lets just say we have plenty of kindling for whenever we want enjoy a fire in our fire pit. We also were reminded that we didn’t have time to get all the leaves raked up last fall before the snow came. With 6 trees on our property, raking leaves is like a full time job in autumn. After the litter was cleaned up, we thought that if we were to take a picture of the front yard it would be actually hard to tell if it was autumn or spring. We got to work and filled several bags with leaves.

The best part of that afternoon (besides enjoying some fresh air and feeling a sense of accomplishment) was finding little signs of life peeking out of the ground. If my memory of their locations serves me, we have seen signs of life from the Crocus, the Daffodils, the Hyacinths and the Tulips. Soon we will be able to start turning over and preparing the soil in the garden area. I plan to start my vegetable seedlings indoors this weekend.

Welcome Spring … we’ve been waiting for you 🙂

Tracy Helps You’s Thankful Thoughts for Today ~ 11-18-13

November 18 ~ Today I am thankful for changing seasons. I’m blessed to live in an area of the country where the seasons actually change. The weather in the Chicagoland area often gets a bad rap. It seems we have every extreme known to mankind (slight exaggeration … maybe). From hot & humid to frostbite below zero wind-chill temps … from drought, Smokey the Bear warnings dry to flash flooding … and throw tornadoes and blizzards into the mix and well, you get a pretty good picture 🙂

Along with the multitude of weather scenarios, we get all four seasons. Fall is my favorite … I just love the gorgeous color of the leaves, and pretty much anything pumpkin flavored 🙂 I count it a blessing to live in an area where we get to experience the change with each season.

♥ Today I am thankful for changing seasons ♥

Tracy Helps You’s Thankful Thoughts for Today ~ 11-10-13

November 10 ~ Today I am thankful for weekend getaways. I think it is so fun to escape from everyday life for a couple of days. It doesn’t have to be far from home. I just like to get a little break from the normal day to day routine.

This weekend, we are having a romantic weekend getaway to celebrate our anniversary. We have reserved a cozy little log cabin out near the Rock River. The weather is supposed to be dry and sunny, but pretty cool. We will bundle up and take a long walk along the river; hopefully there will still be some beautiful leaves on the trees. Then we can warm up by the fireplace 🙂

♥ Today I am thankful for weekend getaways ♥

photo by: bterrycompton

Tracy Helps You’s Thankful Thoughts for Today ~ 11-3-13

November 3 ~ Spring forward … Fall behind … Did you remember to turn your clocks back an hour??

Today I am thankful for an extra hour of sleep 🙂

Sadly, I’ve entered an age of life where I can trick my mind into believing I get an extra hour of sleep, but unfortunately, my bladder didn’t get the memo. I am however thankful that the sun was shining when I woke up this morning. I was tiring of the overcast, rainy weather Chicago has had for the last several days. Since I gained an extra hour, I will spend it enjoying some free time. Today, I’d like to take a nice long walk in a forest preserve with my aunt. We both love the colors of autumn and hope to get lots of pictures capturing the wonderful spectrum of colors of the changing leaves. So many of the tree varieties are simply glorious in the sunshine.

♥ Today I will focus on enjoying some free time ♥

photo by: Alan Cleaver

Autumn / Fall Decorating ~ Halloween or Thanksgiving ?

It’s Fall ~ I just love Autumn ! The past week or so has been gorgeous weather in the Chicago area … warm sunny days in the low 70’s and cool crisp evenings in the low 60’s — Everywhere you go, you see apples and pumpkins … it’s so fun spending an afternoon apple picking; enjoying the activities at a local pumpkin farm; or going for a hayride. I love laid-back evenings just sitting by a relaxing bonfire sipping hot apple cider 🙂

I also love the autumn color palette; so many shades of gold, orange, rust, red and brown. The garden centers and pumpkin farms are stocked with harvest inspired decorations.

Do you decorate in the fall?? Indoors or out?? Do you decorate for Halloween or Thanksgiving or both?? Continue reading →

photo by: jmd41280

Five Favorite Things About Fall

FALL FOLIAGE ~ the beautiful colors of the leaves never fails to awe me. I love all the hues of the autumn color palette, from the golden yellows to the burnt oranges to the deepest maroons.
PUMPKIN ~ everything … pumpkin bread, pumpkin spiced lattes, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkins seeds, pumpkin scented candles … btw, did I mention that I love pumpkin ??
WEATHER ~ warm sunny days; crisp cool evenings; low humidity … what’s not to love ? Sadly, my sinuses aren’t huge fans of the change of seasons, but the rest of me loves the Fall.
FIRE ~ I love sitting around a fire enjoying a warm (or warming) beverage and having long talks while gazing into the mesmerizing flames. I love when the wood pops and sends up sparks; I love the scent of the burning logs … I also love the smell of burning leaves (although it’s not allowed in my area)
COMFORT FOOD ~ the change of seasons brings a change of meals at our house. The coolness gets me craving baked goods warm from the oven and big pots of soup with warm crusty bread. I love serving hearty dishes like beef stew and chili. Many thanks to http://www.manylittleblessings.com & http://www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com/ for co-hosting List It Tuesday / Top Ten Tuesday 🙂