I do love the summer - going to the beach, feeling the warmth of the sun on my body, the way the sun doesn't set until eight o'clock, cookouts, a cold beer on a hot day, fireworks. Yes, I am a huge fan of summer. I try to take as much advantage as possible. I even got married in the dead heat of the summer, and it was fabulous. We even had one of those heat thunderstorms during the reception. You could see it out over the ocean from the veranda of the golf club we were married at. But summer is not my favorite time of year. No, my favorite time of year is fall.
You've been able to smell fall in the air all week in NE. It's still warm, hot even, during the day. But the nights now are blissfully cool. If you leave the windows open at night, you can feel a slight chill in the air that finds you burrowing a little deeper under the blankets. There's something about that cool fall air that's a sweet relief after a hot and humid summer. And it's cool enough that soon the mosquitoes will all be dead. I always look forward to that. Soon the leaves will be turning, and my half hour commute in a few more weeks will no longer be hellish trek around beach traffic, and in another month or so will be filled with the beauty of the foliage.
I enjoy the familiar rhythm of fall - the kids going back to school, cub scouts starting up again, homework in the evenings. And my favorite holiday (Halloween) is in the fall, not to mention my birthday. It's specifically September and October that are my favorite. Once we start to hit the beginning of winter in November, and all the stress of Thanksgiving and Christmas, that's when the joy kind of dies for me. That's when I start dreaming of spring again. It's all about holding on and keeping warm through December, January, February, and even March. Sometimes March is the absolute worst of them all. I prefer snow to the freezing rain of March. It's such a cold, dreary, dirty and dead month.
I actually just signed us up for a budget plan for our oil bill too. Getting hit with those $800 oil bills right around Christmas is enough to land me in Butler. So instead we'll be paying $350/month for ten months. Much more manageable, but still, that's $3500 a year in oil (it does include a maintenance plan, though). And some of our heat is actually electric. And I keep the thermostat set at 66 during the day and 62 at night. That's pretty darn expensive.
But enough about the stress and cold of winter. I don't have to worry about that yet. Well, I could, but damn it, I'm going to stop. Instead I'm going to go walk on the beach with my family and enjoy this glorious weather before it's gone.
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