It's Fall, Y'all!

Fall arrived Saturday and I was more than ready for the seasonal change! The first day of fall is also my wedding anniversary, and Hubby and I celebrated a dozen years of married life on Saturday with a trip to a not-close mall and dinner at P.F. Changs. It was a change of pace for us, as we usually go to a small local Italian restaurant on our anniversary. This year, we decided to switch it up. Life for my husband is crazy right now; he has extra projects at work and has been/will be very busy. It was nice to at least get a moment together and a break.

Now back to fall, y'all! (Yes, I can't help myself from saying that. I so-very-much wish I was Southern at times...) During the day on Saturday, I felt the urge to get some mums and a new scarecrow for the garden. Last week, with major help from my mom, I was able to clean out my front gardens, cut back bushes and trees, and make my house look neater than it has been. I am very happy now that this chore is accomplished. It is so hard to work in the yard with the little ones; it's hard to keep on eye on them while wielding giant, sharp landscaping tools! But with my mom, we were able to keep them in check and both work and clean up, clean up!

My Saturday mum/scarecrow shopping trip brought me to Walmart, since I knew they would have both items -- mums and scarecrows. I didn't want to spend a ton on a scarecrow since the weather destroys it -- my hope is that I can get two years from a scarecrow. Big Girl picked out the scarecrow, and funny thing -- it looks like her! We decided on purplish-colored mums this year, and picked up one for each urn by our front door.

And speaking of the front door, I needed a little something to hang on it. We have a storm door on the front, so we can't have anything puffy, and it gets rather hot between the doors, so things often fall apart. I found the little wooden pumpkin wreath shown at the top of this post while browsing in the Walmart seasonal aisle, so I decided to splurge and get it. It's thing, it's not floral (which means if won't fall apart) and it's plain pumpkin-ness will last until Thanksgiving without looking like a leftover Halloween decoration.

I do have a window box that is currently empty, and I am unsure if I will put anything in it. It costs a lot of money to just put flowers in for a month or so. I wish there was something fake that wouldn't look fake to jazz it up.

Now that the gardens are cleaned out and the bushes and trees are trimmed, I'm happy pulling in my driveway again. It's amazing how snips of the garden shears and a few passes of the rake can just clean up the place!