Every year, around the same time that all the kiddies go back to school and grocery stores’ candy isles are dominated by orange packaging, I get antsy for my favorite season. Fall, or autumn if you like to get all-fancy, is the most perfect season. The air turns a bit brisk; the sun is still warm enough to feel through the knit sweaters you have to dig out of pile clothes you stashed during the warmer summer months. The air is scented with the fallen gold, orange, and red leaves that turn the mountainsides into the same pattern as your great-aunt Betsy’s 1970s carpet.
My favorite cider mill by my grandmother’s farm in Wayne County, PA.
Fall is beautiful. It is a time of transition. Each day, when you step outside, the landscape has changed. The ground becomes a little harder, the air a bit chillier, the trees a tad more naked. People slowly begin to bundle up in sweaters and boots. College girls just seem to go straight for the Uggs, leggings and NorthFace look, but I personally prefer those oversized cable knits that I can curl up in with a cup of pumpkin spiced latte.
Apple cider mills start churning out their treats. Pumpkin patches become populated with children and adults alike, scouting out the perfect orange ball to carve into that year’s masterpiece. I will spend a solid 30 minutes picking the perfect pumpkin. I can’t very well make a work of art out of a lop-sided orange blob, imagine how Count Dracula would look with a lazy eye, not terrifying at all.
So I have compiled 10 of my very favorite things about fall. Gradually, throughout the best season of them all, a.k.a. Autumn, I will share with you all of those 10 things. Can’t have you all being overloaded with all the amazing things at once, now can I? If I leave something out that is just “like totally fetch,” please, feel free to sound off via Twitter or Facebook.
1. Corn Mazes/Pumpkin Patches/Hay Rides
I am a child at heart, so it is no wonder that these timeless country traditions of piling into the hay wagon while sipping on cider is one of my ultimate fall practices. I grew up on a farm, hay wagons and cornfields meant work, but when we visited a pumpkin patch, a hayride meant fun. I still love taking my more directionally challenged friends and purposefully losing them in a corn maze.
2. Pumpkin Carving
This was the stencil for my Mad Hatter pumpkin…the stencil looks better than the finished product.
I am by no means a Picasso with a pumpkin, but I do become über OCD when it comes to my autumn time art. My mother used to take me to a pumpkin decorating/carving contest every year. We’d plot for two months prior to the event on how to wow the judging panel of librarians. There was only one year that I didn’t win. It was due to an injury. My carving kit knife shattered into my hand, needless to say that I avoided those dinky kits for years afterwards. I now prefer a thin pocketknife to carve the finer details of my creation. Last year I carved the Mad Hatter into a pumpkin, after spending a copious amount of time on a very intricate stencil. It was so worth it.
Plus, after you carve that bulbous squash, you get pumpkin seeds.
3. Halloween!!!
I wasn’t allowed to eat much candy as a kid, so it is most definitely not the trick-o-treating that draws me into this hodge podge holiday. I love the fact that for one night, everyone looks forward to
“The hardcore girls just wear lingerie and some form of animal ears.” Mean Girls, 2004
playing dress up (like I said before, I am a kid at heart). I’ll start my preparation months before hand. One cannot simply go out on Halloween in any run of the mill witch or princess costume. It is a process that requires much thought and consideration. I was Marilyn Monroe last year. I looked in two different malls and multiple other stores, both online and in person, till I found the perfect dress. P.S. I nailed it!
4. Leaves
I am not just talking about that amazingly scented candle from Bath and Body Works. I am referring to those rustic colored things that fall off the trees, cover the ground and crunch under your foot. 
Some of the best memories with my older brothers, Mike and Brian, are when they would pile the ridiculous amount of leaves in our back yard just for the three of us, and the dog, all to jump around in. It sucked having to pile them back up again, but the golden yellows, fiery reds and vibrant oranges were so beautiful flying around us that it made the work worth it.
5. Fall Fashion
I was super excited to have found pumpkin perfection!
About 85 percent of my wardrobe is geared towards the cooler weather. Between the abundance of oversized sweaters, knee-highs, sweater tights, boots, scarves, mittens and slouchy hats in my wardrobe, I am positively tickled pink that the temperatures have finally dropped below 65 degrees. My mother likes to call my taste in sweaters “old-lady– like”, but little does my khaki loving, orthopedic shoe wearing mother know, it is actual called style, a style that I rock the socks off. It’s also great to have a best friend/roommate who doesn’t mind sharing clothes and such. It’s like a mall in your apartment.
