20SB Blog Swap - Crunch, Crunch, Swish

Hellooo there! I want to apologize first of all for posting that awful crap last week and promptly disappearing. I had a terrible week which inspired me to drive 12 hours to Indiana to spend the weekend loving all things Notre Dame with my old friends. I'll tell you all about it later...


Because today is not about me over here in the Fish Bowl... it's about Doniree! She is my lovely partner for the 20SB Blog Swap and she is taking over my blog. If you went to see me, I'm over at her place. But you should go over there anyway because she kind of rocks. And now, I give you Doniree...

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I love the simple beauty that is Autumn, how it feels like a whisper. The bright heat from summer has retreated, the bitter cold of winter hasn't stormed in yet. Autumn plays somewhere in the middle of the two, a quiet memory of things recent and a hushed whisper of things to come.

For those of you not in Minnesota right now (as our typically amazing fall has been something of a disappointment to those that love it), I've read a lot of posts lately praising all things autumn - the crisp air, the colorful trees, the taste of pumpkin (with the exception of you pumpkin-haters). And while I love giant hoodies and warm fleece as much as anyone else, my favorite thing about fall is one particular sound.

Leaves. The sound of leaves as they swirl above the ground, the sound the dried up leaves make as they crunch beneath my feet.

I love the times just before the streets are swept in the city in the fall, and walking along the edges of the streets, shuffling feet through and hearing the crunching and swishing of the leaves cracking beneath me.

Maybe it's because fall tends to be the Back to School time and for so many years, we spend fall preparing to start something new - a new grade, a new subject, a new goal. Something about fall makes me want to goal-set, not in big New Year's Resolutions kind of ways, but just in such a way that I simply, quietly take inventory of where I'm at and start to reconnect with the vision of where I want to be.

Life is busy. We move at quick paces, juggling, speeding, rushing. For me, Autumn is a time to pause, to let go of some things and let them fall (symbolism! yes!), to draw in a breath of the clean, crisp air, and exhale a little bit of lightness and simplicity, and of a clean start.

What's Autumn like where you live?