Hi everyone!  Good to be back.  Didn’t have the heart to blog for a bit, but life goes on.

September.

I have loved September since I was a little girl.  Back in the day, we didn’t start school until after Labor Day, and unlike everyone else who dreaded the end of sumer, I couldn’t wait for school to start.  I was a smartypants, and school was my refuge.  Home life was sometimes unpleasant, and I thrived (throve?) in school.  The pre-September school-clothes shopping event put me over the moon, and I had everything laid out on my bed the night before.  It is not lost on me what a total dork that makes me out to be – Proudly.

Then there’s the fact that I am a southerner.  You really simply do not have an appreciation for fall if you have not withstood a southern summer.  It was 106 degrees here in middle Tennessee today.  It’s been a helluva summer.  But it’s September, and that heat is gonna give before the end of the month – forecast says it’s the next few days.  It almost always breaks before the equinox and I start looking for it on September 1.  That feel in the air of the drop in humidity, cool mornings and coffee on the porch, warm, clear sunshiny days of autumn.

With that turn in the weather comes football, high school and college, some of the best memories I have.  Friday nights in Fayette County, or Saturday mornings in Athens, bring on the game.  Those days hold significance each for their own reasons, all of them good.  The friendships, the joy of the game, the partying, the ritual…all good.

Then when I became a parent (and one of my favorite kids was born in September), September meant a new schedule, new routine, new teachers, time to learn new things.  For me it was a time for my new year’s resolutions – September was always a fresh start and new year for the kids and for me.

Finally, I have decided I’m a 3-season athlete.  I don’t like training in the heat, the kids are all over the map and I’m trying to follow them, and after a long 9 months of training, it’s good to take the summer off.  But after that three months, my sneaks start to call, the bike’s ready to roll her tires, and the cool mornings and warm afternoons just beckon to be utilized.

So bring out the turtlenecks and start cutting the firewood.  Fall’s here.

Thanks for reading.