Why Fall cannot come soon enough

Truthfully, I'm not decorating for Halloween just yet. I'm not that nutty. Fall doesn't start til September and even then, I think you have to ease into things - start with some general fall decor before you launch into the ghouls and goblins - truthfully, should you even decorate for Halloween before Thanksgiving is over? I dunno... I'm not dragging any of our old Halloween stuff out of storage right now, I'm just not boxing up the stuff I just picked up... it's out on display early this year, but I won't be unpacking it til later in the years to come.

Having said that, I am looking forward to the return of Fall. Even though it means time is winging away and I'll be back to work before I know it, it's always been my favourite season (though with Liam arriving in April, that may finally push Spring to #1 on my list). I love going for walks when the trees start to change colour, wearing jeans and a sweater, and pushing a stroller this year to boot. But the real reason why I am enamoured with Fall this year, more so than any year before, has to do with Liam and me finally being let off the hook when it comes to the Great Outdoors outside our back door.

My last day of work was April 8th and Liam was due on the 16th. Practically everyone I've known has had baby #1 at least a week late, and many were finally induced when 42 weeks had come and gone and still no baby. So I was thinking, when I went off work, that I had a couple of weeks to play with - one last hurrah, so to speak. And I had all sorts of things in mind to keep myself occupied during those weeks. Chores, fun stuff, you name it - the list was a mile long. We spent a lazy weekend goofing off, and then Chad went back to work on the Monday morning and I woke up with a whole day ahead of me to get things done. I went to the nursery and picked up a couple of bags of mulch, intending to tackle my spring garden cleanup. I got 1.5 bags of mulch spread around the front half of the garden that day, and trimmed all the plants as well. The back half of the yard is a little bigger and needed some major cutting down after the winter. That was the plan for Tuesday and Wednesday (as my pedicure had been booked for Thursday and I wasn't about to go stomping around in the mud after my toes were done.)

Wouldn't you know it, I woke up Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. with contractions, and Liam made his appearance 23 hours later. So much for the garden. And I kept intending to get out there and finish it off - even a couple of hours here and there would have made a big difference - but of course it never happened. Even when Liam was sleeping, I would rather stand over the crib and watch him sleep than go out and pull weeds.

Finally, by June, after two months of waking up every day thinking I was going to make progress and it never happening, I threw in the towel. I admitted defeat and decided to wait it out til the Fall, when I would cut everything down and be ready to start fresh next year. Every once in a while I wander back behind the garage and wonder how I am even going to pull that off - I still have rosebushes from last summer that weren't pruned down in the spring, and they're 8 feet tall now - I have weeds that have completely engulfed the half bag of mulch I left sitting behind the garage, waiting to be spread the morning of April 12th - I have not once weeded or watered or pruned this summer, and it shows. Even the front half of the yard that did get the mulch is a mess, straggly and floppy and in desperate need of deadheading. Oh well. The garden will still be there next year. Liam is only tiny once. The decision was easy to make.

Then there's the matter of the back deck - we inherited a painted deck with this house, which has a major PITA factor - what a dumb idea. Every single spring we have to scrape it down and paint it again because the winter really takes its toll. That wasn't done this year, either. Our deck is a mess. No wonder we haven't had company over all summer.

So a return to indoor life will be welcome for us this year - a chance to drop the guilt and start over fresh next spring, when everyone else is going crazy trying to clean up their properties, too. I just hope that planning a first birthday bash for Liam doesn't interfere with the effort next year, and start the cycle all over again.