"We'll Deck the House with...Leaves..."

The cooler weather made me feel chipper enough to put out the fall things after I had opened up all the windows (and doors) and turned on the fans. (I'd love to stock this entire house with Vornado fans; I have our one Vornado next to my bed and it's so nice and quiet—on high it makes the same level of noise as our other fans make on low and on low you have to walk next to it to even hear it. But they cost about four times as much.) I replaced the seasonal things—the bouquet on the kitchen table, the lilac bouquet in the hall, the display table and plaques in the foyer, and the wreath on the front door.

I usually wait until the equinox to put up the change of seasons, but I read something this summer that made me pause: September 22nd isn't "the first day of autumn"; it's just the fall equinox. Meteorological fall begins September 1. So I've put things up because it feels like fall (even if the temps will go back up over the weekend).

The combination of the cozy fall colors and the liberating open curtains and windows was quite a contrast. We're used to living "dim" in the summertime with insulated curtains (except on the dining room windows) because it keeps the heat down in the house and helps the air conditioner not run as much, so it's a bright surprise to have the sun streaming in windows and filling the house with natural light. The construction of the old house, sadly, really didn't allow a lot of the sunlight to break through, which was a positive thing in summer, but made the rest of the year rather dull: the den was self-contained and dark because of the paneling, no matter how sunny it was the kitchen was always dark because of its placement in the tree'd back yard with the neighbors' larger house blocking most of the sunlight, and the upstairs rooms blocked by the hallway. It was like living in a cave most of the time.

While putting away the summer things, I peeked into the box of Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations. I'm reluctant to overspend but am wondering if I should buy a couple of more Halloween things, mostly for the porch. Never been much of a Halloween person, but this year looks like it might be fun because of the neighborhood and the kids. I already have the three decorations I bought from Moores, plus a couple of signs and the old jack o'lantern; don't really want to get into the lights stuff. Maybe one of those stiff black spiderwebs with the purple spider? Or another sign from Michael's (Michael's has these signs with which, as James commented, you could make a reproduction of Diagon Alley if you tried.