24 Oct – Autumn Of Life

If babyhood is spring and young adulthood is summer, which age do you consider to be the start to the “autumn” of life?

If that’s the case, then it would naturally follow that your mid twenties would be the ‘autumn’ of life… but then would that also mean that your late twenties and beyond is the ‘winter’ of life? Because that’s kind of a depressing way of explaining adulthood.

If that’s the case, then the saying ‘the winter of my discontent’ certainly rings true now that I’m in my thirties.

23 Oct – Crunchy & Crafty

Craft bloggers: come up with a project that uses crunchy autumnal leaves.

I’m not a crafty person, but I’ll give it a try…

So, a project that uses crunchy leaves… Hmm, well, perhaps in the spirit of all things Autumn, you could get the kids to create a picture, get them to draw / paint something about autumn, whether it’s a streetscape or the backyard, or just some trees losing their leaves, but instead of painting leaves, use some glue and stick some of the leaves onto the painting. Gives it a real element, and some texture.

Or you could get the kids to think about things that are brown, and draw a picture of that object ie. a bear, or a cow, or a horse etc. But instead of colouring in their fur, crumble up handfuls of brown leaves, and glue them on to represent the fur / hair.

You could even make something with papier mache, and then glue the leaves to that, covering them with PVA glue or shellac in order to stick them down and give them a shiny coating.

1 Oct – The Sounds Of Autumn

Crunch crunch crunch: leaves are starting to carpet the sidewalks. Tell us about your favourite autumnal sound.

 

I really don’t think that there is anything that says autumn more than the sound of crunching leaves.

9 Oct – Stomach Turners

Is there any fall flavour that turns your stomach?

 

How about this notion of pumpkin-spiced-everything that you seem to keep banging on about?

Pumpkin is gross. It should never be made into a pie or a cake or anything dessert-like. It’s simply wrong. Same goes for carrot cake. Vegetables are not supposed to be dessert ingredients.

And whilst we’re on the subject, what the heck are yams? I don’t even know what they are but even they sound gross. Just the word ‘yam’ sounds uncomfortable and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

7 Oct – Autumn Treats

Tell us about your favourite autumnal edible treat.

I don’t particularly have a favourite food that I eat predominantly in Autumn… again, this is another Americanised concept.

Most of my favourite foods aren’t seasonal. I can enjoy ice cream, or chocolate, or pastries at any time of the year… and I do. Although I will say that in the colder months, i.e., Autumn and Winter, I do loves me some hot apple pie with ice cream… or maybe some freshly baked custard tarts… or a nice smooth soup and some toast smothered in butter.

Hmmm… probably shouldn’t be writing this when I’m starving… but then again, it’s almost midnight, so instead I might skip my late-night snack, brush my teeth and go to bed.

 

Night, y’all.

x

6 Oct – Pumpkin Spice

Pumpkin spiced flavoured everything: can’t get enough OR enough already!

Unless you’re drinking your Starbucks religiously, the whole ‘pumpkin spice’ concept really doesn’t exist here in Australia, as it’s predominantly a purely American thing for ‘fall’ and leading up towards Halloween.

I’m not exactly a big fan of pumpkin in the first place, let alone anything pumpkin-spiced.

Sorry, but you guys can have it all to yourselves.

2 October – Songs of Autumn

Winter and summer are two seasons that have songs clearly associated with the time period. But are there any songs that remind you of fall?

I’m curious as to how many people have answered this with California Dreamin’, by The Mamas & The Papas?

Daily Prompt – Autumn Leaves

Changing colors, dropping temperatures, pumpkin spice lattes: do these mainstays of Fall fill your heart with warmth — or with dread?

Here in ‘Straya (mate!) we’re moving into spring, and the weather is currently a bit of a mess. Hot. Sunny. Cold. Windy. Sunny. Hailing. All in a day. Okay, so maybe it’s not that bad, but it has it’s moments.

Day 9 – Favourite Hour of the Day

What is your favourite hour of the day?

Why is it that these questions are always so open?? I mean I could come up with at least half a dozen completely different hours for completely different reasons, and then spend another thousand-words explaining each of them…

1. Sunrise.

As much as I’m not a morning person, for all different kinds of reasons, I have seen my fair share of sunrises. I find it quite soothing for some reason. Regardless of how manic and stressful and busy my life has been / can be, for those few minutes watching the sun rise in the distance, it’s almost as if nothing else exists, and I’m just there, by myself, in the present, in this moment that almost feels like I’m suspended in zero gravity; as though the world around me has completely frozen in time. 

Even out of all of these, I think my absolute favourite sunrise, would be in Autumn / Winter when we used to live in the country – waking up at the crack of dawn; putting the kettle on; being all rugged up in trackpants and a big wooly jumper, thick socks and ugg boots; and standing just outside the doorway as the sun slowly makes its way onto the frost-covered grass in the backyard. Standing there with a giant cup of hot milo, steaming away; watching the steam from my breath on the freezing morning air… *sigh* it’s one of those really simple things in life that I truly took for granted, and now I miss it so much.

 

2. Mid-morning

 

I’m talking like 10:30 – 11am. Especially when you’ve woken up earlier, turned your alarm off, saying to yourself ‘Nope. Fuck this. I’m not getting out of bed today. I just can’t deal with ANYTHING today. I just can’t’. So you call work, tell them you’re sick and having a day off, and then you go back to sleep. I then usually sleep for another couple of hours and wake up around 10:30am, and eventually drag myself out of bed, wrapped up in my flannell pj’s, collapse on the couch with about six pieces of toast and a giant cup of tea, ready to go into a daze watching trashy morning television, which almost always leads to me spending waaaay too much time watching infomercials.

 

You know what, I think we could really use some non-stick stone cookware. That multi-chef chopper looks pretty damn good too, and it really would save a lot of time prepping in the kitchen. Hmmm I really DO need a steam mop. It would actually make my cleaning so much easier, and look, it doesn’t use ANY chemicals, which is so much better for the environment, and means I wont suffocate on fumes any more… ooh, and it comes in black… AND it has all those attachments… AND replacement pads…

 

…where did I put my wallet…??

 

3. Bed time

 

Well, I think many of us could agree that bedtime is just the bees-knees. I find that it’s so awesome to come home after a long, exhausting day to a hot shower and then just collapse into bed. Sometimes I wish I could just skip dinner and fall into bed and sleep for about 10hours. Man, I haven’t done that for a very long time!! I remember once when I was living in a share house, I had a habit of coming home just from a normal day of work at like 6pm, and sometimes I’d feel that exhausted, I’d literally fall face-first onto my bed, with my backpack still on my back, and I’d then wake up at about 3-4am, still with my bag on, and then I’d finally get undressed and crawl into bed.

 

Granted, during that time of my life, I think I was probably going through some kind of chronic fatigue relapse, and just didn’t realise it. Possibly, because I was sleeping so damn much, and loving every minute of it??