Fall is Here!

I have the makings of a cold and this morning I actually considered wearing a scarf not because it was stylish, but because it was chilly – FALL IS HERE!

I always celebrate in two ways: buying autumnal food and drinking autumnal beer.  I’m still on a search for the best pumpkin ale, so any recommendations that can be made I would greatly appreciate.

I also get very nostalgic – fall signifies the beginning of the end of another year and it always makes you look back to the first days of school, your best Halloween costumes, the start of the holidays, etc.

So here are a few ways to celebrate the fall as Reb would:

1 – Buy a lot of butter with a produce preceding the actual “butter” in the name.  Trader Joe’s is blowing my mind with their Pumpkin Butter and Cranberry Apple Butter.

2. Get ready for the holidays by cooking and eating a lot indoors about a month and a half early.  With the Pumpkin Butter I made Vanilla Cupcakes with Pumpkin Buttercream frosting with Nutella filling and Hazelnut Topping.

Recipe:

1. Buy Vanilla Cakemix from Trader Joe’s
2. Make it.
3. Add 1 part Pumpkin Butter to 2 parts Confectioner’s sugar, 1 tsp hot water, 1 tsp vanilla.  I hope you have an electric blender, because I didn’t.  And I cursed. A lot. When I was mixing by hand.
4. In case you forgot and actually need step by step instructions, bake the cupcakes.
5. Cut off the tops of the cupcakes and place a reasonable sized GLOB of Nutella on the cupcake.  Put the top back on.
6.  Frost, put hazelnuts on top.

3. Get old things! Go thrifting, ransack your parents’ garage, remain a packrat!  I had wanted a bike for a few years but could never save the money.  Years ago my grandparents gave my family two Schwinn racing bikes and they sat in the garage.  This past weekend my dad brought up the Schwinn Le Tour, added new tires and voila! Beautiful new/old bike.  I believe it’s a 3 speed from 1975.

My parents also brought up my record player and stereo that was a gift/I rescued it from my parents’ friends’ basements.  Tell me there is no better way to listen to vinyl than when the leaves are changing colors outside.  My collection is still small, but included are The Smiths, The Kinks, and Neutral Milk Hotel, which will work well for the fall.  I’d love to get some of The Shins’ albums on vinyl.

3. Stay indoors more! It gets dark early, it’s colder out, you have SAD.  Now is the time to have dinner parties, house parties, and stay under the covers all day on Sundays.  Buy a diffuser – the weird things of oil with reeds sticking out.  Mine is “Pumpkin Spice”.  I did buy it during a random shopping spree at Target.  Yes I’m employed, and yes, I’m living the life.

This post might seem random and a little silly compared to the last few posts.  However, the older I get and the faster time seems to fly by, it can be easy to fall into a routine of going to work, coming home, and going to sleep.  While it seems our lives are moving online more every day, it becomes more important to get excited over things that can’t be understood in a retweet, like the changing of seasons, being excited for the holidays, etc.

And this song. With this video.