Can you hear that....the faint jingle bell in the distance?

I absolutely love this time of year. Fall is my favorite season. Period. Then add in that it marks the start of the "holidays" (at least in my book). More importantly it also means the start of preparing for the holidays, which I find about as enjoyable, if not more so.
Tyson really dislikes how much I over-book & over-plan our lives, especially this time of year. But there's so much I want to do, that I can't help it. Fall brings apple picking, applefest, pumpking picking & carving pumpkings, decorating for Halloween, etc, etc, etc. And that's all before Tiff's annual Halloween Party.

Now that I have my daughter to share this with - it's even more exciting! Sure she doesn't have a clue as to what's *really* going on around her, but she loves being outside. She just excited to & happy to be outdoors, and maybe inside, a little bit, it makes me think she might be intersted in what we're doing. Maybe I'm a little delusional. So what?

Naturally this all means that I'm more excited for Thanksgiving & Christmas, also. I've been Christmas shopping for a couple months now, and anticipate being finished in November. Which means December will be that much less-stressful. I want to be able to enjoy G's first holiday season.

I'm so caught up in all the excitement of the coming weeks & months, that I'm even excited for opening day of hunting season. (Could it be that waking up to boxes of donuts on the kitchen table is skwing my feelings??) But like everything else, there's a presence of excitement in the air on opening day, and I've just started throwing that in with being part of the "holidays"

Oddly enough this is the first year that I don't really care so much about my birthday, which used to always be included amongst the "holidays". I remember last year everyone told me to enjoy my birthday because once I had a baby, my brithday wouldn't matter anymore. I automatically assumed that they were referring to how others would treat my birthday and it made me a little sad - I didn't once think it would change my opinion of the day. I'm looking forward to spending the day with my husband & daughter - and that's good enough for me. (Of course spending time with other family is always a plus too!). But I no longer view it as an additional holiday........Though I am getting giddy over the idea of Tyson treating me to Cheesecake Factory.