Fire Trees, Black Bean Chili and Sweaters

yellow autumn leavesThis weekend was one of those “I’m slowly accepting that summer is over” kind of weekends.

Really, I do love fall. It’s got a ton of awesome things – Halloween, chili, pretty colors, pumpkin stuff, lessened concern about body hair… It’s what comes after that I have trouble with.

You see, I take some issue with winter and its holidays. Add to this my addiction to Michigan summers, and fall is basically the come down before withdrawal.

Still, I try to enjoy it. I appreciate our sunny days when the temps are only in the mid 60s and leaves reflecting the warm side of the color wheel drift around the lawn. I happily stir a pot of black bean chili. I spend two days straight in a soft brown cardigan.

I listen to Ben Folds 5, Counting Crows and Tori Amos (my ‘fall music’ since the late 90s, when the gloomy seasons were all the rage for goth kids and alternateens).

I do my damnedest to not miss 85 degree afternoons or 10pm sunsets. But I do miss them. I spend more time than I’d like to admit suppressing my longing for late June.

Whatever my feeling, it is, in fact, autumn, and I need to just buck up and get over it.

And bonus – things actually got accomplished over the weekend! I cleaned out a few cupboards, the hubby replaced our crappy toilet seat, we cooked, put away laundry and I even managed to do a little yoga. By Saturday night I’d actually gotten through 99% of my weekend to-do list, and that doesn’t usually happen until Monday.

One of these days, I’ll grace you with that black bean chili recipe. It’s a variation of the ground beef  variety I used to make (which took third at a work cook-off years back) and will fill you up and clear your sinuses.

 

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