As if the cooler temperatures weren’t enough of an indication that it’s fall, the dark mornings are. All summer long, the sun was out by the time my alarm went off in the mornings. Over the last few weeks, it’s gone from daylight to sunrise, and this week it’s still completely dark out even now. It makes it a lot harder to get moving in the mornings!
Last night I was able to get a little glimpse of sunset through the clouds as I drove home from my Zumba class in Smokey Point, but soon enough it’ll be dark when I go home in the evenings, too. With October will come Daylight Savings Time, which will give me back my brighter mornings for a few weeks but will make for even earlier sunsets. When I first moved to Washington, one of the things that really amazed me was how much different the daylight is in the summer than it is in the winter. In California, winter days are shorter, but not so drastically so. Here, the daylight stretches well into the evening in summer, but the sun sets before five o’clock in the evening in wintertime.
The other night my boyfriend and I went out for dinner in Edmonds. When we walked out of the restaurant after we’d eaten, we could both smell the “fall” smell of smoke from chimneys. People are starting to have fires again. I have a wood-burning fireplace in my apartment, so I could definitely go this route myself. It’s chilly in my place when I get home from work and chilly when I wake up in the mornings. I refuse to turn on the heat this early in the fall, though. Electric heat is SO expensive. So last night I put an extra blanket on my bed and snuggled up with my kitties. This morning I pulled a robe on over my pajamas and made myself a nice hot cup of coffee. I sat at my dining room table to drink it, the kitchen light on because it was still dark outside, thinking about how just a few weeks ago I was enjoying sitting in that same spot with cool late-summer morning air breezing in through the open window. This morning there’s no way I want the windows open.
I’m getting a four-day reprieve from fall weather when I leave on Thursday for a long weekend visiting my family in California. My dad told me yesterday that their temperatures should be in the nineties. Tonight when I pack for my trip, my bag will be full of t-shirts, tank tops, and capris. Then when I get home next week, I’ll pack those things away for the winter and bring out my cool-weather stuff: sweaters and long pants and light coats.
My favorite part of the cooler weather is that Saturday likes to sleep under the covers, snuggled into my side. His sweet little kitty snores make me smile. Angel likes to sleep on my pillow, and Oliver usually settles himself near my feet, but Saturday wants to be as close to in my skin as he possibly can.
I’m looking forward to October. Summer is by far my favorite season, but I really do like fall in the Northwest. A lot of the trees are evergreen so there’s not a lot of change in the color, but there are also a lot of trees that will turn brilliant oranges and reds in October. I like to wait until about halfway through the month and then take a day trip over to Leavenworth, mostly because the drive over the pass to get there is so pretty with all the changing leaves.
I feel like this year has flown by, and I’m going to blink and it’s going to be over. Wasn’t it just January, when I was newly living alone and feeling like life would never be normal again? And now life is quiet, calm, and routine, and I am happy.