Welcome Fall ?

Today it's official, the first day of fall.  Fall is my absolute favorite season, which I wrote all about last year. 

When my plants outside start looking like this ...

... I'm aching to get the mums planted.  This year I couldn't help myself and had to buy a few plants a bit early.

It's also the time of the year when I need to replace this ...

... with this ...

Because really, there's a point when faith just starts looking plain silly. 

(Us Sox fans reached that point about a week ago when the Sox lost the whole series to Minnesota.  But how 'bout them Bears with a 2-0 start?!)

The time when I need to start cutting back all of the summer flowers, lilies and perennials in my landscape ...

... and start making big plans about the landscape areas that I am going to tackle next ...

Jenna has been asking begging to get out the fall decorations, and has requested insisted that I wait for her to get home from school to  help with the decorating.  My plan for this morning was to get the house cleaned and dusted, and ready for the new decor to go on display.  But for some reason, I'm just not feeling it this year. 

Something just doesn't feel right, it feels too soon.  I'm still in BBQ mode, not soup and chili mode.  I still feel more like letting the kids run in the sprinklers than jumping in piles of leaves.  I'm not ready for baseball season to end, and for football to be the primary focus of our sport-watching lives.  I want to hang on to the remaining bits of summer for just a while longer.

I'm not entirely sure why, but I believe it might have something to do with this.

Just a theory.