Joys of the season

I love this time of year. The leaves have changed and the gold and red colors seem to be so vibrant against the drab brown of the mountains. Sadly, the trees in the mountains have lost most of their leaves but to drive around the valley I can still catch some of those amazing colors.

I used to not like to wear sweaters. They felt so bulky and scratchy but in the last couple of years I have grown to love them. When I lived in New Orleans I had a gray sweater that I wore just about every day. It has since gone away but I would love to get a comfy sweater like that one but without the holes that seemed to have found their way to Old Gray. But now, when I leave for work in the morning I have to have a sweater on because the brisk air touches my skin of my face and gives that great shock to my body to remind me that I am still alive and the sweater gives me that bit of warmth that keeps me comfortable.

Autumn makes me want to sleep in and never get out of bed. I want to drink hot chocolate and the yummy spiced cider from Starbucks. Fortunately, I have a family that I love to spend time with so the holidays are always filled with family. I love to find out which family members will be coming to Thanksgiving because even though we live minutes to a couple of hours from each other it seems like the day will be more enjoyable with more people there.

What I don’t like about this time of year is that spiders seem to show up inside my home. I wouldn’t say that I have a fear of spiders but I feel that we have this understanding: you stay away from me and I won’t kill you. When I lived at home I used to make my sister kill them but I haven’t been able to abuse those services for quite a while. A few years ago I was watching TV while sitting on my oversized chair. I don’t know what made me do it but I looked over the armrest and saw the biggest spider that I had ever seen inside of a home. It had to have been 2 to 2-1/2 inches across. My heart started racing and I had to take a moment to plan my attack. I thought to myself that I could use the vacuum but then I realized that he would likely clog the vacuum hose and that would not be acceptable. There was NO WAY I was going to step on it because I could imagine hearing his exoskeleton body cracking under foot. Then it came to me, I had spider spray! I jumped up and ran to get it. I think I used half of the can of spray on that guy and he wouldn’t die but just ran from me. Finally he started to convulse and then flipped over and died. I had to sit there for another hour or so with the can of spray just in case he came alive to try one last attack like at the end of a horror movie. I hate spiders.