I {heart} November

I feel like in mid to late September everyone loves autumn.  

It's easy to love autumn when the stores are filled with back to school sales, the leaves are starting to be beyond brilliant, pumpkin spice drinks and doughnuts and hand soaps (guilty!) are everywhere, and you get to wear your favorite chunky scarf on the first crisp day of the season. There is sooo much to love about the first stirrings of fall.  It can make a person giddy.  

But fall waxes on.  And then it's November.  The nip in the air is replaced by cold winds. The formerly brilliant leaves are brown, or gone.  Pumpkin spice drinks are replaced with gingerbread lattes and candy cane cappuccinos :( And chunky scarves aren't just cute accessories anymore, but necessities for leaving the house.  

November tests one's love of autumn.  

I love autumn.  And I especially love November, in part because I feel a little sad for it.  It sort of gets lost in the hooplah that is that giant end of the year celebration - Hallow-istmas.  I love taking the deep, fulfilling breath of rest and gratitude that November offers before we become busy with keeping Advent and our preparations for celebrating Christmas.

I also love November because you don't always know what you're going to get.  We've been blessed with a mostly dry and gorgeous fall so far this year.  Last week we even had a few days in the 70s!  But those don't last.  And November shows its true nature in the flannel sheets, hot soups, mittens, and the first fires of the season.  

I love November because it often is the first month where we're inside more than we're outside.  We're gathering in.  We're drawing our children in from their play on chilly days, we're drawing our family close at Thanksgiving, we draw near around the fire, we gather in the heart of the home as the heart of the home.  Our house, which was more like a shell, a jumping off point for all the activity of summer, becomes more home-like - a warm, safe, sacred space for family life as the weather gets colder.  

Last year on the blog I celebrated November with a few special activities, and intend to do the same this year.  I have a few posts I've been saving up for Diabetes Awareness Month, I'm going to celebrate the "birthday" of my blog with a giveaway next week (!!), and I've got some opportunities for a little Ordinary Lovely Christmas shopping for you.  In fact, stop back here tomorrow for an opportunity to see (and maybe purchase!) a few things I have that are perfect for celebrating autumnal November!  

I hope you don't mind that I'm wrapping things up here by springing a photo dump on you from a late afternoon walk we all took last week on one of those rare gorgeous and deliciously warm November days.  This walk was so special to me because it's something we used to do a lot more frequently, but haven't done as much lately (homeschooling has been sapping a lot of the free time we used to have, but that might be another post for another time...)

Happy November!