Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere...

But not for us, not yet.  We always procrastinate on the pumpkin buying, I don't know why.  Most years past we wait for our annual trip upstate to go apple picking.  The orchard we go to is on a small farm, and they have a pretty sizable pumpkin patch from which you can choose your favorite jack-o-lantern.

But the weekends have ticked by, and we haven't gone, and we are booked through the rest of the season, and don't have any weekends left.

With a baby, it's not so easy to make the 2 hour trip up north.  Although we've been going to the same place almost every year since Mr. Minimalist and I met, I'm not positive we'll make it this year.  The little one is just too mobile and aware of everything, and it might be too much of a drive.  I will miss the huge bag of apples and all the yummy baking that comes out of it if we don't go.  I'll also miss seeing that huge pumpkin display, drinking the hot apple cider and nibbling on freshly baked cider doughnuts.

Maybe we'll all play hooky and go during the week.

Grapes for Autumn + Falling for Hugs

It's hard to believe it's September, that Labor Day has now come and gone.  Autumn will be creeping in soon.  The temperature will be dropping, the leaves will be changing, and the days will be smaller, shorter.  Everything seems to get smaller in the fall.  After the haziness of summer, when the sky is bright blue and endless and the oppressive humidity makes everything blurry, fall brings with it a clean crisp wind that clears the air and brings everything into focus.  I think it also has something to do with the angle of the light, the way the sun highlights the trees and the sides of buildings, always golden and poignant.

Fall is full of poignant moments.  Maybe it's that the days are getting shorter, and subconsciously we want to make every moment significant.  For me, the moments are often small: noticing a wall of morning glory covering what once was an ugly chain link fence; listening as the sounds of piano playing waft through the air shaft.  The most beautiful moment to date, however, was last night, just after I gave my daughter her good night bottle, put her over my shoulder to burp her, and received the sweetest hug, her head tucked into the crook of my neck and her arms thrown around me.

It's going to be fall soon.  I love the moments that season will bring. 

One thing that heralds the beginning of autumn-- grapes.  I'm not talking about the jumbo seedless red ones I buy year round in the supermarket, but the small, tender green and black grapes that I find now in the farmer's markets.  They're twice the price as the supermarket variety, so I can't justify buying any, and I had to satisfy myself with taking pictures... and tasting one.

So good.