Feather Your Nest

As this is the first week of autumn, some wonderful bloggers are hosting a fall festival of fun, food and friends. Today's question is posed by Hoosier Homemade: What do you do to feather your nest for fall?

If I haven't made it obvious enough already, fall is my favourite season. I love all that fall entails. I love the sights, the smells, the tastes, the colours, everything. The only thing I don't love about fall is that crazy white stuff that comes next ... but we just try not to think about that.

There are a number of things I do to get ready for fall. Many of them I have already written about so, I decided to recap my "nest feathering" in a short list.

• Decorate - I am obsessed in love with seasonal decorations. Autumn and Christmas especially. You can see most of my autumn decorations here. I just might have to write a second post about this though, since I have already picked up a few more goodies since I wrote that post. I like to decorate early in the season so that I can enjoy my decorations for a good length of time, before I put them away and bring out the Christmas stuff!
• Preserve - this year we planted a much bigger garden than we have in the past. Yesterday, I finished with my tomatoes but canning more diced and stewed tomatoes. The cellar is stocked with jars upon jars of goodness to get us through the winter. Along with canning, I also freeze a lot of produce throughout the summer and fall such as peaches, blueberries, strawberries, zucchini and peppers.
• Organize the freezer - along with the preserving, I take some time in early autumn to reorganize and take stock of the freezer to be sure that all of those older items are being used up before new stuff goes in.
  
• Clean - I tend to do my major spring cleaning in the fall. There's just something about having the patio door open with fresh air streaming in that makes me want to clean. Also, the dog sheds a LOT less starting in September. This might make you think I would clean less, but it actually makes me clean more because when her hair covers every surface of our home in the summer, I often fall victim to the "what's the point of cleaning when it will be covered in hair in 5 seconds" mentality. So, I enjoy a clean house much more in the fall when I can enjoy it for more than a day or two at a time.
  
• Light candles - autumn scents fill our home at this time of year. I go through oodles of scented candles.
  
• Bake - I love to bake treats with pumpkin, apple and other fall flavours.
• Make a schedule - autumn marks the return to school for me and so it also means getting back on track and setting a more rigid schedule for myself than in the summer months.
• Swap clothes - I keep all of my clothes out all year because I have big dresser and a closet but I do like to go through and reorganize everything so that the items I will be wearing more often are more accessible. Also, I put the FD's off season work clothes away so I will be switching them up very soon.
  
• Begin planning for Christmas - call me crazy but a big part of this season is planning for the next. I am a planner by nature and so it is necessary for me to begin budgeting, planning and shopping early so that I can avoid the seemingly unavoidable stress of the Christmas season.
• Say goodbye to my hubby - autumn is also the FD's favourite season, but for a very very different reason.
  

I think that covers most of the things I do to get ready for this most bestest season of the year. What do you do? Head over to Hoosier Homemade to tell us about it and to see what other's are up to.