Nablopomo for October: Crunch

From the website:

So what is the NaBloPoMo theme of the month?

CRUNCH
Maybe it's because winter snow dampens our sense of smell or the buzz of summer mosquitoes drowns out every other sound in the air, but autumn is a huge sensory experience between those two seasonal bookends.

You have the taste of pumpkin spice... everything. You have the smell of burning leaves. The feeling of fuzzy sweaters or the smoothness of your Halloween mask. The bright sight of a field of orange pumpkins. And, of course, the crunch crunch crunch of autumnal leaves.

Of course, the fall also tends to be crunch time. Between the back-to-school craziness and preparations for the holidays, October is a month that sometimes feels as if it passes in a blur. It's time to take a step back and examine how well you work under pressure. If the answer is "not very well at all," now is the time to come up with a plan to help you sort out your schedule so you don't fall victim to crunch time.

From the email:

I love autumn (despite the abundance of crickets!) because it's the season I associate the most with the five senses. Spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg rule supreme. I love the smell of smores around a campfire. I even like the feeling of hay poking into my jeans as we bounce on a tractor ride across the farm, scouting out fields of bright orange pumpkins. And, of course, there is the theme word for this month: CRUNCH. There is the crunch of leaves, the snap of sticks underfoot, and the pop of the campfire logs.

Love it.

Of course, autumn is a busy time too, a crunch time between school starting and the brief sprint to the holidays. If you don't slow down, you may miss the season. So... slow down. Make yourself a cup of tea. Look out the window at the leaves. No, better yet, go take a walk in them and take some pictures and then come back to your blog and post them. Yes, the perfect way to celebrate fall.

I'm down with this theme.  Fall is my favorite time of year and has been for decades.  My favorite sport to watch is football (I even played it during middle and high school), and I was a member of the marching band in high school and college, so even if I wasn't playing football on the field, I was still there at halftime.  Fall became even more my favorite season once I moved to Michigan, as it turned out to have the most pleasant and predictable weather of the year, at least during September and October (November is another story; that's when winter usually comes in early).  It also leads into holiday season, with Halloween followed by Thanksgiving followed by Christmas and capped with New Years.  If the days are shortening and the weather is getting colder, at least there are plenty of celebrations to keep me distracted.  Since I periodically lapse into "I can't be all DOOM all the time" moods, I suppose that's a good thing.

Sign up for October's NaBloPoMo and start thinking about what you love about fall.

I did several days ago, and I'm 26th on the blogroll.