“August slipped away like a moment in time..”
Taylor Swift
Here we are in the last days of August. For just a couple of weeks longer, the Summer will make its last stand before Autumn arrives to paint the trees myriad shades of gold, orange, red, and brown. The weather becomes milder and the days grow shorter. I welcome all of it with all of the enthusiasm and excitement of a child waiting to open gifts on Christmas morning.
I love Autumn. It is easily my favorite of all of the seasons. Something about it feels cozy and reminds me of the home that I left behind eleven years ago. The warm fragrances of the season are as nostalgic as those in the care packages that my mom lovingly sends from her home every so often. Most recently, her care package contained beautiful dresses and photos of me as a child. I was afraid to wash those dresses, because they smelled of her. I love my mom to the moon and to Saturn.
Last week, I celebrated the final week of August with a pumpkin Angel Food cake. Unable to find a recipe on the internet that didn’t begin with a box of cake mix, I was left to my own devices. I’ve made Angel Food cake before, so it wasn’t difficult. I just started with the standard recipe and added one cup of pumpkin puree and two teaspoons each of cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon. It was absolutely delightful! The cake was light and fluffy with the warm, spicy flavor that you’d find in pumpkin bread.
Over the weekend, my daughter had a friend stay with us. I absolutely adore her. We are both Taylor Swift fans, we both love reading, and she’s the type of girl who doesn’t mind hanging out with me while my kids sleep until noon. And she understands my Anne of Green Gables references, like telling my daughter to spell “chrysanthemum” when she was pretending to participate in a spelling bee.
She was up quite early on Saturday. We listened to Folklore on the record player while I baked. I adore baking and I hadn’t made a Blueberry Lavender Angel Food cake since late Spring, so I got to work. It is one of my very favorites because of the aroma of the lavender fills the house while it bakes. And it looks so beautiful when it is done and put together. I found the recipe for it over at The Kitchen McCabe and it is one that I love preparing in celebration of Ostara. While theirs is garnished with beautiful fresh lilacs, mine is garnished with dried roses, marigolds, lavender, and cornflower, along with fresh blueberries.
Sunday began with the most perfect little heart-shaped chocolate chip waffles. As I lovingly prepared them for all of the kids, I listened to The Oh Hellos, Nati Dreddd, The Crane Wives, and The Lumineers, among many others. It is a lovingly crafted playlist of whimsical songs that take my mind to another place in time.
For a bit of time, when the house is otherwise quiet, that playlist, a good book, and a cup of tea comforts me in a way that nothing else does. My favorite tea, the one I love more than any other, is the Cinnamon Vanilla variety made by Stash. It is aromatic, spicy, warm, and slightly sweet; perfect for colder days, but I enjoy it just as much on warm days.
I ended the day with a closet cleanout, dropping off the items that I no longer wore or wanted at the Domestic Crisis Center of Northwest Oklahoma. By the time I was done, it almost looked like I owned nothing at all. But there were so many styles that I had outgrown, so many things that no longer fit. I somehow even had maternity clothes still hanging in there and it has been nearly three years since I had my daughter. Cleaning everything out and learning to let things go was both therapeutic and long overdue. You will never catch me doing that with my books, though.
And with that, I bid you a wonderful week and an enchanting beginning to the month of September!
Not A Mombie 