With nearly my whole being, I’m welcoming cool temps and cool breezes. Frosty shadowed mornings and orange leaves spotlighted with the morning sun. A light sweater over a summer short-sleeved shirt. The comfort of my hair insulating my neck rather than pulled up in a summer ponytail.

By the end of October, I’ll have little pots of thick hand cream and lip balm placed within reach of the day’s journey. Reminders of the dryness of fall rustle in the leaves on the sidewalks and on the catching of skin when putting more knits on my body.

“I think I have dust in my gills.” That’s Liam’s interpretation of this change. Time for more tea and hot cocoa to help clear the dust of cool fall afternoons and dry nights. Bill and I smiled when Liam started drinking English tea last winter. Based strictly on the English population I’ve met, including Bill’s mum, who was a kind of English tea goddess, English breakfast tea is usually consumed with milk or with milk and sugar, only occasionally, black. Liam started his tea odyssey with sugar and... half and half. No half and half in the house? No tea for Liam, thank you. As much as I enjoy half and half in my coffee, I cringe when I make Liam’s tea with this thick dairy product.

We had our first frost over the weekend. Soon there will be fires in the fireplace. Once Bill gets on that kick, there will be a fire every night. Before the snow flies, we want to rent a log splitter and take care of chunked up logs from a tree we had taken down this summer. Then there’s the creosote that needs to be swept away before the first fire.

Chili, stew, and roast beast are on the horizon. More slow-cooking, less grilling.

The October mammogram has come and gone with an all-clear.

Yes, the stage is nearly set to snuggle into my favorite season. If only my feet were as ready as the rest of me. It was 44 degrees this morning. As I looked through the mudroom for proper shoes, my feet screamed like a toddler. “I want to wear sandals!” Not this morning. “I’m not going if I can’t wear my sandals!!!” No. “But I don’t know what other shoes match my outfit! And, I don’t want to wear socks. Definitely, no socks. I. Want. Sandals!”

We agree on shoes with no socks. The toes wriggled about all morning inside the confines of their enclosures. They’re happy now that I’m at the library. I kicked off the shoes and brought out a pair of short socks from my backpack. The library runs cool, so I always have an extra sweater and socks with me.

Shoes with no socks seem OK. Socks only seem OK. I’m taking baby steps toward the season in which both are essential.