What Autumn Means To Me

What Autumn means to normal people:

Halloween decorating
Harvesting the garden
Digging out sweaters and tall boots
Pumpkin-spice flavored everything!
The appearance of those cinnamon-scented pinecones in the entrance to every store
Re-finding all your boots, gloves, scarves, hats and mittens
Digging through jackets to see if you left any money in pocket somewhere (LOVE THIS!)
Discussing snow depths and potential ski-hill conditions
Winterizing

What Autumn means to me: All of the above PLUS:

Being strangely sad putting away all my tanktops and summer clothes (except workout tops)
Packing up the hammock and stand for the winter (sigh!)
NO FLIES AT THE BARN!!!! (Oh goodness me, YES!!!! The ONLY real huge benefit to winter riding, well, besides mares going anestrous - yay!)
Getting out the horse blankets with that summer-aged horse musk that accompanies all but new blankets
Tall winter riding boots - cozy!
Fluffy horse coats
Waiting for those first snowflakes that always make me into a giddy child all over again
Being somehow excited to decorate the Christmas tree - only a few more months away!
Starting Xmas shopping and/or idea lists for Xmas shopping
Finding excuses to eat fat-laden stew and butter-covered bread or other heavy foods "to prepare for winter"
Post-food guilt promising self to not follow Scandinavian genetic imperative to put on "layer of winterizing blubber" this year
Making hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows for every occasion... like surviving Wednesdays
Extra cinnamon in my hot cider
Fluffy socks & taking a running sliding leap across the kitchen in them whenever possible