While I have a fundamental objection to decorating for fall when it’s 100 degrees out, it’s September now, and when I look at the trees outside, I see that even God has started. So why am I fighting this? While warm Septembers and Octobers are common in our area, even despite the heat wave of last week, there are signs of fall all around us. The low temperatures have started dropping off, meaning that evenings and mornings are cooler. Leaves are starting to turn and fall, even if some of the leaf fall is due to encouragement from the squirrel population scampering through the trees. One of our annual family traditions to kick off the fall season is to roast green chile. That has been done, prepped and frozen, and my chile stash is good to go for the coming year.

Out and about, signs of fall are around us at the stores, with pumpkin spice and apple everything everywhere. The smell of the cinnamon pinecones evokes those cozy feels – even with temperatures in the triple digits. Though that fact certainly makes me grateful for things like pumpkin ice cream, and getting those lattes (you know the ones I mean) iced. It’s a nice way to embrace the change of seasons while taking into account the actual weather.

So I finally decided that it was time to start decorating my home. I’ve made a rule for myself that I can’t buy any fall décor items until I’ve gone through what I already owned. And I *mostly* stuck to that. It’s a good thing too, because those items are in all the stores and have been for some time. The textured pumpkins were calling to me. I love texture, both in my décor and in my wardrobe, especially in the cooler seasons. Knits, woven, fuzzy – the kind of thing that when you see it across the store, makes you want to go over there just to touch it. You can get pumpkins in all these cozy textures, and apparently I already had plenty of them. I love my textured pumpkins, especially the white furry pumpkin. It makes the place feel so cozy.

I imagine there are two kinds of people in the world when it comes to decorating. Those that take pictures of what they did the previous year to remind themselves where everything is supposed to go, and those who artistically place everything in a spot that speaks to them in the moment, creating new looks every year using mostly the same pieces. I feel like I’m in the former category, but this year I chose to do the latter. It was so tempting to look for pictures of last year to see where I put everything, but I didn’t. I forced myself to be creative. Granted, some of it was from memory of where I think things had gone before. Other than that I placed things, stood back, looked, tweaked; finally getting it to a place where it looked decent.

One thing I realized while doing this process is that it’s so much easier when I removed the things that were already there that I didn’t need. There’s the temptation to add seasonal pieces to the existing décor, to freshen it up. This is a good idea in theory, and I’m sure plenty of people have done it successfully, but there is a real risk of making it look overcrowded and cluttered. The look of my space improved not by me adding more, but by me taking away. Sometimes the secret to success is not in what you add, but in what you take away.

I feel that this applies to other circumstances as well. As a woman, as a mom, and just as a human being living in this constantly busy world, there’s so much going on that it’s hard to feel like a success at anything. There are lots of need to do’s, plenty of beneficial to do’s, and even more should do’s. It can feel like we’re missing out if we don’t try to do it all. On the other hand, trying to do too much can keep us from gaining traction in any one area. We all know what’s important, and that answer is different for each one of us. We know what it is that we love and that feeds our soul. For my part, I decided to make space in my life for one, maybe two, things and really focus on improving in those areas. If you are feeling stuck and controlled by the busyness of life, let me encourage you, not to add, but to take away; to remove some of the clutter in your calendar so that other things can shine – so that you can shine.