Slowly Transitioning to Fall

Part of me thinks I’ve completely and utterly missed the bus… My kids just started school yesterday and I’m still trying to get my head around why summer went so quickly. I’m slowly transitioning to fall.

My carefree mornings sipping coffee on the back deck, while the boys slept in, are gone. Instead mornings are frantic. I need to get John up at 6am and make sure he’s out the door, for the bus, by 6:50. Then it’s packing up Conor and walking with him and the dogs to elementary school.

I know many moms embrace the first day of school with open arm but I just love having my kids home. Yes, they argued this summer, Yes, the made lots of mess. But I miss them when they aren’t here. The house seemed too quiet, too empty, too much of me and my thoughts. I kept wondering how they were doing? Were their teachers nice? What about the other kids?

Sometimes being a mom can be so hard. You know when you love two little humans so much. I live for summer because I feel like in those lazy, hazy days we’re escaping time. The clock ticking on. I know too soon they’ll be off to college and then off to pursue their dreams. Even now, John who is 12 seems so much more grown up than he did just a year ago. He thinks he’s too big now to run in fountains in Boston while only a few short years ago he and Conor were larking about in them in their underwear (ruining someone’s selfie). If you’ve seen Christopher Robin you’ll understand what I’m talking about. The innocence of childhood.

Well, anyway, today is the second day of school and I’ll be in more of a routine.

Yesterday, I spent tidying up, doing laundry and starting to think about fall / autumn decor. I told you part of me feels like I’ve missed the bus – I see so many homes on Instagram and in blogland completely decked out for fall. Well, I haven’t even gone through my bins in the basement full of plastic and foam pumpkins and faux foliage. We don’t have a pumpkin in sight? Do you?

What I do have is some beautiful limelight hydrangeas that my friend Jann gave me. Aren’t they stunning? I’m really hoping the ones we planted by the pool take off like this. Currently there aren’t enough blooms on ours to clip.

I decided to spend some time playing with my camera, these lovely limelights and a few antiquing treasures I found.

I was so inspired by my friend, Courtney’s book (affiliate link), you can read my little review here. That we all piled into Luke’s truck and went to a barn sale at Bent Nail Farm Antiques on Saturday and headed up to Todd Farm on Sunday. Our kids love looking at old things. They hunt down treasures, too. At the barn sale I found this stunning blue willow platter. It’s in perfect condition.

When we were in England I found a platter very similar and I debated buying it and keeping my fingers crossed it didn’t break in my luggage. I was just too worried that it would, so passed on it. BUT this is so similar and actually I think it was a better price. I had planned on displaying this in the welsh dresser in our dining room but this platter is too big for it!

I also found a collection of 5 candlesticks. I love decorating with brass in the fall and winter. I just think it adds so much warmth. These are mismatched and I love that about them 😉

Two are the old-fashioned style and my kids are hoping we lose power so we can walk around carrying them. After the horrible storms we had last March we put a generator in, but I didn’t mention that to the boys.

Isn’t the patina lovely on them?

I’ve tucked limelights in marmalade containers.

In ironstone:

Yes, my shells are all still out. It was 91 here yesterday and we enjoyed the pool when the boys got home from school. So I’m still pretending it’s summer UNTIL we start displaying some pumpkins.

I stuffed the rest of the limelights I got from Jann in a crock.

I didn’t find much at Todd Farm, but I did find a few replacement crystals for our chandelier. A few were missing. I don’t think anyone noticed but me. Now there’s only one missing…

You may notice the lilac oil painting in the background. I found that in Goodies II in the harbor a few years ago now. It used to be in the guest room and then I came across it in the basement over the summer. John thought we should hang it up, so we did.

I’m actually thinking of moving a gold mirror that we used to have over the fireplace to above the blue cabinet:

I think some height over there would be nice.

I’m also hoping to add some woven shades to these windows and the living room. We currently have dark wood blinds and I think lighter, woven shades would make it feel more coastal in here. I have a pile of samples I’m trying to narrow down.

Well, that’s as far as I got yesterday. I took these photos and then realized I only had an hour to run to the grocery store before John would be getting off the bus. I had promised them chicken cutlets for dinner (their favorite) and I also wanted fresh baked cookies ready for them when they came home. Unfortunately they weren’t ready right when they got home but we chatted about their days and filled in some forms and they played games with friends while the cookies baked. We enjoyed them out by the pool. They came out really good, so I’ll share the recipe with you guys soon.

I’m starting to think about autumn decor and I think I’m going to keep things very simple and, of course, inspired by nature. You’ll probably see lots of blue and white (I can’t help it), lots of brass AND I’m currently drawn to amber and wine colors right now so we’ll see how that gets mixed into our home decor. Please, tell me you guys aren’t done decorating for fall?

Oh, and I have some really, really exciting things in the works. I can’t really share all the details right now but can’t wait to do so.

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