(not quite yet fall) transformations 5

today the revgals friday 5 is about fall transformations

Mary Beth reflects,

Here in my neck of the woods, rain is falling...a little uncharacteristic for August, but most welcome! It'll be hot and humid later, but a break in the heat is most welcome.

Also falling (especially into my driveway) are the fruits of the bois d'arc tree (also known as the Osage Orange). We call them "bowdarks" and enjoy bowling them down the driveway to the empty lot across the street. (Yes, I may be a redneck...)

Bois d'arc fruits are used only for: 1) making more trees and 2) eating by squirrels (if you have another use, please let me know!) The wood of the bois d'arc tree, however, is very hard and very beautiful, and makes gorgeous items like the vase above. Such a lovely thing, from such an odd-looking source!

For this Friday's Five, share with us five transformations that the coming fall will bring your way.

Bonus: Give us your favorite activity that is made possible by the arrival of fall.

I've always absolutely loved the start of the fall semester in school with its new notebooks, textbooks, teachers and classmates, along with revitalized hopes and expectations--just like mini-Easters and New Years. I love Mary Beth's intro and especially the beautiful vase, so here's my mostly directly about me play:

1. By the time fall officially arrives I hope to have sufficiently sorted out my print portfolio to be able to choose 4 or 5 differently-themed pages to get my online portfolio and website live, and even get the GoDaddy ad deleted (yep, I'm going to pay for server space), plus welcome/splash and résumé pages.

2. As much as I love hot weather, I always enjoy wearing warmer sweaters and light jackets, as well as corduroy pants, skirts and blazers that never seem quite right during the summer, even on cooler days. Besides, we've been experiencing some very uncomfortable high humidity; hot dry desert weather is one thing, but soaking swampy heat is another.

3. Hot fall days always are great too (in the Northeast we called them Indian Summer, but we get them here in the coastal southwest and also had quite a few in the Intermountain West), and I love the happy surprise of not having packed away all of my hot weather clothes and getting to wear a few favorites again.

4. Most likely I've admitted many times on my blogs that I only practice the piano when I have a gig, but I'm planning, hoping, to return to almost daily piano practice to retrieve and refresh some favorite repertoire and learn the remaining Beethoven Sonatas.

5. Despite everything I just wrote so seemingly optimistically, within the next few weeks I'll need to have made a decision about where I'll be living and if it's not here, I need to find someone to help me pack. At least I've decided not to continue as Queen of Abandoned Property.

bonus: Going north a piece to Julian for apples, apple pies and apple cider.