There’s something about the almost fall time of the year.

The night wind is especially biting on the soccer field, while the

warmth of the day is still enough to sport short sleeves.

I can fill the change building in my chest with each passing day, a testament to the slow switch of seasons.

It’s my favorite time of the year.

Fall is when good things happen – there’s football, for starters; then, homecoming and Halloween. We pack away are shorts, and I can wear a scarf, a puffy vest and my pea coat.

I love how September slides into October, which falls into November, and then how things settle into December.

Fall is a time for comfort food, chili and grilled cheese sandwiches, and haunting decorations on the door – or in our case, a cross-eyed Frankenstein idea I stole off Pinterest.

One of my most favorite things about fall is that I can wrap up in a

blanket (while wearing my pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt), with a steaming cup of hot coffee in hand, grab a great book and enjoy the weather from my back porch. An hour like this is a luxury that I don’t often get to take with three children and a filled calendar, but when I get the chance, it is lovely. And, really, can you imagine doing this during the summer?

I think maybe one of the biggest things I love about fall is the

thought of family and the multitude of opportunities of celebration

that are soon to arrive.

As the girls fought over the masking take for Frankenstein’s mouth, I realized that 2012 is nearly over.

In a couple of weeks, it will be time for fall festival at the school, trick-or-treating on the square and then, my utmost favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. Two days after that, a big milestone in our house, the oldest’s 13th birthday.

Oftentimes, we rush, rush, rush through the holidays – never pausing long enough to really enjoy them, and never really realizing that we’re rush, rush, rushing through our lives.

Maybe that’s one of the things that I love so much about fall – how it reminds me that as the colors on the leaves change, so do the

circumstances of our lives. And more importantly, how it makes me remember that we shouldn’t overlook the beauty of today in preparation of what is waiting for us tomorrow.

You only live today once. Don’t rush it. Make it count, so on the next cool, fall morning, you smile over the rim of your hot cup coffee, knows that in this moment, life is good.