fall in paradise

it's fall ... the weather is turning, sweaters and boots are appearing left and right, cozy blankets are making regular appearances throughout the home, firewood is being stacked and fires are warming the evenings, colors are changing outside, comfort food is heartier, days are shorter and families are nesting in their homes. well, it's not quite the same in hawaii.

hawaii is truly a small sliver of paradise; rarely do temperatures fall outside of the 73 - 86 degree range. greens and blues are the predominant color, reflecting the water and foliage. when i opened the door at 5:30 this morning to go on my walking meditation, it was a chilly 74 degrees, i could smell the green-ness of the early-morning-watered grass. the sun started coming up over the ocean as i completed the last leg of my walk, and 6:15 crept up with grey-blue skies. truly beautiful, but this tropical beauty does lack a bit when it comes to experiencing the seasons.

fall foliage on my way to work

i have season envy ... panda laughs at me at least once an evening as we watch tv and i get sucked into the commercials romanticizing fall - cozy sweaters, jeans, boots (yes, i'm a clothes whore!), walks through multi-colored woods, fireplace settings and holiday gatherings with leaves falling outside. never does an evening go by that i don't look at panda and say "honey, can we live someplace cold" she laughs at me ... LOUDLY! we're not cold-weather peeps. truly, we're not. we take sweaters and jackets with us when we go out to dinner because the air conditioning makes us cold! i wear scarves in my office because it inevitably is too cold by 10 am .... so, living in cold weather is really not realistic.

fall in our house looks like slippers, shorts, tank tops - soccer games on saturday morning in 78 degree weather - tailgating at UH games sitting in our beach chairs in shorts and a t-shirt. how do we decorate for fall when fall doesn't look like the ideal? i'm still figuring that out .... i want to celebrate the beauty of our home and everything that we are thankful for with a local, hawaii twist ... so fall colors are not going to be the dominant theme in our home during these holidays. not sure what we're going to do, but it will be festive and it will be us and our life in this beautiful slice in paradise will be celebrated and appreciated.

these are the scenes of fall