Great autumn scents are the gateway to starting autumn. Cinnamon, cloves, fall leaves, pumpkin, warm vanilla are all wonderful scents.

Bath and Body Works makes all the great scents for autumn.

Autumn is scent notes are Gala Apple, Juicy Fig, Eucalyptus Leaf with Essential Oils.

Autumn Woods scent notes are Dark Walnut, English Lavender, White Amber with Essential Oils

I am using older wallflower plugs for autumn but I did buy a new plug for halloween. It is a cute little haunted house. I love how the witch shows up on the wall above the wall.

But of course I have to light a candle or two.

This Spiced Cider candle came from Michaels. The chalkboard drawing on the label is co cute. The scent, not that awesome. I guess I am use to Bath and Body works who really brings the scents out in full force.

I love fun little socks. I have wide and big feet so I cannot find beautiful shoes, so thank goodness I dont have a shoe buying addition.

But I can find fun socks. I love finding those bundles at TJ Maxx or Sams Club of themed bundles of socks

What I love about these socks (besides the cute pumpkin design) is that they remind me of the “cat paws” would buy us girls every Christmas for our stockings. My sister Jan and I fondly remember those stocking stuffers.

These socks were part of a set of 8 socks. It was hard to decide which one to model.

One of the autumn bucket list items was getting some cute slippers.

When I was at Wal-mart I found these great slippers. They have Mama Bear, Daddy Bear and Baby Bear. I know there is a set of Aunt Bear but they were not selling those slippers.

But since I am “mama” to my little doggos, I think Mama Bear slippers are just perfect.

I am starting to think Mums are a rare species of flower. For the 3rd year in a row I struggled to find mums.

One day I was walking into Aldi and saw a man pushing a cart out with a basket full of fully bloomed mums. I thought “jackpot”, Sadly he must of bought the store out. None to be found. Oh how frustrating.

I went to Wal-mart, I checked out grocery stores, looked at Smart and Final and no mums to be found. The clerk at Wal-mart said they were all gone. Ok, it was early September…. What the heck

Finally I saw an Aldi ad for mums. Since my local Aldi is so skimpy I drove to the Simi Valley store. Yes, they had mums but NONE of there were blooming. I went ahead and figured I would buy them and let them bloom.

So they finally bloomed. I try to do the porch different every year. This year I have the big wooden sign from Aldi sitting on a haystack. I also have some black iron lanterns with candles that turn on at night. I also found this cute “pumpkin picking” bucket at Michaels that I added mini ghords and pumpkins with some twinkle lights.

I hung my wreath on my door as always.

Since 2020 is the year of Covid I did not go out to get new garden flags. I had to recycle flags from previous years.

First up was the Halloween ones.

For Halloween this year I just added the flags and left the porch basically as is, except a few lighted up pumpkins.

I was not sure what to expect with Covid but our Mayor agreed to let Halloween happen. I was concerned because it was Saturday and I usually have close to 100 kids. Being Saturday I was expecting more. I even bought extra candy.

However, only 8, yes EIGHT kids came. I have a ton of left over candy and no desire to comsume it. Which is good I guess. But one of the kids complimented my front porch. WIN!

Right after Halloween, I added the Autumn Garden Flags up.

Decorating the front entrance beckons Autumn to come on in. Even if it is blazing hot. I hope the mums survive.

To kick off the bucket list, a wonderful reading of the poem by Robert Frost about my favorite month of the year.

It is time to get in the mood for Autumn. I love Autumn and it never seems to come soon enough. Here it is October and we still have a heat wave. So to make it seem more Fall like (you know, cool breezes, leaves, pumpkins and hot soup) I do a bucket list of fall activities to get the season started

This year it will be tough as we are still battling Covid–19 and there is not a lot of activities including Trick or Treaters this year. I feel bad for the kiddos out there. I hope their parents do something awesome to make up for a disappointing year. I should probably have candy on hand just in case. Officially it has been cancelled according to Los Angeles County, however there will be a few who break all the rules for candy.

Of course every year I have to watch the Hallmark movies and them make some annual yummies. However I reserve the right to add things on as they become available.

I was reviewing my bucket list and discovered that I had added Post Crossing as a “easy to achieve” item. I doubt seeing the Northern Lights or lava is going to happen anytime soon, but I think this was one I could check off my list.

My original list said to send and a receive a postcard, I decided one was not enough. I have sent out 8 so far and have received 3.

My first card came from Dana, North Carolina, USA

My second card came from Dresden, Germany

and my third has come from Siberia, Russia

I am thinking there is a coffee theme happening here. I so look forward to seeing the other cards as they drift in.

If you have not checked out Post Crossings. Please do so here.

I had added onto my bucket list to make Jam for the peeps at work.

I have this nifty Fresh Tech Jam/Jelly Maker that makes the stirring part super easy. I have used it a couple of times and it could not be easier.

Here is a little video that shows you how super easy it is.

The hardest part is the sterilizing the jars and doing the water bath. I am wondering if I can do that in my instapot. Must research that.

Since I wanted to decorate the lids with those damn cute labels from Lily and Val, she only had Strawberry and Raspberry jam labels. Since you can use frozen fruit I was really hoping to find frozen raspberries but no luck so I spent a small fortune on the fresh raspberries.

So after two days of messy jars and jam juice, I had the mason jars ready to decorate.

I really struggled on how to decorate the jars. Originally I was going to put a fabric cover on the jam but never got around to ordering the fabric liked.

Then I thought I would add some Tim Holtz doo dads on the package. I was shocked to discover I had NO Christmas doo-dads. I need to fixed that ASAP.

I did find that I had some little bitty crocheted strawberries that I got on ebay a million years ago. I finally found a use for them.

I did find some simple tags from Tim Holtz that I tied on with bakers twine and ribbon.

The jam was a huge success. Even Grumpy Pants in the office told me that he really liked the jam and he thought I should make jam and sell it. He said he definitely would buy it. LOL

I would like to try some other options like vanilla strawberry, or strawberry lavender. We shall see since it has been a few years since I did this before, it might take a few years more for me to make the next batch.

At least I got another bucket list item taken off the list.

I have been so busy I have not had to time to blog my continued Autumn Bucket List. On my list I said I would have an Autumn Inspired Home Spa Day!

It was the first time I have bought a bath bomb from Lush. So much fun and glitter! I was smelling good after a good relaxing soak!

It was cold…. it rained that night…..

I wanted HOT apple cider….

I did not have any….

I went to Starbucks….

A picture of a Starbucks cup is boring….

So I added the picture of the cup on a nice table with apple floral display.

So since this post is rather boring, I thought I would add a recipe for Starbucks Copycat Apple Cider Recipe.

 

I snagged this from www.momsneedtoknow.com  Click on the recipe to go to her website.

I think I need to make sure of this…..  I just need apple juice.  YUM

Well after the painful photo shoot with the dogs and their scarfs, I decided to get creative and Photoshop the spoiled little goobers into autumn scenes.

Here they are hanging out with some crows and a scarecrow.

Sitting in the middle of a beautiful Autumn Road.

The girls on some Autumn steps.

The girls seem to get around.

And finally individual shots in a pumpkin patch.

and Olive.

Before you know it, they will be in Paris.  LOL