I have a policy (it’s even in writing, so it’s official) that the first cool, rainy day of fall is a holiday. Today is that day. A front came through last night, so this morning was rainy and cool. I celebrated with a leisurely breakfast of cinnamon rolls (the refrigerated kind) and tea. Now I have a lentil soup simmering on the stove for lunch. I’ll bake some cookies this afternoon, and I think it will be a movie night tonight. There’s a neighborhood movie night in the park, but I’ll have to see how cool it still is by then, and I’ll have to decide if I want to watch The Addams Family in the park or stay home (and warm) and watch something else. I’m also getting to wear my new cozy at-home outfit. Last spring, at the end-of-season clearance sale, I bought this soft, fuzzy tunic/dress from the loungewear department (so I guess it’s kind of pajamas, or just something comfortable for wearing around the house). It was already too warm for that sort of thing, so I put it away with my winter clothes. Today is the perfect weather for it, worn with fleece leggings (though by later in the afternoon the fleece may be overkill and I may switch to regular leggings). There may also be some reading, possibly even some writing, but I’m not making myself write. Today is all about enjoying the change of seasons and doing all the things I haven’t been able to do for months, like light candles. I can’t really have candles when I’m running the ceiling fans, but I can enjoy them today.

And then next week it’s warming up again. Ugh. We don’t get seasons. We get days, randomly scattered around. But I’m going to enjoy this while it lasts.

The weather and the fact that it’s Texas vs. Oklahoma weekend reminds me that it’s around the time of one of my life milestones. It was around this time of year back in the late 90s when I unexpectedly got a chance to sample the kind of life I’m living now. I was working for a public relations agency, and I got recruited by a former client, who’d gone to work for a competing agency. She was running the account for a company that was also a client I’d worked with in the past, and they wanted me for their account. The last time I’d changed jobs, I left one job on a Friday and started the new one on Monday, without a break, so this time around I wisely gave myself a week of down time after my two weeks notice when setting my start date. But then when I submitted my resignation at my job, they walked me to the door rather than letting me work out my notice, so I suddenly had three weeks off, in October, my favorite time of year to enjoy. I treated it as a chance to live the freelance writing life I’d dreamed of. I took long walks, did some writing, got my house in order (I’d moved into this house during the summer but hadn’t completely unpacked or organized everything), and even did a little traveling. I hated to go back to work, but it was a good incentive to keep up the writing so that one day that would be my regular life. And now it is! I have to remind myself of that every so often when I get discouraged or frustrated by the publishing business. I’m living the life I always hoped to have, and while I’m not wealthy, I do have enough to live on. I get to do silly things like declare the first cool, rainy day of fall a holiday, something I doubt most employers would be all that open to.