Beach.

I remember the old days when going to the beach meant a 32-oz soda in a styrofoam cup, a towel, and a 2-minute car ride. Now it means packing chairs, an umbrella, spf 80 sunscreen (80--you read that right), and a cooler, and it's 4 hours by car. Worth it, though.

A word about the umbrella: I have officially fallen into the demographic that would not dream of going to the beach for longer than 5 minutes without some sort of shade. In fact, I pity people without umbrellas at the beach. Ten-Year's-Ago Me would have laughed in Today Me's face...and then thanked me for trying to keep our skin from looking like fruit leather.

On Friday morning, it looked ominous. 50% chance of rain.

 We tried to keep a positive attitude.

 And then we saw this.

Which I interpreted as God promising not to flood the beach that day. Or that I would find a whole sand dollar. (Broken sand dollars are all over the place in Port Aransas, but never any whole ones.)

Despite some early morning rain, we had two days more or less full of sun. But the rain brought something else that maybe you don't expect at the beach: mosquitoes. Mosquitoes the size of horseflies. They congregated here, at the boardwalk path between our house and the beach. Pretty, eh? Pretty dangerous.

I expect West Nile and/or hepatitis at any time now.

And look--I bought a faux cowboy hat! Am I a cute poseur or what?

Never did find that whole sand dollar.

Still fun anyway. And tan.

Vision.

My mom has more Halloween decorations that Christmas ones. She (and Emily) begin their Halloween-decor shopping around the end of August. So it's probably no surprise that that haunted apple has not fallen far from the tree. Only storage space prevents me from going overboard with Halloween and fall tchotchskies. (Aside: the spell-checker for that word suggested that "crotchless" was what I was trying to spell. That would, indeed, be a different post.)

I bought this at TJ Maxx last week. Stay with me now.

I have nowhere to store this guy, so my plan is to spray paint him bright orange or blue, or even white, so that it can sit out the rest of the year. Owls are very in right now. I just cant' decide if I am making a mistake by painting it--therefore ruining it for subsequent Halloweens--or if I am making it better. Guess there'll be only one way to find that one out.

A few of my favorite things.

Fall-minded these days. Maybe because of my new lovelies.

Fall clothes and shoes are the best colors: orange, brown, turquoise, plum, and emerald. I need some tights--not leggings. Or jeggings, God forbid. I need some tweed. I am in love with this herringbone jacket by Tucker for Target. I need to learn how to wear scarves.

For all this, however, I need to live in a place where it's not still 95 degrees.

But I've already made one pumpkin-spice recipe and the pumpkin-spice latte is back at Starbucks (though I never get those; too many points), so I've mentally made the transition. I sigh with the realization that it'll be another couple months before a true fall wardrobe can be put into effect.