Dear Reader:

While we have all been anxiously watching weather reports for the past few days on Hurricane Irma…Fall “snuck” into the Lowcountry.

(When I checked to see if “snuck’ was a real word I was assured that it was a ‘non-standard’ past tense of sneak acceptable only as part of the language pattern in North America. Do say! It seems all so very proper to me…but it concluded by saying “snuck” sneaked into the American vocabulary of colloquialisms.)

So once again…I re-iterate…Fall ‘snuck’ in while we were otherwise preoccupied with Irma.

*Update from the Charleston area here…as Irma turns more west…our situation is improving considerably…and while I actually slept the best sleep I have had in awhile (after Tommy texted me around 11:00 Thursday night)…I also have felt a type of “Pre-survivor’s guilt” (even before Irma hits)… because I realize that as I am becoming more cautiously optimistic I know others are looking on in apprehension at the shift.

Still Irma is fickle and certainly no one is ‘out of the woods’ until it arrives and leaves.

The humidity has lowered to the point where I can actually walk in the garden and not come back drenched in perspiration. In fact, amazingly enough, it was actually a little (dare I say it?) a tad chilly while walking in the garden yesterday morning around eight. The most delicious feeling! The first feel of the first hint of fall.

It still warms up in the day but the evenings and mornings are spectacular! I followed butterflies in the garden yesterday and then took time to take photos of some of our older historic homes in the neighborhoods not far from my teaching Alma Mater…Alston Middle School. I spent almost 30 years of my teaching career there and feel very blessed to have done so.

Yesterday I was plucking yellow leaves

off the morning glory vines and started

chuckling to myself when I remembered

one gardening book say ‘yellow leaves

are to plants and vines  like gray hairs

are to humans…keep plucking!’

The blue skies are such a brilliant blue now… as only autumn can produce after banishing the thick humidity obscuring the sapphire skies. The fictitious town of Three Pines might be famous for their tall White Pines…but Summerville (“Flowertown in the Pines”) has its tall pines too.

I live in one of the older subdivisions in town that have produced these “Hugo Survivor” Tall Tall Pines. (While beautiful…you can see how daunting they look during hurricane season…The thought of these pines falling on your house is disconcerting.) *See how tiny my garden looks below.

Autumn has always been my favorite season…not because so many of the family members share fall birthdays …but because of the temps and beauty of the season…and certainly those unique smells associated with it…”toasting s’mores, bonfires, leaves, pumpkin pies, baked turkey, costumes, jack o’lanterns, candy corn…the list goes on and on.

Last year, however, was the first time I was ready to see fall go….While in the midst of getting my cataracts removed and new lenses put on at the end of August…I discovered one small spot on my breast bone that turned out not to be  scar tissue (like my surgeon initially thought) but my “little c” breast cancer returning. (After being in “stabilization” for almost four years.)

On the morning that tropical storm Hermine hit Charleston Mandy and Jackson were taking me to a 6:00 a.m. appointment for exploratory surgery. At first it looked promising…the margins came back clear…but only two weeks later the cancer appeared under my left arm where it started originally.

So that lead to the hormone/chemo oral medications that I am on now. It is definitely slowing things down somewhat but not eradicating it from the surface like the other drug did…still I am just thankful for the “pause” and pray it continues.

So until tomorrow… Right now I just want to enjoy every moment of this fall this year…making the most of every day of it…from fall decorations to planting mums to ‘Racing for the Cure’.  Autumn represents the best of times for me…so let’s all get out there and enjoy it. (especially after Irma gets out of here)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Please keep Anne Peterson in your prayers…she got an insect bite a few days ago that later became infected, went to the doctor and got antibiotics…but as of yesterday it was still infected and did not look good at all…or obviously feel good either!

** She went to see a medic friend from church who specializes in wounds and got her foot cleaned up and out, and looking better. She still has to give it time to heal but no doubt your prayers will certainly assist in this stage. Thank you.