In a few weeks, we will be selling mums and asters at the church.  The following week is the Belchertown Fair.  What does all this mean?  It is fall with all the activities that fall

brings – the opening of school, the start of Sunday school at Sentinel Farm after church, the changing of the leaves, shorter days and longer nights, a generosity campaign at church, and more and more activities.  The lazy days of summer are gone.

I can feel the pressure mounting.  As I think about fall and all the activities I see on my calendar, I am stressed and overwhelmed.  Where is the transition from summer to fall?  It seems like one day I am in summer, enjoying myself, then bang, I am in fall, busier than a bee.  How did this happen?  Where did my summer go?

Do you feel like this?  Are you grieving summer?  Or are you happy for fall – for your children and grandchildren to be back in school again, for routines to be established again, for the new beginnings that fall brings? 

Don’t get me wrong.  Fall is one of my favorite seasons.  I love the changing colors of the leaves.  I love apples and apple cider.  I love the crisp air.  I even love the new beginnings fall brings.  But I don’t love the anxiety and hecticness that fall brings.  It always seems to bring me so much stress.  I am simply overwhelmed when I look at my calendar.

Maybe fall is trying to teach me a lesson.  I remember when I was in college.  On the first day of class, we would get a syllabus – a map, of sorts, for the lay out of the semester of the course.  I always dreaded that day.  I usually cried.  How was I going to accomplish all that the professor wanted in one semester?  How was I ever going to get everything done?

Fall is still like that for me.  When activities start winding down from the summer, I look at my calendar and think, how am I ever going to get everything done?  How is everything going to fit in? 

If I remember back to those college years, I hear the sage advice of my mother, “Just take one day at a time.  Enjoy college.  Don’t stress so much.” 

Maybe that is the same advice I need to take now.  “Just take one day at a time.  Enjoy Fall.  Don’t stress so much.”  Wasn’t it Jesus who said we need not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow has enough worries of its own?  Just enjoy today.

So that’s my motto for this Fall – to enjoy each day.  To enjoy selling mums.  To enjoy the Belchertown Fair.  To enjoy the smell and feel of the crisp air.  To enjoy all the activities in my calendar. 

I am going to take life one day at a time.  I not going to get stressed or overwhelmed – at least not today!!!

Michelle