I've seen enough of the doctor.

At one point or another, I’m sure I’ve blathered on about my love of Fall! I don’t think “fall” officially has a capital “f,” but it should.

I love everything about Fall. The clothes, the pumpkin patch, warm apple cider, trick or treating, etc. etc. etc.

It may have something to do with the fact that the woman who “did my colors” at Merle Norman before the 8th Grade Christmas dance told me I was “an autumn.” She was absolutely correct in her assessment.

Last year it was 85 degrees every day until November, when over night the temperature dropped to 30 degrees. Last year was a bust. This year, we’re going to have a great Fall. I can feel it. It’s been sunny, pleasant, and the cool air is trickling in. The weather man keeps telling us we’re going to have awesome foliage because we’ve had the right temperatures, the right amount of rain, and the Farmer’s Almanac says so.

Last weekend I ripped out my dead as a doornail petunias and conned Brandon into planting giant yellow mums. I hung my Fall wreath. I scattered my glass pumpkins throughout the living room. I’m ready.

It’s not quite time to buy pumpkins and drag out the jack-o-lanterns, so to tide myself over I suggested we go apple picking as a family.

Here’s the thing. I tend to do this kind of stuff by myself with the kids. Do you know why? Because I can go on my own terms and I have a great attitude. When we involve Brandon there’s a great deal of hemming and hawing around and excessive questioning. “Where is this place? How do you know they have apples? Do you have any cash? Can’t you buy apples at the store?”

When we get there, the fun leaks out like a balloon with a pin hole. “You’re wearing flip flops to an apple orchard?! Meredith! You wore white shoes?! Gator, watch out for the mud! Stay on the gravel! I don’t know where we’re supposed to get the picking bags! NO, we’re not riding on the wagon; it’s crowded! We’ll walk and get there in half the time!”

I don’t like unknowns anymore than Brandon, and we have a shared appreciation of structure, but once in awhile, the occasion calls for throwing caution to the wind. I do so in low risk settings, like an apple orchard. We arrived, we got a little muddy, I found the picking bags. All was well.

We picked several pounds of apples. We wound up with more eating apples than cooking apples. I should have used the last of the cooking apples to make a sugar-free apple sauce. Instead I baked them into a killer apple crisp, which the kids and I ate before dinner while it was still warm and topped with vanilla ice cream. We probably gave Brandon hives!