By the end of August, I'm usually ready for fall long before the weather agrees with me.
It's still hot outside. The trees are still green. I'm definitely not pulling out sweaters yet. But there's usually a stretch at the end of summer when the weather is nice enough that I start thinking about what's coming next.
I don't do a huge fall reset. I'm not interested in turning the change of seasons into another project that requires an entire weekend and a color-coded checklist. I mostly use this time to look around, clean out a few things and figure out what I actually want to bring into the next season.
It's a little preparation while there's no rush.
And I've found that's a much nicer way to welcome fall.
I Start With the Things I've Been Storing
Storage has a funny way of becoming invisible. Once something gets put away in a closet, cabinet or bin, I can apparently forget it exists for an impressive amount of time.
So toward the end of summer, I like to go through some of those spaces. Not all of them. I'm not emptying every closet onto the floor and creating a much larger problem in the name of solving a smaller one.
I might pull out a storage bin, look through a cabinet or go through the things I've tucked away during the year. Usually I find something I don't need anymore. Sometimes I find something I'd forgotten I had.
That's enough.
I've become much more interested in small resets than dramatic cleanouts. It's the same reason I've learned to reset things ten minutes at a time. A little attention now can keep something from becoming an overwhelming project later.
And because I live in a smaller home, storage space matters. I don't need every inch to be perfectly organized, but I do want the things taking up that space to deserve it.
I Look at My Fall and Holiday Decorations Before I Need Them
This is also when I start looking at my fall and holiday decorations.
Not necessarily to put them out yet. I just want to know what I have.
Decorations can quietly accumulate over the years. Something gets faded. A strand of lights stops working. A decoration you once loved doesn't really feel like you anymore. Meanwhile, everything gets packed back into the same bins because it's easier to deal with it next year.
Eventually, next year arrives.
I'd rather figure those things out now than when I'm excited to decorate.
I look at what needs replacing, what I'm ready to phase out and what I still genuinely enjoy seeing every year. Sometimes the answer is that nothing needs to change. Other times I realize I've been storing something for several years simply because I've always stored it.
I don't think seasonal decorating has to mean buying an entirely new collection every year. In fact, I like decorations more when some of them come back year after year.
But I also don't think I have to keep something forever just because it once belonged to a holiday.
Sometimes the Theme Comes From Life
One thing I especially enjoy at this time of year is deciding what I want the holidays to feel like.
I don't necessarily mean choosing a perfectly coordinated decorating theme. Sometimes it's a color or a mood. Sometimes it's one little idea that ends up showing up in a few places around the house.
This Halloween, that idea is black cats.
A friend of mine had a black cat for more than thirteen years who recently passed away. He was part of my friend's life for a very long time, and this year we decided it would be fun to decorate our places with black cats for Halloween in his honor.
I love that.
Halloween already gives us plenty of black cats, so it doesn't have to become something sad. We can find silly ones, spooky ones, cute ones and probably a few that look like they're plotting something.
But we'll know why they're there.
That's the kind of decorating that means something to me now. It doesn't have to impress anyone who walks through the door. Sometimes an ordinary little object can carry a story that only a few people understand.
And somehow that makes a home feel more like home.
I Don't Want to Decorate Just to Have More Stuff
Maybe that's also why I've become more selective about seasonal decorations.
I enjoy making my home cozy. I like little changes that make one season feel different from another. But I don't want to fill storage bins just because stores tell me that every September requires a completely new personality.
There's always another pillow. Another pumpkin. Another wreath. Another adorable little thing that would look perfect on a shelf.
And sometimes I buy the adorable little thing.
I'm not pretending otherwise.
But I try to think about where it will go when the season is over. In a small home, everything eventually has to live somewhere.
That has actually made decorating more enjoyable for me because I think more about what I really like. I'd rather have a few things that make me smile when I pull them out than boxes of decorations I feel obligated to use because I own them.
It's similar to what I've learned about organizing my home around function instead of perfection. The goal isn't to have beautifully organized bins full of things I don't particularly want. The goal is to make my home work for the life I'm living now.
I Let Summer Leave Slowly
The funny thing is that while I'm doing all of this, it's still summer.
I'm not trying to rush it away.
There are still warm evenings to enjoy. There is still summer light. There are still days when fall feels very far away.
I've written before about how you don't have to make the most of summer, and I feel the same way about its ending. I don't need to squeeze every possible summer experience into the last few weeks, and I don't need to pretend it's October while the temperature outside says otherwise.
I can enjoy where I am while preparing a little for what's next.
Those things aren't opposites.
In fact, I think that's one of the nicest parts of late summer. There isn't an abrupt line where one season disappears and another begins. For a while, they overlap.
The days are still warm, but I'm thinking about candles. The trees are green, but I'm checking the fall decorations. I'm still living in summer while quietly making room for fall.
Preparing Early Lets Me Enjoy It Later
That's really the reason I do any of this now.
I know how quickly fall can move.
One minute it feels like summer, and then suddenly there are holidays, plans, things to buy, things to do and a calendar that seems to have accelerated without asking permission.
I don't want to spend the beginning of a season I love digging through cluttered storage or discovering that something I wanted to use is broken.
I'd rather handle a few of those things while there's no urgency.
Clean out one bin. Check the decorations. Let go of something I don't want anymore. Decide what I'd like to do differently this year.
Maybe find a black cat or two.
None of it needs to happen in one day.
That's what makes it feel good.
A New Season Doesn't Require a New Life
I think seasonal resets sometimes get presented as opportunities to reinvent ourselves.
New routines. New goals. New wardrobes. New decor. A completely refreshed home and, apparently, a completely refreshed person living inside it.
I don't need that anymore.
I like my life.
I don't need fall to transform it.
I just want to make a little room for the season that's coming.
That might mean clearing some storage, replacing a decoration that's seen better days or deciding that this year's Halloween needs an unreasonable number of black cats.
Mostly, though, it means paying attention.
One season is winding down. Another one is getting closer.
I can appreciate both.
And when that first genuinely cool day finally arrives, I won't need to scramble to get ready for it.
I can open the windows, pull out a blanket, light a candle and enjoy the fact that fall found me already waiting.
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