This post is sponsored by Born Shoes.

I find it a bit ironic that I live in a state with such subtle seasonal shifts given the fact that I live for the change of pace each new season brings. In fact, I still catch myself looking forward to things that aren’t offered here which is why I almost threw that adorable coal eye & corn pipe snowman kit in my cart the other day before I reminded myself, “Oh yeah…Florida.” Since our climate here refuses to throw the fall lovers a bone, I take the liberty of shifting my mental seasonal climate myself, and girl, I shift it hard. If you’re a longtime reader, you know that. Which is why I thank the heavens above for companies that practice seasonal equality, making sure things like pumpkins and corn husks and cable knit sweaters get in the hands of all who deserve them and not just those who are zoned for deciduous trees. So, when a box arrives from Born on my doorstep all the way down in Southern Florida on a sunny September morning and I open it to find new boots for Fall and a lace-up heel in a rich autumn brown that says “hold my cider,” I feel validated and goshdarnnit, straight up loved. “We see you,” Born is saying, “…trying to weave palm fronds into an autumn wreath, and we want you to know you get to be part of our fall club too.”

Me? Really? Really?

I mean, they even put a peep toe on that delicious slice of fall footwear, a deliberate high five to the hot states and the perfect way to show off a Florida pedicure.

Blane booties

Just because our pumpkins come from makeshift church parking lot “patches” doesn’t mean we don’t deserve chocolate suede and gold buckles. The right to butterscotch hues, classic black booties and, why yes, even knee-grazing equestrian boots if we wish belongs to all, which is why “ships to Florida” is part of the fall anthem I sing every season.

This season, Born is celebrating fall by recognizing it as the season of great comforts as we all know, and they’re asking us autumn lovers to share what we’re taking comfort in. “Will you share how you take comfort this fall?” they asked me.

I thought you’d never ask, Born. Here, give me the mic (tap tap). Uh, lighting guy, could you give me some spotlight, please?

(waits for crowd to hush…clears throat…closes eyes…gets theatrical)

The Comforts of Fall.

I take comfort in our inward huddle this time of year, maybe because we’re so tired come October, but even so, I like it. I take comfort in the way we craft a little more, bake a little more, curl up on the couch a little more for watching movies or reading books to kids in jammies who are splayed over our laps like lazy cats. I take comfort in the nesting genes that arouse the last three months when I mother bird the living heck out of our place to make it as cozy as cozy can be–stringing twinkle lights, fluffing pillows, stirring chili, tucking bed sheets picked out special for this very time of year. I take comfort in planning all the festivities saved for the calendar’s grand finale–the costumes, the parties, the family dinners, the traditions that remind me what a gift this period of time in my family’s life is and to be grateful for all the hidden treasures. I take comfort in making lists that I’ll likely forget to ever look at again, but the making of the lists in itself feels satisfying. I take comfort in the sensory explosion–the scent of cinnamon and apple in the kitchen, the crackling of our first fire when that long awaited cold front finally makes its way, the box of leaves from Michigan that will arrive in a few weeks and make me cry with the good kind of homesickness. I take comfort in grounding routines and schedules that sometimes overwhelm me but remind me that the best things in life come with effort and discipline and, yes, sometimes tears. I take comfort in the adjustments that follow the tears–saying no when my cup’s too full, saying yes to self preservation. I take comfort in silly things that might not matter in the grand scheme of things but matter to me when I want to feel good–things like the perfect fall print in a skirt that swishes or chic boots that make me feel so put together, I even remember not to slouch.

Casco Boot

I take comfort in friend dates and family movie nights and the joy of being able to call both my parents and hear them answer on the second ring.  I take comfort in putting check marks on our fall bucket list and feeling like completing “Host a Soup Spectacular” and “Watch Harry Potter with Homemade Butterbeer” is as important and productive as “Write Another Book” or “Respond to Every Unanswered E-mail.” And I take comfort in knowing that at the end of the day during this busy time of year, what didn’t get done is okay, and what did get done is good enough.

You know what I’m going to be for Halloween this year? I’m going to be Fall. As in Mother Fall, the season of all seasons.

A big thank you to Born Shoes, a long time partner, for reminding us to think about those things we take comfort in, and giving us beautiful things to wear while we do. I have so many pairs of Born shoes and boots in my closet, and they are always the most comfortable things I wear. Sometimes, comfort comes at the cost of losing some cuteness, but Born is fiercely dedicated to making sure that doesn’t happen. We’re so happy they are also dedicated to supporting our mission to help people with Down syndrome achieve their dreams, so stay tuned for their return later this month in recognition and celebration of Down Syndrome Awareness.

Fellow fall lovers, what are you taking comfort in this month?

It’s a weird thing having more than two weeks off of school after only getting three weeks under our belts, and going back feels a little bit like starting all over again. More than ever, we’re craving routine, healthy habits and a normal rhythm in our home. While adventures away from home allow us to learn new things and make meaningful memories, living out of suitcases, climbing in a messy road-trip car and indulging in “When in Rome” splurges (caramel apples, donuts, Lucky Charms, ice cream–uughh) eventually strips away the feeling of stability that helps anchor my parenting. Yes, I’m all about the YOLO, but it means nothing if it isn’t well balanced with responsible routines that keep our home base safe, calm and restoring. As much as I complain about things like doing laundry, cleaning the house, helping with homework and making school lunches, I find myself actually enjoying those things when our life gets busy or our schedules get out of wack because those are the things that recalibrate our routine and give me the satisfaction of knowing I’m nurturing my family in a good way. Nurturing is my jam.

So when we returned home and I had to completely rebuild my refrigerator supply (we threw out everything after 7 days of no power), I took great pleasure in filling my cart with nourishing food that somehow represented the feeling I want to restore in our home after having it disrupted by crazy ol’ Irma. Fresh produce. Soup ingredients for cozy fall dinners. Lunch box foods that say “Let’s pick right back up where we left off”. While we switch up our lunch box choices a lot to keep it interesting, one thing that always works for my kids is yogurt. But if you’ve been down the yogurt aisle lately, you’ll know that there are officially 546 kinds to choose from which I simply can’t handle because too many choices shut me down.

Here’s where you go–the #1 organic kids’ yogurt on the shelf is Stonyfield® YoKids® yogurt, and it features between 25% to 40% less sugar than the leading kids’ yogurt. Stonyfield recently announced a sugar reduction across its yogurt portfolio – and it started with YoKids. And because Stonyfield YoKids yogurts are certified organic, that means each cup is always made without the use of toxic persistent pesticides, artificial hormones, antibiotics and GMOs. Organic Certification matters because just calling something natural isn’t a guarantee.

It comes in cups, pouches, tubes and smoothies, so it’s super convenient for grabbing on the go and tucking into lunch boxes.

We also use ours to make our smoothies creamier…

…and God forbid you pull out the blender in our house without asking the little ones to help.

While I like to add a lot of fancy things to my smoothies, the kids like theirs pretty basic–a little apple juice, frozen strawberries and/or pineapple, spinach and yogurt.

Dash fights for the rights to the on switch.

We always keep a box of squeeze tubes in the freezer as well. My kids love to eat them like frozen yogurt, and they work great for lunch boxes because they stay colder longer.

Also–great for sharing…even with dogs.

Now that my fridge is stocked, we are restoring all the good feels around here with music, cleaning and fall decorating.

Feels good to be home.

It was still dark by the time we drove out of the Blue Ridge Mountains early yesterday morning, and as the cloud of fog that hugged our van slowly thinned and mountains shrunk into hills and finally flat land, I felt a little bit like we were leaving Narnia, the magical world we accidentally stumbled upon when we walked into the wardrobe–er, um–peeled out of our driveway and sped away from a catastrophic hurricane.

We are happy to be home now, emerged into a little more normalcy, and school starts again next week. We’re hosting a family dinner Friday night, simply to collect and retell all the stories we’ve made these past two weeks. It’s sort of evolved into a Little Miss Sunshine-ish movie, and we’ve already cast the characters of who will play everyone in our imaginary script. At one point, we were attempting to transfer messages to and from our people in Naples because, with limited cell phone service, they weren’t getting messages to each other. Imagine how hard I was laughing when I was conveying to Brett that my dad was attempting to get back to him, but his car got flooded and stalled along the way, so–get this–he was riding a bicycle with a dog in a backpack, trying to make his way home. Another night he was walking on a pitch black street with a flashlight ten minutes before county curfew while Brett and his Dad tried to find him, dodging fallen tree barricades along the way.

Debris and trees line many of our streets, and grocery stores still have some empty shelves, but for the most part, the community is moving along, anxious to clean up. We’re headed to go shopping and help make supply bags today for some other communities east of us that are struggling to get back on their feet, and it feels good to part of the relief efforts. Before we move along though, I wanted to share some of the magic of this little part of the country we might never had explored if Irma wouldn’t have given us the nudge.

Welcome to Blairsville, Georgia, a mountain town that offers all the elements of a Narnia-ish experience–fall colors, morning fog, mountain creeks and waterfalls, and a charming little downtown square with a historic courthouse perched right in the middle.

Family friends so generously offered for us to stay in their second home on Lake Nottely, and it quickly became the heart of all the magic, where we drank coffee and listened to records in the morning and retreated to late afternoon for movies and wine, cozy dinners and sunsets, and–if we were lucky–Dash’s naps.

One of my favorite things about the little town of Blairsville and something the kids were completely charmed by was its fierce dedication to the tradition of hiding painted rocks around town for kids to find. Apparently, several U.S. towns do this, but Blairsville is ALL IN. We spent an entire afternoon walking around downtown, in and out of shops, looking for rocks, and each kid was delighted to find a few–on a coffee shop window ledge, hidden under plant leaves, tucked in a stack of pillows for sale at a home shop.

They loved it so much, we stopped and picked up some art supplies to make our own rocks to paint that night, and then returned the next day to hide them.

If you’re wondering who enjoyed it more–me or the kids–I think we both know that’s a hard thing to determine.

We found our Fall which, as I’ve recently professed, is what fuels my cells and gives me happy superpowers. In just the 13 days we were gone, we watched the colors begin to shift a little more golden and, on our last day trip along a route we took earlier in the week, we couldn’t believe these glorious pockets of red foliage that had suddenly erupted. If there was a fall thing we could do, we did it.

Apple orchard? CHECK.

Mercier Orchards: oh my God, their apple cinnamon donuts. 

Caramel apples? CHECK.

Lakeside campfire with cider and popcorn? CHECK.

We even met up with some of our dear friends from Naples who also evacuated to the area for a day of apple picking.

Hillside Orchard Farms, Tiger, GA.

Bonus: We got our baby fix.

Other North Georgia gems we found…

Meeks Park (Blairsville) where we enjoyed two different creek side picnics.

…how cool is this tandem swing?

Sunrise Grocery. A family owned country store that I’ve now added to the unrealistic list of things I dream of owning and running someday. It’s full of local goods, art, pottery, handmade soaps, jams, candy and is just about the most charming shopping experience we’ve ever had.

There’s a little brass monkey the owners hide in the store everyday for locals to find (these Blairsville people and their hiding things magic–I love it!), and they sell the most amazing spicy peanuts that you eat shell and all.

Happy Goats Trading Company. We were driving along one day and passed this darling little trading post and then saw chickens, some goats, and finally my mother-in-law said, “Wait–they’re on a trampoline!” Family Rule: WE U-TURN FOR GOATS ON TRAMPOLINES. Totally worth the U-Turn.

And then–wait for it–we drove by A LIFE-SIZE FAIRY GARDEN. You heard me, a MAGIC FAIRY GARDEN FOR REAL PEOPLE. It’s true: North Georgia is where the unicorns live.

Sleepy Hollow Whimsical Fairy Garden.

There wasn’t a day we weren’t laughing, watching all these weird little magical adventures unfold on their own, saying to ourselves, “What is happening?” I mean, one minute we were evacuating for a hurricane, and the next we were taking pictures of the kids in a bird house in the mountains.

Then there was Clayton, Georgia, this darling mountain town with a hip Main Street, great restaurants & bars and fabulous shops–less mountain Trading Post-ish and a little more on trend (but I like both!).

We ate at Union Joint (super kid friendly with a whole kid toy area outside) and Fortify (the FOOD! so good!).

Favorite shop: Wander North Georgia. Super fun hipster/outdoor adventure vibe, but what I really loved was the back of the shop, this big area they turned into a faux outdoor camp space, complete with twinkle lights, a big screen movie playing and a bocce court.

And the best for our last day–Tallulah Falls, where we climbed 324 steps to walk the suspension bridge across the falls.

I was so proud of the kids–even Nella did the climb back up without being held.

Could not have done this trip without my mother-in-law…how cute is she?

We won’t soon forget this corner of the world and the gift it has been to our family these past two weeks–and the family who was so generous to us in sharing their home and their beautiful state with us.

These three added North Georgia to their list of favorite life adventures.

And the little house? I did one last sweep through before we left early yesterday morning, and right before I turned off the light and closed the door, I thanked the little house–out loud–for what it gave us, and wished it many more happy memories for others who are lucky enough to walk through its door.

Time for some storm clean up and more stories to be written back home in Florida.