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In today’s post I thought I’d share with you some of the things I’ve been enjoying this fall! (Do you ever watch your YouTubers’ “favorites” videos? I love those. I’ve found lots of great new things from them.)
Read on to find out what all my favorite things have been for fall 2018. I have something for everyone!
Pumpkins
One of my most favorite things about fall is choosing pumpkins and decorating my home with them. Going to the pumpkin patch and seeing all the different shapes, textures, colors, and varieties of pumpkins is one of my favorite things to do in fall. Bonus: you can cook and eat the big ones!
We carve jack-o’-lanterns each and every Halloween, a fun family tradition. Halfway through November I usually begin cooking my pumpkins for Thanksgiving and Christmas pies and for homemade pumpkin bread.
I also enjoy decorating with faux pumpkins. Target had a lot of interestingly colored mini suede pumpkins, so I bought a bunch. I have them displayed in different areas around my home, including with my new pretty fall floral arrangement I made (another of my favorite things this fall).
Hair Care
For the last year I was a loyal user of Costco’s Kirkland Signature shampoo. Once my previous giant bottle ran out a couple of months ago I purchased a new one. To my dismay, it had an entirely different formula in it. I tried it for a few week’s worth of washings, but the new shampoo wasn’t cutting it. Unlike the previous formula, which did a good job of actually cleaning my hair, the new one only coated my hair with silicone (which was why I quit using Pantene and switched to the Kirkland Signature in the first place – it was destroying my hair). Luckily Costco has a fabulous return policy, so I was able to get my money back. (To be fair to Costco, this one of the only times I’ve ever been disappointed in a product of theirs. Everything from them is usually top notch quality.)
I began to search for a new shampoo. This is always a daunting task, because there are hundreds of brands of hair care products out there. To narrow it down, I decided to take the opportunity to try out an all-natural shampoo.
I happened upon this Soapbox Bamboo Shampoo and gave it a try. Let me tell you, my hair hasn’t looked this good in a LONG time. My hair is smoother, shinier, and less tangled than it’s ever been (by tangled I mean, it looks great when I brush it but as soon as the tiniest breeze blows my hair, it’s a hot mess). I’ve tried a lot of different shampoos in the past, even salon formulas, and my hair looks better now than when I used them. Frankly, I’m floored by the quality – and it’s half the price of salon formulas without the harmful ingredients.
The shampoo also has a very nice light scent I find very refreshing. I’m sensitive to strong scents, and this scent does not bother me.
The only downside to this shampoo is that it’s tough to lather, since it lacks sodium laurel sulfate, which is the lathering agent in drugstore shampoos. The Soapbox shampoo lathers best if your hair is extremely wet.
One other great thing about this product: the company donates a bar of soap to someone in need with every purchase.
If you are in the market to try a new shampoo, I highly recommend this product!
Cleaning Products
Last summer I began switching to all natural cleaning products. I tried out the Mrs. Meyers multi-purpose spray, dish soap, hand soap, and toilet cleaner. I have a sensitivity to strong scents, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the Mrs. Meyers’ scents, which for the most part, don’t bother me. The products clean really well and are on par with regular brands yet don’t have harmful ingredients.
So when the Mrs. Meyers fall scents became available, I went a little nuts and bought some of all three. My favorite is the mum scent. It is a light floral scent, and I love cleaning with it. I use the multi-purpose spray to clean the bathrooms, and it leaves everything smelling so nice – but not in an over powering way. My entire family loves the hand soap as well.
We also enjoy the apple cider scent. It’s very true to the smell of apple cider. You know exactly what it is when you smell it. Like the mum scent, it’s very light and pleasant. We’ve been using the dish soap religiously, as well as the hand soap and mutli-purpose spray.
The Mrs. Meyers Christmas scents just came out, and I’m so excited to get some. I love making the house smell like Christmas trees, so I bought the multi-surface spray in the Iowa Pine scent. (Gonna smell like a Christmas tree lot up in here!) I also bought the dish soap in the Orange Clove scent. It’s a nice light, but still Christmas-y, scent for the kitchen.
Books
As the days grew colder and Halloween approached, I began to crave some of my favorite books that I only read in the fall.
One of my absolute favorite books of all time is Sunshine by Robin McKinley.
From the jacket description:
“There are places in the world where darkness rules, where it’s unwise to walk. But there hadn’t been any trouble at the lake for years, and Sunshine just needed a spot where she could be alone with her thoughts. Vampires never entered her mind. Until they found her…”
Yet this isn’t your usual run-of-the mill vampire novel. Vampires (or “suckers” as they’re jokingly called) are not nice, they don’t fall in love with you, and they certainly don’t sparkle. (I first read this book when Twilight had just become popular and joked that Sunshine was the anti-Twilight – even though it was written earlier.) Sunshine is the baker at Charlie’s Coffeehouse who specializes in cinnamon-rolls-as-big-as-your-head, who, in her run-in with vampires, has to remember her forgotten heritage in order to escape.
Sunshine is wonderfully well written with a first person perspective written in a way that only a writer as great as Robin McKinley can pull off, with great characterization, atmosphere, and ambiance.
If I haven’t yet convinced you, check out the editorial reviews of the book in my Amazon link. If you enjoy novels about the supernatural, or even if you just enjoy reading about baked goods (and perhaps occasionally consuming them whilst reading about them), you will enjoy Sunshine.
Another old favorite I picked up again was Winter Rose by Patricia McKillip. This is another novel that falls into the realms of fantasy, but the author’s elegant prose elevates the story to literature. It’s a beautiful story that I get something different out of every time I read it.
From the editorial reviews:
“Winter Rose begins as the seemingly simple story of Rois and Laurel Melior and their understandable fascination with young Corbet Lynn, returned to rebuild his abandoned ancestral home, Lynn Hall. Laurel is drawn to Corbet’s beauty, Rois to the mystery of his past. But the past holds more than one mystery, and as Rois fights her way into the wood around Lynn Hall, seeking answers for herself, Laurel, and Corbet, she risks losing everything, for all of them, forever.
Traces of Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”, of Tam Lin, and of a dozen other legends and tales color Rois’s story. Patricia McKillip’s consummate mastery of language means that every word counts in a complex, sweetly painful story of human love and timeless, indifferent power.”
This poetically written novel is a book you won’t want to put down. Winter Rose is a 10/10 if you want a story that will suck you in and take you to a simpler time – where all is not as it seems.
Patricia McKillip also wrote a sequel to Winter Rose, Solstice Wood, set in modern day upstate New York.
I hope you enjoyed this list and are inspired to try something new! Leave a comment below: I’d love to know what book you’re currently reading. Do you have a favorite cleaning product? What’s your favorite fall thing?
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Ah Sunshine. I haven’t read that book since you made me read it years ago. I remember liking it. I just started reading The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher. I’ve never read any of his work. I’m really enjoying it so far.
I love your profile picture by the way!
I have not read that one of his, but I’ve read all of his Dresden Files novels. They’re very good!