Autumn In My Heart 🍂

6 months into this pandemic, I already gained weight, lost some, and gained some more again. There’s no in-between. It’s crazy that I’ve been away from my family for 6 months now, only seeing my mom for 1 day when the lockdown was briefly lifted. 

In those 6 months too, I have experienced many ups and downs, learned a lot of lessons, and got a glimpse of what it feels to work 2-3 jobs for months. I am done with that kind of stress in my life because I didn’t realize how toxic it was. 

Right now, I am as of the moment, happy where I’m at now. It’s not satisfied happy or happy-happy, but more of an optimistic-happy as I’m working on a new project now that I am excited about. I also started planning my content this holiday till next year and I am now diligently creating content for myself since I don’t have any excuses to procrastinate anymore. I always loved creating content. I may hate social media as my job but content creation is what keeps me going. It may be for others or myself, it just gives me the joy to see my work out there. From conceptualizing a post, making the copy, editing my vlog and all that, it gives me joy. What doesn’t give me joy, however, is not having control over my creative juices. But that’s a different story and more of a work thing. 

Aside from my new found time to create my content, I am also happy that it’s finally OCTOBER! September is my hype month and its when I get my momentum to go full blast this holiday season. I laid out my possible content for the holidays and up until next year, started to edit all my vlog backlogs so I can upload almost every week this month, and planned out this project that I’m doing. Thinking about autumn makes me happy. I know, Autumn is not as vibrant as summer and most people find autumn to be quiet and cold, but for me, it means that a new year is about to come again soon. There’s no autumn here in the Philippines. Just Halloween. We are a tropical country with only two seasons: really dry, or wet. It’s not even a season with our country’s unpredictable weather, but I love to pretend that there’s autumn here. I’m also surrounded by trees with leaves consistently falling off their branches here in our condo so I sometimes walk outside to pretend that it’s fall season but with the virus still out there, I’m not sure if I can still do that. 

For me, autumn is the time when my go-to overpriced coffee shop finally rolls out their holiday drinks. I consume more coffee than usual during the BER-months not for the stickers collection but for the holiday drinks. Pumpkin Spice Latte is one of their seasonal drinks and I love it, so I make sure to enjoy it while it lasts. I’ll be lighting up my scented candles regularly this season too so I can feel cozy while sipping my coffee or hot chocolate while reading a book in the comfort of my bed. These are just some of the few activities that I love doing when it’s BER-months. Then by November, I’ll start making our Christmas menu which most often than not, only 1-2 dishes get served from my menu but I don’t mind it since I love doing it anyway (those 1-2 dishes are usually mashed potato and pasta or chicken LOL). 

Nothing much will happen for me this holiday since I don’t want to risk anyone’s healthy for going out too much and I don’t want to do Christmas shopping when everyone is out there doing theirs so this is an early warning to the people I love that I might skip the exchange gift part of Christmas this year. As much as I want to order online, I know people are thinking to do this too so instead of stressing out on when a parcel will be delivered, I know my family and friends will understand if we all together skip the gifts this year. 

More than the gifts and fun activities though, what makes me excited for this season is how I can start planning for the next year already. This year, I looked forward to this season so much because it is when I usually do my planner shopping, journal hunting, and goal setting. Me, being me, already have my 2021 planner ready and I’m just waiting for the right time to start filming it so I can share it with my vlog. Although my goals for next year are not yet ready, it will come easily once I’m done with my planner and journal set up. I don’t have anything fancy ready for next year. Just a simple (yet a little expensive, because of quality) planner and my good ol’ Muji notebook as a journal. I may also do some DIY this year but that would have to wait for another blog post.

How about you, what’s your favorite season? Feel free to share it with me!