Three things to love about September (guest post)

Guest post from Sumanth this month, as Emily is too busy. A whole post could be written about this, how busy she is, but as an issue it happens to not be among the top three anything of September. So it will be left to the imaginations of anyone reading this. Among the things Emily is too busy for is even just telling me what her top three consists of, so I've simply had to guess at them below.

1. Autumn Leaves Yankee Candle. Finally fall is here.

After months of anticipation, the above was finally lit, allegedly signifying the beginning of the fall season. The air conditioning units are gone from our windows, which means we can hear the outside world as we wake up in the morning. There are lots of bird sounds and the sound of the newborn next door, learning to cry. Sometimes we have to wear our sweatshirts outside. It is the best time of year to be here.

2. The smell of homemade bread, such a smell.

Last weekend, against all odds, Emily made some bread -- a hard enough task for a well-rested home baker with nothing better to do, certainly harder for the one of us whose back falls asleep every night in protest of all the hours in the office chair. The bread was mostly eaten at lunch this week with some cheese and other stuff, and the rest is in the freezer.

3. The Fox River, St. Charles, IL.

We visited my family in Geneva, IL, over Labor Day weekend, and one of the most enjoyable parts of the trip was taking a daytime cruise on the Fox River with our one-year-old nephew, Miles. (Everyone else was there, too.) We shared a paddlewheel boat with ten or fifteen others, all with our own personal views of the river and surrounding foliage.

Honorable mentions: Nadal wins the US Open; Sumanth finishes writing a long story; new GPS arrives in mail, gets us where we need to go; something about toenails; something about a new coffee cup.