Today I am sharing all about my Autumn Bucket List, which has brought me so much joy this season! I got the cute template for the list through A Beautiful Mess, one of my favorite blogs that I have been reading for years. They send out these templates each season to their newsletter subscribers.
A little backstory: I am NOT a Fall-loving gal at heart. I love spring and summer. I had wanted to move to California since I was a little girl specifically because it’s warm almost all the time (later, I realized it has other amazing qualities, but the biggest draw for me was always the weather). I have a distinct memory in 5th grade of trudging through dead leaves in our driveway thinking, Fall is so depressing. I think this was the first time I ever thought of anything as being “depressing.” My whole life I have struggled with major blues when it starts getting darker and colder. I don’t love Fall colors, I have only recently started enjoying Fall foods, and I typically look forward to absolutely nothing about Fall. I guess these are all probably signs of seasonal affective disorder, but as I have never been diagnosed with anything like that, I hesitate to use any official terms.
Although I cannot change how Fall affects me, I can change my approach to it! Last Fall knocked me off my feet with feeling sad from the change in seasons. I was so busy I didn’t have any time to counteract it. But this year, for my first married Fall, I wanted it to be a happy time. Making a fun Autumn Bucket List and intentionally checking off the activities has made the BIGGEST difference in my attitude toward Fall this year. This has been the happiest Fall of my whole life!
Also, I am married to a Fall-obsessed Scorpio, so it’s been a lot of fun to do the bucket list together since she already enjoys the season so much.
If you can’t read my handwriting above, here are the items on my Fall bucket list:
Haunted Hayride
Try a new WeHo (West Hollywood) restaurant
Light our fireplace candelabra
Refresh guest room
Bake something festive
Add some indoor plants
Make a home office
Send lots of happy mail
Make pancakes
Semler album release (Grace’s musical project is called Semler)
Take dogs on a day trip
Plan our New Orleans trip
Spooky movie night with our popcorn machine
Have friends over for brunch
Put flannel sheets on our bed
Homemade soup
Donate extra kitchen stuff
Trip to DC
Make our wedding album
Read a cozy book
Order our first ever Christmas cards
Slow cooker meals
Buy candy corn
Journal more often
Hot chocolate in our “B” mugs (B for Baldridge)
Underwood Family Farms
Autumn stove simmers
Open the windows in nice weather
Host a dinner party
Decorate seasonally
The ones I’ve highlighted on the list are ones we’ve already completed (but some we’ll do again for sure - like homemade soups and sending mail to friends).
Not all of them are strictly seasonal—like going to DC or making pancakes—but all are designed to help me savor the season.
Here are some photos from us doing the things on my bucket list
Adding more indoor plants:
Semler album release (we had a fun release show at the studio where Grace recorded the album). These are the guys she recorded it with. And yes, Grace dressed as a skeleton:
Going to Underwood Family Farms (our favorite pumpkin patch—and so much more. It’s about 45 mins out of LA and SO FUN. They have tractor rides, tons of cute goats, all kinds of produce to pick, pumpkins, seasonal food booths, and more):
Going on the Haunted Hayride (we went with a few of our close friends and although I shut my eyes the whole time, it was really fun):
Hosting a spooky movie night with our popcorn machine:
I was super proud of my orange-and-black Halloween snackboard I made for the movie night.
Making pancakes (using a pancake mix our friends brought us back from Hawaii recently!):
Decorating seasonally:
Making my home office (still not totally done, and far from done in this photo):
Baking something festive (these are pumpkin-granola muffins, and I also made pumpkin bread this Fall):
And although not on the bucket list, everyone in the family dressed up for Halloween!
Bean and I dressed as Toto and Dorothy
And for a friend’s party, Grace and I went as Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein (perfect newlywed costume, I think!)
Bean went as a hot dog for our spooky movie night
And Willie was the cutest pumpkin
Another really fun thing was that we got our first trick or treaters this year!! Even though we were living in our same house last Halloween, we didn’t get them for whatever reason. Our house is in a neighborhood without that many kids, so I’m actually surprised we had any, but it was so fun and sweet! I think having our Jack o Lanterns lit up on our front steps helped :)
It’s only the beginning of November, so I’m excited to keep checking off more of our bucket list items all month long. We are actually trying out a new West Hollywood restaurant tonight, so I can check that one off tomorrow!
We keep our bucket list taped to our fridge and I really do think it helps me focus on enjoying the good stuff this season. I’ll be making a winter one too—I’ve already been collecting ideas for it!
Hope you are enjoying Fall too, and if you normally don’t, try making a bucket list to see if it helps!