September has hit and boy am I happy about it. Autumn for me is definitely my favourite time of year. I adore the cooler evenings, the crisper air and the excuse to crack out my immense jumper and cardigan collection (I seriously think I have a problem).

I always feel that September is like a mini New Year in itself. I think the years of going to college and University are to blame for that but in more recent years I’ve learned to embrace it, to take this weird self-imposed ‘New Year’ as a way to assess where I am, where I want to be and what I want to be doing. Now I’ve never really been one for sticking to New Year’s resolutions but I think whenever that sort of clean slate feeling hits it’s worth grabbing that by the horns and going with it.

This year has been the same as any other and I’ve had that clean slate feeling hit me as the weather has started turning colder. I don’t really ever stick to resolutions if I ever do set them so I’ve just been trying to bring in little changes that I know I can stick with and aren’t going to be too painful or too time consuming (ain’t nobody got time for that…). So first things first I joined the gym… I know I know, YAWN, it’s such an obvious one but I have a massive hate hate (there’s no love there…) relationship with exercise and it’s incredibly hard for me to find something I feel comfortable doing and something I know I’m going to stick with. I haven’t properly excercised consistently for about 2 years now and I can feel it so I’ve started going to a spin class and they’re seriously amazing. I never thought I’d actually enjoy something like that and to feel comfortable whilst exercising is an amazing feeling. I can tell that this is something I will be able to continue with for the forseeable future and that’s just swell (and a small miracle!). I would totally reccomend them for anyone who is a bit of a gym-phob like I am…

Another thing that has started to creep its way into my thoughts is my future plans. Now this is a slightly sweeping statement and not something that I can definitely set in stone as you never really know what is going to happen or what opportunities are going to appear round the corner but I know I’m reaching a point where I need to make some slightly big and slightly scary life choices and that’s both equal parts exciting and terrifying.

Matthew (my long-suffering boyfriend) has been studying here in Oxford for the last couple of years and he’s now starting the last year of his degree. When he joined me here in Oxford we always said that once he’d finished studying I would go on to do my Masters degree, so this is it, possibly my last year in Oxford and the countdown to moving on, furthering my studies and life-planning to the max… Not at all scary… Not at all… So where to next you may ask? Well no plans are firm yet but I’m really liking the look of Manchester and Edinburgh… So keep an eye out to see where my next adventures will take me… Any recommendations or preferences guys? I need all the help I can get…

And my last September ‘New Years’ resolution is to properly throw myself into my blog writing. I’ve been stupidly bad at sitting down and blog writing over the summer, too many fun distractions and I really don’t have a better excuse, so I have made it another one of my resolutions to write a post every two weeks and stick to it. Let’s see how long this lasts…

So there we have it, my little weird September ‘New Years’ and why I just love Autumn. Alongside my clean slate feeling we can start to embrace Autumn/Winter fashion and start to rework our wardrobes, buying all the chunky jumpers and all the fluffy coats whilst simultaneously crunching through leaves and drinking hot chocolates… Well in my dreams this happens, in reality it involves a lot of avoiding rain and judging the weather poorly each morning and dressing inappropriately for it…

Love

Molly Catherine

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