Autumn

• Light up a powder room with tiny votive candles around the sink ledge or on a nearby table. Place some potpourri in a small dish or julep cup to keep the room fresh smelling.
• Don't bring an old broom to a new house. Buy a new one to start fresh. After you use it to clean, change the furniture arrangment in your new living room and rearrange the accessories on your coffee tables.
• Decorate a guest bathroom in a lighthouse theme. Replace traditional towel racks with solid brass ship anchors that can be installed on L-brackets, which will then hang away from the wall to serve as towel hooks.

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• Have a dinner party, invite friends who don't know one another and serve wine in new attractive stemware and buy some new colorful dessert dishes that don't match your regular china, but complement it.
• If you never use a dining room, turn your new one into a quasi-library by placing a smaller table that can expand at one end, adding bookshelves, comfortable seating, stereo equipment, a soft patterned rug underfoot and good lighting.
• Put in an underground sprinkler system that will water your grass and flowers better, save you time and labor and ease your back strain.

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• Have your curtains cleaned, dust all blinds and baseboards before you place your furniture, and have your windows washed. Your house will sparkle.
• Get ready for Halloween by planning a costume party for different generations of your family and friends. Pick a theme and include old-fashioned games such as bobbing for apples.
• Assign a chore to each family member to make life run more smoothly in coming months. For exmaple, have one child set the table nightly, and another do the dishes. Rotate tasks so everyone gets to learn something new.
• A mah-jongg set with creamy plastic tiles the size of dominoes with pretty symbols adds cachet to a family room. It can create the theme of the room with the proper mah-jongg table, tiles encased in an alligator-embossed box and the mah-jongg pad or cloth.

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• Learn a new sport, even if a spectator; you can buy a book, tapes or take a class to hone your skills.
• Check your property for dead trees and foliage. Take down old greenery, then plant some new items to fill in where it's bare.
• Cover a bulletin board with special photographs and illustrations that typify your lifestyle such as quotes from a magazine or funky cartoons.

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t's like a black hole that occasionally swallows me up, from out of nowhere. I can't work, I can't sleep--and yet I can't stay awake--I can't take care of myself, and all the color and hope drains from the world.

"It" is depression, and for me it's a chronic condition that cost me jobs and relationships before I finally found effective help. For me that help was pharmaceutical, but I use several natural methods as well to keep the black hole at bay.

I'm not alone. Depression affects millions of people worldwide and can range from being fairly mild to completely devastating. It's estimated that a quarter of all American women will suffer from clinical depression at some point in their lives, and that women are twice as likely to suffer from it as men. Only 30 percent of depressed people get any form of treatment at all, which is a big mistake. Without treatment, the frequency and severity of symptoms tend to increase over the years--just like other diseases. Take depression seriously. It can be just as deadly as cancer, especially in the elderly.

ne of the best things about fall is so many more homes come on the market. Indeed, the change of seasons can help you in your search for a home -- if you know when to look.

Spring is the hottest home buying season, particularly March, April, and May, as families want to get settled before the start of the school year in September.

Fall is the second-hottest home buying season, with September, October and early November being the busiest times.

• Before you buy new clothing for fall, clean closets and check what you need. You may be surprised by how much you own, especially if you alter or clean items.
• Celebrate one new occasion in September, such as Grandparents' Day.
• Convert a family room into a music room with soundproof walls using wool felt on the walls that are padded to muffle the sound. A handsome complement in the room might be leather floor tiles and a comfy chair in which to listen to your favorite tunes.

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• Add elegance to a living room entrance by creating an archway adorned with ornamental plaster moldings. Add columns on either side of the arch to support it in a grand manner.
• To have a place to sit in a child's tiny bedroom, consider stacking stools with vinyl cushions. Also, instead of a bedspread, buy a duvet cover that can double as a sheet.
• When issuing invitations to this year's Thanksgiving feast, ask your guests to write down what they most love about their family and friends and what they have to be thankful for this year.

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• If you've redecorated your kitchen, consider buying a chef's apron and embroidering your monogram or moniker on the front to match the color of the walls. You might want to add new dishtowels to match the wall color as well.
• Gel, a form of polyurethane, is a hot new furniture statement that takes the place of padding. The user just melts into the gel-like surface that comes in the shape of chairs and chaises in a variety of candy colors.
• To add an accent of sunshine to your new kitchen, fill a wrought iron bowl with ceramic lemons.

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f you live in regions where it becomes extremely cool in the winter, you can feel the changes in the air and sense what is about to come. Winter weather is just around the corner and it is time to prepare your home for the cold weather. For a frugal person, the important thing is figuring out how to prepare your home for the cold season and keep the most money in your pocket.

Anyone can turn the thermostat up, but it is the frugally zealous who figure out a way to keep their home as warm as possible without putting a huge dent in the bank. Use these conventional (and unconventional) tips to prepare your home for winter.

know what you're thinking – "I planted everything back in the spring and I'm done until next year." That's what most people do, but an avid gardener like you should realize all of the benefits of planting in the fall.

This is the Autumn main page.

This is the Back to School main page.

I want to travel. I want to be Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. This is my current fantasy life. (Oh and climbing Everest. I am figuring that no bugs can live at that altitude. They are never mentioned in the litany of traumas of Himalayan high altitude climbing.) Who, you may be wondering are Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid? None other than the authors of Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia. These guys and their two kids Dominic and Tashi actually travel. To places with bugs. They have a stock photo agency called Asia Access and they travel Asia taking pictures and asking for recipes. I am impressed with the whole idea. I am jealous. I am thrilled for them. Especially the kids. I had never eaten curry before I landed in New York at eighteen. Never ate Thai food until much later. Malaysian? Who knows.

Apples are a delicious, cheap and plentiful sign of fall.

n the Diary section a while back, I mentioned that I had acquired 40 pounds of organic apples on sale through my co-op. Using up that windfall, and planning for the apples that are now arriving in my yard and at stands and stores, had me puzzled at first. But there are as many ways to put them by as there are varieties, and endless recipes as well.