The sweet smell of fall...

This year, autumn has taken its sweet time in arriving. :)

Practically, until week ago, we've been having summer days - I think that was the longest I remember of having such sunny, warm days.
This September in Zagreb was the warmest since the start of measuring temperatures (some 150 years ago), so I guess that tells you a lot.

I'm not one to enjoy the summer heat, but the warm, balmy days we had, suited me fine. The only problem was that my fall/winter perfume collection kept beckoning, and I kept giving it a wide berth. The time to wear it just wasn't right.

Well, now it is. :)

My collection got turned around so that the perfumes that warm me up are now close at hand, and those that cool me off, are having a vacation.

I also noticed that my mood for perfume these days leans toward the more masculine of the warm genre. Dry, herbal patchoulis, dry woods, sniping orientals.
I guess you might say I'm not in a mellow mood these days... ;)

(which is mainly caused by work and me finally starting to learn to stand up for myself - I hope...)


Pic is mine - the Versailles gardens. :)

I've been thinking - about being in balance

When I said the other day that I meant to write more, I did actually mean about perfumes but it seems now I'm still at the point where I'm talking more about my thoughts than perfume. Oh well. It'll get better.

I noticed these last years that autumn is just not my time of year. Not that I don't like it, I like it very much. The colors, the smells, the cold seeping slowly around my city, curled with a book while it rains outside and I'm warm, there is just so much to love about autumn. But it just isn't the time of year when I feel at 100%. Or 90 %. Well, at the moment, I don't think I'm more than 60% of my own self.

The things is, this spring, I felt I was completely in balance. I had managed to set my life so I would have time for all the things I love, I was able to write often and everything was moving at the right pace. Then came the time of bad stuff and after that, I just can't seem to regain my balance. I try, and it seems I'm getting there and then something happens, and it seems I'm more behind than I was before.  At least, that's the way I feel now.
I know life will eventually move into my "perfect" balanced routine but I wish it would happen sooner.
One of the things I noticed that happens each autumn is that I cannot get back into my training routine. I start normal when I get back from my vacation and it lasts a few weeks and then everything falls apart.
It seems to me I need to either learn to go with the flow of annual life for me (which is difficult because it makes me feel lazy) or I need to do something with my subconscience and convince it that it needs to let me pursue my ideas and needs at 100% of my usual self. Because I'm usually more concentrated and healthy and optimistic than I am now (or any other autumn until now for that matter).

At the moment, it's only perfume that has the capability to make me sigh in relief. It's worrying when I lose interest in books.  But perfume still holds the mystery and even when it's bad, it's still a new mystery to discover.

Like what I'm smelling today. Tom Ford's Champaca Absolute. I'm baffled by it. I didn't fall in love with it, for that matter, I'm not even sure I like it but it mesmerized me with this austereness emanating from it. That was my initial thought. Bitter and austere (and white). Then I took a look at the notes and noticed Tokaji wine and cognac mentioned first. They don't seem to be in my decant. :) I have no idea where they went, but believe me, I would have noticed if they were around. :)
Champaca Absolute certainly doesn't qualify (IMO) as a winter scent and I need to try it once weather turns warm again. It holds an appeal I cannot understand. It is by no account my type of scent. But I cannot help smelling my wrist over and over again. I'm entranced by a perfume I would never have guessed had that ability. But then again, you never know what awaits you around the corner...