My posts about not travel have been getting me lots of texts, so here's another go. Also, it's cooling down and so it feels like time to write again; doesn't it just make you want to fill out forms and get new pens in the fall?! My adoration of fall in NYC has no boundaries and we aren't even there yet. 

On the first day of September, the clouds blinked their beautiful sleepy lids over the sun, the cool breezes rushed under, and life felt alive again. Today feels like I maybe, possibly, could have brought a sweater to work. I didn't, but the possibility is enchanting. In no particular order, here are some recent happy things from the month (iPhone photo alert!).

New restaurants galore in Dumbo, including this new bakery, Butler Bakeshop. Caught Walk in a bite! Dumbo has flown the coop and we can't believe that we have too many food options these days. It's fun!

Our first omakase experience at a counter called Kura with our great friends. My favorite was sea urchin, which was slimy and yellow, but tasted like the golden light on the sea. It's there on the far right.

A trip to the Planting Fields Estate with my friends, a beautiful girls' day to the countryside with a good dose of dahlia and mosquito thrown in.

Our rooftop got a grill! But, I tried it once, and it was electric, so never again. But the corn photos are cute, right?

My birthday brought me the one food I absolutely cannot not take another bite of: Seed and Mill halva. It's 100% my favorite food right now, and if it didn't contain sugar, I'd subsist on it alone. If you aren't familiar, halva is a sesame seed and sugar cake that crumbles under your fork and melts like honeycomb. Speaking of honeycomb, my team took me to my all-time favorite ice cream spot in Soho for my birthday, Morgenstern's, and I had honeycomb topping.

Hurricane Florence brought my childhood penpal to Brooklyn after a travel plan rearrange; we hadn't connected in 20 years, but we loved showing her all the sites, walking the Brooklyn Bridge like always, and meandering up to the High Line park.

Between the walking and the new places, there is home, my favorite place. This month I finally figured out how to organize my under-counter 'pantry' so that I'm not pulling odd tupperware out every time I need a spice.  Henry the vacuum has a new, un-pictured pal, Rory the (robotic) Roomba, and we are officially smitten. He eats a good cup o' dust every day. And I'm sharing proof, unrequitable, that I love Walker. I hate steak but have cooked it twice this month. My love on a medium-rare juiced plate.

Our friend chefs, Pixie and the Scout, cook local, seasonal popup dinners one Friday a month for charity, and it is always the best meal of the month. Look how stunning!

And finally, the Color Factory is also popping into NYC, and my work team jumped into the ball pit and ate blue ice cream and doodled our way to smiles. What a treat.

Seeing all of this together, in one space, it's so surprising it's all from one month. Sometimes, days feel like bringing all the cardboard from all the deliveries to the trash room, squinting at the computer I have no time to step away from at the office, and bracing from the screaming toddler down the hall, but that is not all. It is the warm, caramelized beets with goat cheese I'm eating and the smiles shared on the subway. It is laughing so, so much with my work fam-team. It's sitting with this guy on the roof any time of day at all.

And it is, at last, the loosened air that blows up the river each night, lighter from all the humidity that has passed.

To autumn with love, from one formerly-sticky girl in Brooklyn.