1. Five words: Bath and Body Works Candles. If you don’t have a three wick of “Leaves,” “Autumn Harvest” or “Sweater Weather” going at any one time, are you even alive?

2. The excitement of Back-to-School season – and the incomprehensible excuse it provides to buy new clothes and office supplies – without actually having to go back to school.

3. Football season providing a weekly excuse to eat chicken wings and sweater weather making the ensuing weight gain a non-issue.

4. The endless amount of time you can spend on Pinterest perusing Halloween costume ideas. Your boyfriend CANNOT WAIT to dress up as Miss Trunchbull to your Matilda this year.

5. Trader Joe’s seasonal goods. Pumpkin cream cheese. Pumpkin ravioli. Pumpkin ice cream. Pumpkin waffles. Pumpkin Joe-Joe’s. Pumpkin butter. Pumpkin bisque. The ways to consume pumpkin are truly endless thanks to the ingenuity of the Trader Joe’s team.

6. Spending approximately an hour a day during work planning your trip to New England for “leaf peeping” THAT YOU’RE DEFINITELY GOING TO DO NEXT YEAR.

7. Finally getting to wear the over-the-knee boots you bought on sale this summer (until about an hour in when your toes feel like they might fall off and your heel is bleeding through your sock).

8. Freeform’s 31 Nights of Halloween. Never too old for Hocus Pocus or The Addams Family.

9. Transitioning your nail color from nudes and pinks to maroons and mochas. “Lincoln Park After Dark” or “I’m Not Really a Waitress” anyone?

10. Getting to say things like, “Actually, I prefer apple cinnamon to pumpkin,” and feel ~unique~ cause you’re not like other basic bitches.

*11. Obviously Pumpkin Spice Lattes. You didn’t really think you were going to get through this list without that, did you?

Carolyn Linck (@ByCarolynLinck) is an aspiring fiction writer currently working on her first novel. Her work has appeared in Rain Taxi Review, Adelaide Magazine, and Little Old Lady Comedy, among others. By day, she works in corporate communications for technology companies. She currently lives in Chicago with her dog, Bailey.