It looks like the Halloween season is starting early this year

[Murfreesboro]

Well, that's kind of endearing. What do you do with those notebooks?

I used to like school when I was a student, but now it just means my husband is heading back to work. He's planning to retire at the end of this school year, though.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

We have seen pumpkin spice products on sale here already as well. My wife has a strict policy that she won't use it at the bakery and cafe until Sept. but then she comes home smelling like pumpkin spice every night for 2 whole months.

When I was growing up we used to say that we only had 2 seasons around here, summer and winter, and we only experienced about a week of spring and fall between the other 2 seasons. That was certainly true back then, but in recent years we have had winters without snow, so it was like a extended fall season here for us.

On a side note, I'm a nerd too, but I hated the start of the school year when I was younger, though, it didn't bother me as I got older.

[Murfreesboro]

I'm with your wife on that one. Keep pumpkin spice in the autumnal months.

Snow has never been a big thing in middle TN, but we almost always have at least one snowfall each winter, usually in January or early February. When I first moved up here from Missisippi, it was more consistently cold than it is now. It was so cold for two or three winters running in the late 70s that magazines like Time were speculating we might be headed into a new ice age.

What's really annoying is when they predict snow and it falls as ice. That happened throughout this region, including MS and AL, last winter. Snow is pretty and fun. Ice is a mess, although it can glitter beautifully when the sun comes out. I think maybe we get more ice down here than y'all do up north.

[Murfreesboro]

Just read this morning in a local freebie paper that one Spirit Halloween is already open here in town and another will be opening soon. This is the first time I've known of two Spirit Halloween locations in Murfreesboro.

Some people are already putting out autumn decorations here in town. It's a little funny, since our feels-like temps are in the 100s right now. But school is starting today, so perhaps they feel justified.

[Andybev01]

I can't believe your school's start in yhe middle of summer...yuck.

We've been getting smoke from several fires to the east but the wind pattern is shifting today and I can tell the difference already.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

I saw a video on youtube last month and there was already a Spirit Halloween open in Arizona. I guess they might as well start early since there's clearly a demand for it.

But school is starting today,

Are you serious? What kind of backwards, incompetent moron decided to start the first day of school on a Friday? I mean, what's the point? You start school then get 2 more days off again? It's probably the same idiot that said kids have to go back to school in August.

Around here we have always started the new school year on a Mon. or Tues. and it's been that way since before I was born, and that's the way it should always be.

[Murfreesboro]

The first day of school is a 2-hour day for the kids. They get their schedules and room assignments, etc, plus supply lists, shop all weekend, then hit the ground running on Monday.

When I was in school we got three months, or almost three, off. Some of my most memorable vacations happened in August when I was growing up. But my own kids started out in a year-round school that actually started in July. It was called a "paedeia" school and was considered very avant-garde back in the 90s. The schedule didn't work out well for high schoolers, though, since sports schedules for the other schools didn't coincide well. It also prevented summer jobs for many of them. And when a family with more than one child ended up with an older one in traditional high school and a younger one in the year round school, it was a mess. So they readjusted the schedules. Now everybody gets two months off in the summer, June and July. But they also get many breaks during the school year that they didn't formerly get--fall break the first week of Oct, a full week at Thanksgiving, two weeks at Christmas, a full week in the spring which often coincides with Easter unless Easter is really late. Then they get spring break plus Good Friday. They get the same amount of time off, but distributed differently. And families have come to love those fall and spring breaks.

When talking with friends up north, or hearing about school schedules on tv, it seems to me that up north the kids stay in school almost until the 4th of July. Around here they get off at Memorial Day. I suspect that the kids up north are getting about the same length of break, but they get August and we get June.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

plus supply lists, shop all weekend, then hit the ground running on Monday.

Aren't people supposed to do their back to school shopping in the weeks leading up to the start of school? It just seems counterproductive and lazy to me.

it seems to me that up north the kids stay in school almost until the 4th of July.

I haven't ever heard of anybody, anywhere around here staying in school past the end of June. When we were younger we would get out between June 10-20, it varied depending on a few factors, like the age of the kids, and what area you were in. I've noticed in recent years that it's now between the June 25-30, but no later than that. We usually go back to school by Sept. 3-5 depending what day of the week it is, and that hasn't changed since we were kids.

[Murfreesboro]

Well, when I hear that people are staying in school until June 25-30th, that sounds to me like the 4th of July, and that's what I meant. Around here, the kids are out by Memorial Day weekend. The teachers may have to show up for a couple more days, but everyone is out by June.

I don't honestly know when people shop. TN had a tax free weekend last weekend, so, before our kids in Rutherford County went back. Nashville (Davidson) starts tomorrow. The private (Christian) schools in the Boro started back full time with kids on Weds, because I was having to dodge the school zones. So everybody is slightly different, but everyone is starting in early August. And everyone was out in the month of June.

It doesn't really make that much difference which month you get off, June or August. But nobody gets as long a summer as I used to get. However, they do get lots more breaks throughout the year than I did.