Almost every Tuesday, Rob and I meet at our neighborhood Tupelo Honey Cafe for martinis (my favorite is the rosemary lime with gin).

They're $3 each and totally delicious, and we always say "Let's not get dinner," because this place is so southern that there's barely anything on the menu that isn't covered in cheese or rolled in some kind of batter and then fried, but also because we live an eight minute walk away and could easily just have a drink and go home (if we had any willpower at all). But every time, we get "snacks," which end up just being appetizers for dinner. Goat cheese grits are a thing and they taste like heaven.

I guess there are worse things that could happen.

I love fall as much as the next girl in Uggs, but to tell you the truth it can be kind of a bummer missing out on Pumpkin Spice Lattes and apple pie (I still maintain that the former tastes like a Yankee candle, but whatever) because of Paleo tendencies. Obviously no one is forcing me to give up dairy or sugar, though, so every year I try to make some kind of Paleo-friendly seasonal treat.

This year I went with a baked apple dish, partly because I had some gorgeous apples from our wedding florist's orchard, but mostly because I am the proud new owner of a mandolin slicer and I'll literally make a chip out of anything these days.

These baked apples are delicious, comforting, and make your house smell exactly like fall. Amen.

Ingredients:

• 4 apples, washed and sliced evenly--I use this handheld mandolin (affiliate link)
• 2-3 tablespoons of grass-fed butter
• 1 tablespoon of honey
• 1 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, cloves)
• 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Melt butter in a large bowl, add honey and vanilla, then the apple slices. Mix well. Sprinkle in pumpkin pie spice and mix again.
3. Layer apple slices in small pie dishes or a larger baking dish and bake for 35-40 minutes.
4. Let cool for a couple minutes before serving, but have them warm! Enjoy.

I've always had a pretty miserable sense of direction, but I get lost a lot in Charlotte. More than in any other city, for sure. On Friday, I needed to go to the post office (one I've been to before!), so I plugged it in to the map on my phone and followed the directions. Half an hour later, I was parked in the middle of a cul-de-sac on a dirt road. The truth is, the drive was rather pretty, and while I normally would have been irritated, I just turned around and went home.

Rob and I have both been a little under the weather over the past week. He came home early on Monday and a few days later, I started feeling kind of frail. This morning I woke up at 7:00 and it was still dark outside, and even though I had slept soundly for hours, it didn't feel that way. My throat is scratchy and my eyes are heavy. When I'm sick I like to take naps, and I haven't had one yet, so I'm thinking a chilly, dark Monday is as good a time as any to get back in bed.

I have flown through most of Lena Dunham's new book and look forward to reading more of it every day. I knew I was going to laugh but for some reason I had no idea I would cry.

Yesterday we woke up to go on a hike and it was 54 degrees and smelled exactly like fall. Crisp air, wet leaves, some campfire off in the distance. We ate these donuts and drank hot coffee on our way to the mountain and it felt exactly the way it's supposed to. Charlotte is a bit slower to fall than other places we've lived, and on Wednesday there's a high of 83 in the forecast, but the mornings are getting cooler and every night we open the windows and cuddle up under blankets until morning.

"We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other."

--Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast