98. No More Accidental Autumns

Fall flies by if we’re not careful — one minute it's back-to-school chaos, and the next it's time for Christmas shopping. In this episode, Dr. Stacy Heimburger (aka @sugar_freemd) walks you through a simple, mindful way to actually enjoy fall with your family — no Pinterest perfection required.

You’ll learn:

• How to define what fall really means to you
• The one 15-minute activity that can turn your season around
• Why planning memory-making moments beats letting life “just happen”
• A full list of cozy, doable bucket list ideas to make this fall feel magical (without overloading your calendar)

It’s time to create connection on purpose — not by accident. 🍂

👉 Tag @sugar_freemd on Instagram and share your fall family bucket list!

🍂 25 Simple Fall Bucket List Ideas for Intentional Family Time:

1. Go apple picking (or do a grocery store apple taste test!)
2. Roast s’mores over a backyard fire pit or in the oven
3. Take a leaf walk and collect favorites to press or display
4. Watch a classic fall movie (Hocus Pocus, Charlie Brown, etc.)
5. Carve or paint pumpkins (try glow-in-the-dark paint pens!)
6. Jump in a leaf pile (yes, adults too!)
7. Make a fall-scented simmer pot or grab a seasonal candle
8. Take fall family photos
9. Visit the library and check out autumn-themed books
10. Go on a cozy picnic — even in your living room or driveway
11. Do a backyard fall scavenger hunt
12. Donate coats or pantry items as a family
13. Visit a local coffee shop or donut stand and rank your favorites
14. Take a family walk or bike ride in the cool morning air
15. Host a cozy fall dinner — no phones, just food and connection
16. Try a warm drink tasting (apple cider, hot cocoa, spiced tea, etc.)
17. Listen to a fall-themed audiobook together
18. Make handmade Thanksgiving cards for friends or neighbors
19. Go hiking and bring snacks for a mini adventure
20. Bake a fall treat like pumpkin muffins or spiced cookies
21. Schedule a tech-free evening — board games or stargazing
22. Visit a farmer’s market and try a new seasonal veggie
23. Go on a hayride or spooky house walk
24. Have a family gratitude night — everyone shares 3 good things
25. Create a short family video of your favorite fall memories

📅 Pro Tip: Block time on your calendar now — even 90 minutes of protected “bucket list time” each weekend makes a difference.

📸 Want to share your list? Tag me on Instagram: @sugar_freemd and let’s inspire each other this fall!

Free 2-Pound Plan Call!
Want to jump start your weight loss? Schedule a free call where Dr. Stacy Heimburger will work with you to create a personalized plan to lose 2 pounds in one week, factoring in your unique circumstances, challenges, and aspirations. Schedule now! www.sugarfreemd.com/2pound

This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Today I want to talk about family time and creating a really intentional fall. So this is not like Pinterest-perfect planning, but feel-good-in-the-moment planning.

And if you're anything like me, what happens is I have all these great ideas of things I want to accomplish—things I want to do with the kids, things I want to do with my friends, things I want to do with Quad—and then…

If I don't plan for them ahead of time, life swallows up my calendar. And then it's gone in a blur, and I didn't really get those special moments that I was hoping for, that my brain thought I wanted, that I really did want.

But I didn't plan ahead, and I didn't give them priority, and I didn't sort of schedule them in—and they didn’t happen.

So fall is a time that really can go by in a blur. Because I feel like summer happens and maybe we're doing a lot of stuff with the family, and then fall happens, we’re getting ready for school, we are in this new routine… and then all of a sudden it's like time to decorate for Christmas, right? Or start Christmas shopping.

So I want to talk about what it would look like if we didn't let fall just happen by accident, right? What if we put some intentionality into it?

What if we just had a few mindful moments? Because when I think of fall, I think of this cozy season, and it's really about connection. All of my fall visions are with friends and family and doing things.

And so I want us to think about what fall means to us and how to make that happen in a purposeful way so it doesn't just slide by. And then next thing you know, it's like the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

So the first thing we need to do is—you have to decide what fall means to you, right?

If you want to look on Pinterest and get inspired, that's fine, but it doesn't need to be Pinterest-perfect. It just needs to be what is important to you.

So I grew up in New Jersey for a lot of my growing-up time, and we would go pumpkin picking every fall. We'd go to a real farm and there were pumpkins on the vine. And it's just one of my favorite memories. And so I have been trying as hard as I can every couple of years to take the kids up there and do that.

So that's one thing that fall really means to me. And they've got the hot apple cider donuts, and they've got just all—it’s so stereotypical fall in my reference material, because that is what I know and what I grew up with and I love it.

For some people it's camping outside, maybe it's hiking, maybe it's baking something, maybe it's just the hot tea—I don't know. Whatever it is for you.

You need to ask yourself: if I close my eyes and think about fall, what does that mean to me? What do we want it to feel like?

If it doesn't feel like anything—if it feels really rushed and we don't like it—what do I want it to feel like?

Do we want more adventure? Do we want to go pumpkin picking? Do we want to hike more? Do we want to go camping?

Do we want more creativity? Do we want to do pumpkin painting and pumpkin carving and pumpkin crafts or baking stuff?

Or do we want more rest? Do we want more cozy nights under the blanket? Do we want outside fire and…

Look, I'm in Louisiana. That doesn't happen until like January. But in theory, do we want it to be like cozy nights outside under a fire?

What do we want fall to look like?

And you don't need—this is not about jam-packing our calendar. It's just about setting a compass. It’s about setting your North Star, about setting your GPS.

So I want you to write down like three words or think of three words that fall means to you or fall feels like to you.

And then the only other thing I want you to do is to ask the other people in your family what fall means to them, right? Ask your kids, ask your spouse, ask your friends:
“Hey, what does fall mean to you?”

If it’s really about family and connection, and maybe your friends are like, “Yes, I always think of you during the fall and doing stuff with you,” then maybe we need to make time for them, right?

We want to ask the people we care about: what does fall mean to them?

And then we can make a little family bucket list.

Okay, so again—we are not going to make this 47-board Pinterest thing, okay?

We’re just going to grab a little piece of paper, and we’re going to set a timer. This is not supposed to take long—five, ten, fifteen minutes tops.

And then maybe we can do this as a family. Just ask everyone to shout out: “What do you want to do this fall?”

Then write it down and see where it takes you.

I asked ChatGPT, “What are some fall bucket list items for intentional family time?” So I will read them to you to inspire you.

So one would be to go apple picking—or if there’s not an apple orchard near you, if you do not live where I lived in New Jersey where we actually did part of pumpkin picking with the apples, right? They had tons of different kinds.

So maybe we just do a grocery store run and do an apple taste test. Something with apples.

Maybe we roast s’mores over a backyard fire pit—or even in the oven.

Maybe we take a leaf walk. I don’t know if any of you did this when you were a kid. I remember doing this again—when you grow up sort of in the Northeast, some of these things are a little more applicable. We had the changing of the leaves, and leaves would fall down onto the ground.

This is for those of you who don't have this experience. And then we would take wax paper and you would iron the wax onto the leaves, and you would make a little book. So we would collect our leaves and make a little leaf book. It was really fun.

Maybe we want some classic fall movies—like Hocus Pocus or something like that.

Maybe we want to carve or paint pumpkins. Somebody told me you can use a glow-in-the-dark paint pen on your pumpkins. How fun would that be, right?

Jump in a leaf pile. Maybe we want to do that.

Maybe we just want our house to smell like fall, right? So we make a simmer pot or we get the right plug-in or whatever.

Fall family photos—this is me. We have fall family photos every single year.

Maybe we want to visit the library and check out fall-themed books.

Go on a picnic—we can do that in our living room. We can do that on our driveway. I have been known to do that on my driveway with the kids.

Maybe we want to do a backyard scavenger hunt.

Maybe we want to do donations. It’s the season of giving and being thankful, so maybe we want to donate things as a family.

Go to the local coffee shop or go get donuts and rank our favorites.

Take a family walk or a bike ride.

Host a fall dinner. I have to tell you—so we used to do this. This was in medical school with my friends, and we would do a pumpkin party.

This was before any of us had kids. It was so fun.

We would make pumpkin-themed dishes, we’d have fall-themed drinks, and we would decorate pumpkins. It was just such a fun adult get-together.

Maybe we have a fall dinner, okay? Or some fall-themed party of some sort with our girlfriends or our neighbors.

Maybe we have a warm drink tasting—instead of a wine tasting, maybe we do different ciders or different cocos or whatever.

Maybe we’ve got a fall-themed audiobook.

Maybe we make handmade Thanksgiving cards for our friends.

Go hiking.

Bake something.

Schedule a tech-free evening—maybe we do board games.

Visit a farmer’s market.

Go on a hayride or a spooky house walk.

Maybe have a gratitude night.

Okay, so ChatGPT gave me those 25 items. So think about what you want to do, and then just pick a few.

Stick the list on the fridge. Maybe you do your top 10. Maybe you leave them all up there—whatever you want to do. But I want you to pick some that are the most important and I want them to be put on your calendar.

We have to block the time out on our calendar. That means on your phone calendar too—or wherever you write things down, on your shared family calendar—we are going to block out time for these events.

It doesn’t need to be all day. It can be all day. But even if it’s just 90 minutes on a Sunday afternoon, and we write “bucket list time” or whatever it is, and we take that 90 minutes and go have our picnic outside, or go to the store and do our apple tasting—whatever it is.

You can structure it or not structure it. You can put just “bucket hour” or “bucket list time,” whatever, or you can put what you actually want to do.

But it needs to be non-negotiable once it's in your calendar. And it needs to be intentional.

So if you write “bucket list hour” or “bucket list time” or whatever, don't let that time come and be like, “Well, there's these other things to do.”

Really keep that time sacred so that you can look back and be like, “Look at how many things we got done!” And it’ll be really fun for everyone.

The other thing that will be helpful is—when we are on these family events—that it is a tech-free event. So everyone needs to not be on screens. Okay?

And maybe that’s one of the bucket list items. Maybe that’s one of the fall items: we have off-hours on Saturday where everyone just has quiet time, no screens—whatever it is.

And then we want to really celebrate. So make sure you take pictures.

And moms—make sure you're in those pictures.

Not every memory has to be a whole event, but let's just be fully present when we are at an event.

And if we want to take some pictures, then that's even better, because we can remember them later.

Instagram has been telling me I need to take a course on how to make family videos from all my pictures.

So maybe you want to make a little fall video. Like: “This is what my family did in the fall.”

What I want you to do is: decide what fall means to you.

Talk with your family, friends, whoever you want to have input on your bucket list. Y’all make a bucket list.

Write it down. Look at the calendar. Block out time.

And then when that time comes, it is non-negotiable.

And I want you to be fully present. So—no screens.

I think if you can get in the habit of doing this once a season—and I’m not the only one. I know I’ve heard this on another podcast, and somebody I think even sells journals where you can work this through in a more complex way—but if you do this every season, I think it could really bring you into that mindfulness piece that is so important.

Life moves fast. We’ve got to slow down. Right? Little Ferris Bueller for you.

It doesn’t need to be perfect, but it does need to be planned.

Otherwise, life is going to swallow up all of your time—because that’s what it does.

And the easiest way to make it intentional and make it planned and make it important enough to not blow it off when it comes to your calendar is to decide ahead of time. Just like anything that we plan.

So get your key stakeholders, no matter their age. Decide what you want fall to look like.

Schedule it on the calendar as a non-negotiable. Be fully present. And have a wonderful fall with your family.

Wonderful, wonderful family fall. I think this is a setup for success.

We don't want fall to happen on accident and just scoot us by.

I hope this was helpful for you. If it was, please share it with a friend.

I would actually love y’all to tag me on Instagram and let me know what your bucket list is.

What do you want to do? Give other people some ideas too.

I loved a lot of these ideas—especially, I don't think we are going to go pumpkin picking up in New Jersey this year, because I didn’t block it out and things got scheduled.

But it is on my bucket list for next year. So maybe we'll do this grocery store apple picking—that sounds really fun.

So that'll be on mine.

Let me know what's on yours.

Until next week—bye.