Outside -- Autumn Leaves, Cobwebs, and Dust
Colorful autumn leaves may be attractive at the beginning of the season, but in Feng Shui dead leaves accumulating on your lawn mean stagnant energy surrounding your home. Be sure to rake your yard often in the fall and check your gutters and roof to assure that leaves are not collecting.
Fall is also a good time to make sure that nothing is growing on, or over, your house. The image of an “ivy-covered cottage” may be charming, but in Feng Shui vines growing on your home symbolize something eating away at your life. Large branches that hang over your roof represent problems weighing down on the occupants, so autumn is the perfect time to hire a tree service to prune dead and over-hanging branches.
Also, after the first frost you can pull up dead summer annuals and trim back perennials, then replace them with colorful mums or hardy pansies that will give you color into the winter. This is especially important near your front door, which is called the “mouth of chi in Feng Shui. It’s where the positive energy enters your home, so it’s important to keep the entrance area clear or anything that represents dead energy.
Remember to clear out the cobwebs and dust your porch or patio furniture before you cover it or take it in for the winter. If left untouched, accumulated cobwebs mean you are so wrapped up and stuck that you can't move forward. Similarly, accumulated dust represents lack of respect for what is going on in your life. Be sure to clean all of those places where dust and cobwebs accumulate, including window screen tracks, under furniture and grill legs, and around outdoor ceiling fan blades.
Inside – Catalogues, School Papers, and Junk Drawers
Fall is the time when paper clutter seems to expand, especially when the deluge of holiday catalogs starts arriving in your mailbox. An important Feng Shui tip for autumn is to set up a mail sorting area that includes a recycling bin and shredder so you can quickly toss the junk into the bin and feed your shredder with any unneeded documents that have your social security or account numbers.
Another source of autumn clutter is school papers. You love all of those drawings and papers your children bring home from school, but you can’t save everything. Instead, each week collect all school papers and artwork in a folder and have your child select one to keep and display on the refrigerator or display on a bulletin board. Get rid of the rest. After a week, date the paper and put it in a scrapbook for each child and replace it with a new one.
If you have "clutter magnet" areas like drawers, closets, and cabinets that are overflowing with all of the “stuff” you accumulated over the summer, it's time for a fall clearing. Take this Feng Shui autumn clutter clearing challenge: clear out the kitchen “junk" drawer or hall closet this week, then stand back and watch good things that flow into your life to take the place of all that clutter.
Start making Feng Shui changes today with the tip-a-day calendar in the new e-book from Feng Shui Master Practitioner Carol M. Olmstead. Click here to order your copy of "365 Feng Shui Secrets" from the e-book store at BellaOnline.com. 
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