Aiming for fall?

Fall has always been one of my favorite seasons.  It gets a little cooler, a lot more colorful, and has become my signature time to leave on excursions (one year today I will be waking up my first morning in Dublin with Jen).  This has been one of the first years, as such, that I have been less than thrilled with its coming.  I have many months to my next trip, and this summer was so short.  Not to say that this last bit of summer hasn't been enjoyable.  The adoption was finalized, my mom and I both had fun birthdays, I got to work at Polo.  Lots of things have occured this month. 
None the less, I am just not excited for summer to be over.  Every night when I get off work and it's dark it makes me sad.  Which is an odd feeling, as at this time last year, I was looking forward to spending the shortest day of the year in as much darkness as I could.  I feel as though I am just sitting around biding my time.  I need to stop spending money, and focus on my trips.  But they are just far enough away to make them hard for me to anticipate.  I think they haven't quite fully sunk in yet, as they all came up so quickly.  I need to get myself in gear!