I let myself decide that I was going to let today be a day off. Early on it was easy because I had the task of finishing a book. Starting first thing this morning while still in bed, then later while taking a long soak in the tub, through breakfast, and finally I read stretched out on the couch. The book ended and I was emotional to the point of being teary so I wandered outside to collect eggs from the chickens’ various favorite spots, picked a few raspberries which I ate standing among the canes, and couldn’t stop myself from making a list of things to do later. My brilliant idea for the day which I had to wave Billy down from a tractor to share was that we should convert to polygamy and for my next husband I will be in the market for a carpenter. I’ve watched Big Love and so I knew to assure him he would always be head brother-husband. He said, “Knock yourself out,” and went back to work.  Wandering back to the house I thought maybe two more husbands would be better because neither one of us really enjoys washing dishes every single day. Inside, I did scrub the frying pans while I talked to the girls in California about sheep herded through the streets of Santa Rosa.  Later, with all those empty minutes ahead I thought it could be time for tea. Standing there in the kitchen I avoided having an Aunt Josie-moment by choosing the generic tea I bought. Have you been gifted tea lately? Have you noticed that instead of common paper tea bags,  tea in now sewn in tiny silk sacks, sometimes even into sweet pyramid bundles. I love how beautiful they are yet after one mug  I find myself thinking, “These are too pretty to  throw away…” and  I can picture a tiny pile of them, emptied and ironed, and left in a kitchen drawer for thirty-five years, which is not so different from finding used french fry paper bags, carefully folded, and the flattened paper drinking straw covers, in Aunt Josie’s kitchen drawer. A tiny tube of paper is  even more miraculous, and a perfect container to carry a little salt and pepper on a picnic, maybe? Of course, by saving tea that comes in shimmery silk for guests is something also Aunt Josie would have done.

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It rained this afternoon, not for very long, but hard enough that we ran upstairs to close the windows.  This summer every drop is worth mentioning.