Here Today

I began the day stitching in the sunshine at the dining room table. I decided on lavender sachets for one "difficult" person on my list. How can you go wrong with a gift that is meant to be tossed in a drawer?

Then we toodled off to the library. Then along to the antique store. Sam lingered long at the display of old cameras. I cast my longing gaze on two bedside tables, which were out of my price range. Since my price range is about $5, pretty much everything was out of my price range. But looking is always free, as long as nobody breaks anything. We always move at a good pace through the fine, breakable section.

After lunch we headed out for the creek. Just to play. A college student who wanted a bike trail made one, right in the middle of town. It's not advertised; we happened upon it one day. We've walked for an hour back there by the creek. It's not especially lovely, but it's practically in our backyard. Since we have friends who really do have these things in their backyards, we have to take advantage of these little opportunities.

The older kids were jealous of Arden's rain boots and the freedom he had to roam in the creek. However, being five he roamed too freely and in the end we were dumping water out of those much envied boots.

What did I do at the creek? Nothing. I rarely take time to look: I looked today. I played with my camera. I fingered bark. I collected leaves. I turned over rocks in the creek, but it's too cold for anything else that's alive to be hanging out in the water. I thought I'd identified a tree. I checked my suspicions online tonight. I had done no such thing. That's typical of most of my nature ID attempts. Futile.

When it was dark we read books on the couch. We read An Orange for Frankie by Polacco, which is my favorite Christmas book we don't own. I always marvel that there was a time when an orange was a rare treasure, and in a family with nine kids they each ate just one. Just one. Next up was Boxes for Katje by Fleming. There was also a time when people went years without tasting chocolate. Unbelievable. If you've read both of these, you might see a theme. We finished with The Money We'll Save which was pure silliness, but we laughed. The unpredictable turkey bears an uncanny resemblance to a few money saving ventures around here. Except my ventures have all been sanitary. Except once when the pepperoni went bad.

Hope you have a quiet day of rest.