I've just sung the last song of our increasingly elaborate bedtime ritual and have used my most lovingly stern voice to remind my cherubs of our shared interests in their staying in bed for the night. With that, a glass of wine and a bit of surfing I'll end my own day, a tiring (if pleasant) one that as capped off an amazingly exhausting five day stretch.

If there are any words that are beginning to terrorize me more than, say, anything that the news can drum up, they would have to be preschool rummage sale. Held in the church with which the school is affiliated, the annual sale is an epic event demanding superhuman effort on the part of half a dozen volunteers and the vast inconveniencing of an additional score. Moving a couple hundred chairs, a grand piano, bell tables and assorted altar furniture in and out of the worship space and in between holding court as several hundred shoppers poked, picked and peaked around the thousands of donated items for sale which had been sorted and tagged during the preceding five nights, well, it's enough to tire a girl out. And make her sore in all kinds of not-usually so used places.

The sale was successful so the tiredness is abundantly worthwhile. Our scholarship fund is newly plumped and community bonds are strengthened so you'll hear no complaints from me. That I was able to score a brand new Sookie Stackhouse box set of the first seven Southern Vampire Mystery books for a single U.S. dollar is icing on the rummage cake.

There seems like there's a ton more I ought to share - the linen-ish skirt I've nearly finished sewing for myself, the daisy-bedecked sundress made for the Girl, recent cooking adventures with the kids (the Boy can now make pancakes more or less on his own, shocking me tremendously...if he can feed himself reasonably well, I am very nearly obsolete, yes?), my delight that strawberry season is upon us and my increasingly desperate search for a humdinger birthday present for Brainiac. For now, though, sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.

Go On, Make Me Happy

The word "things" can be made to be so ugly. Especially in times such as ours when the notion of taking a shine to material goods is used as shorthand for those sorts of people who aren't as enlightened as we, those who haven't embraced the simple joys so much more appropriate to difficult times. (See also: my belief that people who want me to stop "coloring within the lines" really just want me to start coloring within their lines, or "why my acquisitive/religious/literary/residential/educational choices are more authentic and spiritually/economically/morally/environmentally/socially sound than yours".) Whatever. I don't much care. We've all got enough on our plates and surely enough to worry about without having to parse and/or footnote that which brings the joy, yes?

Today was a difficult day in the middle of a not-so-pleasant week in what just might turn out to be a year of notable disquiet. Do I dwell? No. Instead I visit my happy place, which is currently stocked with the following things:


1. OPI's "Baby It's Coal Outside"
2. The Hothouse Flowers
3. Pansies
4. Rose's Lime Juice
5. Pink glitter
6. The novels of Victoria Dahl, Jo Goodman and Sherry Thomas. Oh, and Georgette Heyer
7. Really thick ecru writing paper
8. Needlepoint pillows
9. Lemon oil
10. Rose Poivree
11. The Book of Common Prayer
12. Blackberry jam
13. Picking the first tomato
14. My monogram (MJW or MWJ in case you want to buy me something)
15. That I am the fifth generation to use "my" lusterware tea service
16. Filling Christmas stockings
17. Swimming laps
18. Folding laundry
19. That Nine West shoes fit me without having to try on
20. My friend Jen's taco dip
21. Pretty cocktail napkins
22. Almond paste
23. The way Brainiac and I hardly have to talk to have a conversation
24. Easter hats on little girls
25. My kids' love of crayons
26. Tea, iced or hot
27. My car's seat warmer
28. My old Laura Ashley catalogs
29. The picture of a German Shepherd that I drew in 7th grade
30. The idea of a brocade and velvet skirt I'd like to sew for myself

There. That's better. What's in your happy place?