Valentine's Day! One of my favorite days of the year.

My friend, Laura, hadn't yet visited our tiny cottage so I called her yesterday morning and it just worked out that she was available for lunch (she, who has a real job. Two, actually.) So I cleaned, decorated a bit, which took a huge amount of imagination since I brought only our bare essentials with us.

At the bistro table below the two windows in our living room I brought in the two dining room chairs then draped each with a white sheer curtain which I keep in our (unplugged)chest freezer along with some heavy curtains, placemats, damask dinner napkins and a box of extra tape. The old chipped-up 1940's kitchen chairs suddenly looked magical beneath the sheers.

Anyway, after a bit more decorating I walked through the snow down to the deli and bought sandwiches, potato salad and chips. And ok, a new dark chocolate mint Three Muskateers bar which I'd not yet seen in-person, only on tv. (Tasty, but not amazingly-great.) Hiked back home, waited for Laura, then when she arrived, gave her the grand three-minute tour of my house. She liked it, said it was cozy. She also noted the trains across the street probably make the house shake like crazy, but I told her, no. They don't. 

I love the trains and the Amtrak ones are never long enough for all my dreaming.

Weeks had passed since we'd shared lunch and this Valentine's Day one was sweet. I told her that actually, I'd so needed those days alone for--I heal best alone.

We all, I feel, need time off to heal, slow down, think and most of all, to listen to that still, small voice of the One who knows how fragile our minds can be when driven much too hard and fast.

What I'm saying? If you need time off, don't think of yourself as weak, but rather, human like the rest of us. And if you cannot take long stretches of time off to heal or recharge, do try to find small stretches in your day whenever you can. Or at the very, very least--try to give your brain a vacation as you go about your regular days.

You are worth it.


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Happy Valentine's Day to each of you! And for those of you who graced my mailbox with Valentines, I do thank you so much for sweetening my snowy winter days and my life.


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