Okay, so I lied.

Yesterday I did not drive to the antique barn to buy the small box of old white dishes. Someday I will, though.

No, yesterday was so November golden, so pleasant, sunny and heavily scented, that I chose to stay home. The day before I was gone all day, what with voting with Tom in a nearby tiny town and then, later, spending the afternoon with my friend, Laura, in the city. We had a lovely lunch together, but after all the traffic, noise, and shopping, I drove home, windows down, through sunny country roads with the day nearly over and felt twinges of sadness that I'd missed a perfect autumn day at our farm. Soon the sun would set and cover it all in black.

So that's why I stayed home yesterday and stepped out the backdoor over and over to breathe deeply of hot pine branches and grass and leaf scents and to pick up dead branches (my never-ending job). And for hours on our bright front porch I sat with the sun heating my back, rereading Life Among The Savages and pausing to feel how good and amazing all this is. And to watch what a warm, gleaming November afternoon does here at our little farm.

I noticed our shiny wood floors and how the sun travels and slants through the new windows and the birds playing outside at the feeders. I stood in front of our glass-doored kitchen cabinet and appreciated our Fiestaware and the way the Jade-ite tea cups hang rather 1940-ish and then stared out at our meadow all quiet with that weekday afternoon silence. The new windows in the barn, the old compost frame, the burnt-orange leaves of the young oak trees.

I found it good. All good.

Everyone needs to take an Appreciation Day sometimes to see, really see what they've created so far. I'm glad I took mine yesterday.


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Did you know you can watch HGTV online? I discovered that just this week and was delighted since Tom and I have only 'baby tv cable' as I call it--twenty or so stations, but no HGTV. Watch it here.