Day 2141 State of mind

 

As I cleaned over the weekend, I gathered up candles and put them all in my kitchen… to deal with later. Well, later is here. What does one do with this many candles? (Trust me, the photo doesn’t even come close to showing them all.) Maybe I should start having candlelit dinners or hang on to them in case of a power outage, but like vases, candles seem to multiply when we’re not looking.

As I clean, I try to ask myself if I’d take an item with me if I moved. Lately, I’ve been reframing that question to: Would I take this with me if I moved to Australia? Most of the nonsense should be chucked, but somehow I want to give each of these candles another chance. So it looks like the month of January (and probably February) will find my house lit with candles daily. I’m not even sure I’ve ever burned one all the way down to nothing.

I still haven’t moved on to cleaning the kitchen, which now has piles here and there of things I gathered from other rooms. Weekdays are too packed to add another project, so the piles will have to wait. Thankfully, the weather has warmed up a bit, into the 40s. Not that that’s warm, but it sure feels better than the teens. If the temperatures hit 50, I may even open a window for some fresh air.

I’m not sure why Tim and I didn’t plan a vacation for this winter. Somehow the cold snuck up on us, and now we’re in it with no plans for escape. For now, we’ll have to warm ourselves by the fire, light a candle or two, and pretend we’re on vacation. Even if we can’t go anywhere, at least we can create a little warmth and a vacation state of mind right here at home. 

“Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” ~ an ancient saying that is often misattributed to Eleanor Roosevelt