It’s a beautiful Southern Night. The last of the fireflies are beginning to blink, and the birds are singing their nighttime lullabies…and I’m settling in after a long day to cook and to write.

I’m cooking because my creativity in the kitchen has been low this week. It would wait until half past eight on the day that I spent hours outside hauling brush to kick back in. I’m cooking because all I could think of to make quickly for lunch was a bean salad (with garden beans, tomatoes and peppers) and corn and bread. That has long since vanished and I’m itching for something savory and comfort food style. I decided on a baked cheesy pasta dish. It’s vegan, and so very yummy, even when it is hot outside! It will go good with bread and tomatoes and some steamed peas.

While I’m at it, I figured I might as well make this worth my while. There are beans soaking in the crock pot and I’ve convinced myself that some oatmeal raisin cookies would be just as good as the brownie I’m kinda craving right now.

It’s been a long day. I haven’t hauled brush in any quantity since it was a yearly necessity when I was a child growing up in a wood-heated home in Alaska. Scott is working late days. We haven’t slept a lot this week. But the brush has been burned, and there’s a pile of round logs stacking prettily.

I’m writing because I looked out my door, beyond the noise of the fan, into a picture that I could never capture with my camera. I looked out there at a freshly mowed lawn and at those blinking fireflies and felt once more how very good life is even when it isn’t. I realized how much of my heart this corner of the world has captured. And I thought of how blessed I am to be here, doing what I really do love—cooking and writing and keeping house—and waiting for my man to come home and share this meal and this evening with me. This, this…is all that I need.

So, I am writing because part of today looked like poetry, and I cannot help but write on days like this.