Sheltering at Home Day 9: I'm Going for the Small -- Really Small -- Pleasures. ・Barbara Falconer Newhall

small pleasures new barn-lights-for-an-unfinished deck — The deck isn’t finished — no railing. The siding still needs to be replaced, and inside the door, you can see the living room is still a construction zone. But I’m finding small pleasures everywhere, starting with getting a close look at the barn lights I ordered on line for the deck. *Photo by Jon Newhall*

Sheltering at Home Day 9, Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Here we are, stuck at home in the middle of a scary pandemic. Yet there are small pleasures to be had, plenty of them.

OK, they’re really, really small. But I’m making the most of them.

small-pleasures-a-fallen-camellia-blossom — One very small, soggy pleasure: This camellia blossom fell on the stairway I had just raked clean. Nature is persistent.

Our front steps are tidied up and looking good, for example. I spent an afternoon earlier this week raking up this spring’s dead camellia blossoms, with pleasing results for all the people not coming up and down our front steps these days, and that includes the food delivery people, who won’t be here till Saturday.

There’s the fun of working on the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle with Jon. We had this week’s nailed by Tuesday.

And there are the barn lamps I ordered to light up our new deck. They’re stacked in boxes in our unfinished living room, waiting for us to decide — the 14-incher? Or the 10-incher? I dunno. They’re both pretty. But no rush. We don’t have to decide till the designer can come back into our house and measure things.

Best of all — there are the friends who keep emailing and phoning. Friends are good. My Episcopalian friends are having a Zoom meeting tonight. So there’s also the iffy pleasure of figuring out how the heck Zoom works. That might take a while. Gotta go.

More fun stuff at “She’s Shaved Her Head Bald. Is Our Daughter Headed for the Dark Side?” And here’s a story about young Peter: “When Your Six-Year-Old Wants to Talk Money.”