‍ The only thing that really kept me on the rails was my chickens living by the sun—I need to let them out early in the mornings and lock up behind them in the evenings—and my own chronic fatigue issues. Otherwise, those ten days would have been a much bigger disaster with my husband coming home to a strung-out wife. As single ladies, you don’t want to live a strung-out life. You may not have a husband coming home, but that doesn’t make it wise to live without schedules, rhythms, and routines. You need consistency now, not sometime in the possible future. You need to sleep, work, rest, recreate in a rhythm that works for your physical and mental abilities now, not sometime down the road.

Homemaking isn’t so much the work we do as it is the heart with which we do it.

You have poured all this labor into this glorious food. Enjoy it! Let the tastes and textures thrill you. Rehearse those well-trod paths of old stories and memories. Get loud. Sit for five minutes. Observe your happy, content people and be thrilled, oh tenders, at the feast, all the feast. From start to end, planning, cooking, consuming. Enjoy the feast!