What do you do when the sun is shining through the windows and the demands of the day are heavy on your shoulders...

I felt flattened.  School work was dragging on, the special quite time boxes for the littler ones were less interesting.  I was staring down at the month's budget papers, trying to figure out where to squeeze to pay for some medical bills.  The morning filled with potty training failures... I was being squashed flat under all of it - and then some.
In my head I felt doomed.  As tears of weariness welled in my eyes, I knew, like a fresh spring breath, that there was a better thing to do. 
Anna, so amazingly, had tucked her school work in the "work to be checked" box and tiptoed to the kitchen where she had started putting together ham and cheese quesadillas. 
I looked at the loft floor, wondering at the sunbeams warming the golden wood.  Like a breath it was whispered in my heart, "Go out there."
We grabbed waters, a big quilt, apples and quesadillas piled in a container.  Hats on the boys, sweaters on the girls, we gathered ourselves up and walked to the lake nearby. 

I remember being a little girl and there was a really warm day in February.  Mom gathered us up, packed a lunch, and we walked to a little creek down the road from home. 

We couldn't help but thank the Lord for whispering his idea for a February picnic.  A moment to change the scene - and the pace.

A day fashioned to eat on a quilt, pick brave little flowers, and explore the water's edge.



The children launched a little fleet of bark boats - some sank while others were more noble.  The fresh breeze did us all good.

Then we packed up.  Shook the pine straw from the quilt.  Donned hats and sweaters.  We were ready to wander home, but more than that, we were ready to reenter the day.