rain rapture

I’ve decided to spend the day in my kitchen, listening to my favorite radio shows, watching this movie on my little DVD player, and baking a special cake for a tea I’m attending tomorrow.

I did a LOT of baking over the winter, and I sort of thought I’d be sick of it come spring, but I find there is a different energy that goes into spring baking that is nothing like winter baking. That may sound strange to people who don’t really enjoy cooking and baking, but nonetheless it is true.

So, as I wait for the water to boil in the tea kettle I’m thinking about my favorite rainy day rituals again and I’m wondering, what do you like to do on rainy days? I have a list that may inspire your own. Please feel free to share it with me!

~ make a pot of your favorite tea or a French press

~ spend the day in your kitchen listening to your favorite radio show or soothing music while baking bread and/or making a pot of soup , pasta fazool, or boeuf borguignon.

~ write letters or read in front of the fireplace. Some of my favorite rainy day reading: poetry by Cathy Song, Paul Eluard, Emily Dickinson, William Wordsworth, Mary Oliver, Yeats, and Pablo Neruda. Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke, or Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust. Anything by Diane Ackerman.

~ read your favorite magazines

~ light candles everywhere

~  order a pizza and watch a movie

~ take a long nap

~ hang out on a screened-in porch or gazebo, open a bottle of wine, make a ploughmans’s lunch and play word games: Scrabble, Boggle or Bananagrams

~ work on a craft project

~ do yoga

~ paint or draw

~ scrapbook or look at old photo albums

~ set up a slide projector with old slides, pop some popcorn and reminisce

~ sew or work on a quilt

~ meditate

~ update your iPod

~ re-arrange your furniture

~ make something wonderful for dinner

Enjoy!

~Melissa