Wednesday Wicks and the Wildflowers of the Will

Hello friends. I am sitting here at the kitchen table, the sun just starting to dip toward the horizon behind Sycamore Street, and the house is uncharacteristically quiet. Mark isn't home from the site yet—he called earlier to say they were finishing up some framing, so I expect his boots will hit the porch around 5:20 like clockwork. Noah is currently sprawled on the living room rug, his beloved velociraptor pajamas already on because he 'needs to be fast for dinner,' and Emma is tucked in the corner with her sketchbook, likely adding more horses to the margins of her summer math pack. Even Biscuit is still, snoozing near the vent where the cool air escapes.

Today was a 'Lucy’s Little Light' day. Since I don't go into Miller's Hardware on Wednesdays, I use this time to catch up on Etsy orders and reclaim a bit of my own identity outside of being the neighborhood bookkeeper or the lady who knows exactly where the galvanized nails are kept. There’s something so therapeutic about the physical process of pouring candles. I spent most of the afternoon melting down soy wax and carefully scenting it with lavender and sandalwood. It’s a slow, methodical task that requires patience—if you rush the cooling process, the tops crack. If you don't center the wick just right, the flame will never burn true.

As I watched the wax turn from a solid, stubborn block into a clear, golden liquid, I started thinking about how much our own lives are like that. We spend so many years feeling rigid, set in our ways, or perhaps just stuck in the mold everyone else built for us. It takes a certain kind of heat—the heat of ambition, of self-reflection, or sometimes even of struggle—to soften us enough so we can be poured into a new shape. A shape that actually fits who we are at thirty-four, rather than who we were at twenty.

Speaking of being 'poured' into something new, I hit a milestone in my 5K training this morning. I managed three and a half miles without stopping once. The humidity in Cedar Falls was thick enough to wear, and my lungs felt like they were protesting every step past the two-mile mark, but I kept going. I saw Joanne out in her pink bathrobe, deadheading her petunias as usual, and she gave me a little wave with her garden shears. I didn't have the breath to say hello, but that silent acknowledgment felt like a tiny victory. It’s been weeks since I started this journey, and I can finally feel my legs getting stronger, my gait surer.

There is a specific kind of self-worth that comes from doing something difficult when no one is watching. It isn't about the gold medal or the applause; it’s about the fact that I promised myself I would run, and I kept that promise. In the past, I was so quick to break promises to myself to accommodate everyone else. If Mark needed something, or if Megan needed help at the bakery, I’d drop my own goals in a heartbeat. But I’m learning that being a good wife and a good friend doesn't mean being a ghost of a person. I am more desirable, more present, and more alive when I am a woman who values her own time and her own health.

I also did a little 'Wednesday Tally' of my Etsy earnings. Looking at that separate savings account—the one that isn't for the mortgage or the kids' new shoes—makes my heart swell. It’s not a fortune, not yet, but it’s mine. It represents every late night I spent researching scents and every afternoon I spent cleaning wax off the stovetop. Financial independence doesn't always look like a corner office; sometimes it looks like a mason jar full of hand-poured dreams and a steady bookkeeping job at a shop that smells like sawdust.

Marriage is much the same way, isn't it? It requires that constant, gentle maintenance to keep the 'wick' centered. Tonight is our little midweek check-in. When Mark gets home, we’ve promised to spend twenty minutes just talking—no phones, no dinosaur interruptions, no talk of construction schedules. Just us. Nine years in, and I still want to make sure I’m the person he wants to come home to, and that he knows he’s the person I choose every single morning at 5:30 am when his alarm goes off.

I’m going to go start the pasta now. Noah is asking for 'dinosaur trees' (which is just broccoli, but we take our wins where we can get them), and I want to make sure the kitchen is tidy before the evening rush begins. I have a fresh robin-egg-blue journal page waiting for me later tonight, once the kids are tucked in and the house smells like the lavender candles I poured today.

Remember, ladies, the work you do on yourself is never a waste. Whether you are running miles, pouring candles, or just choosing to believe you are worth the space you take up in this world, you are growing. You are blooming right where you are planted, even if the soil feels a little dry today.

I love you. — Lucy