Lunch time has always been work time for me; I eat as I do things, and only so that I have the energy to continue to do things. In other words, I have neither the imagination nor the inclination for an actual sit-down-and-eat-with-friends kind of lunch time.

Last Thursday, however, I threw old habits to the wind, traded my barn clothes for an actual dress, and drove into the green Vermont mountains for lunch with my friends Caridad and Sally (who had kindly extended the invitation). We could not have had a lovelier day endless blue skies and miles and miles of every shade of green. Sissy’s Kitchen, our destination, was equally idyllic. We ate in the shade of magnificent hydrangeas and goat’s beard, and shared the stories that women do when in the company of like minded women.

Surrounded by all that beauty and the fellowship of my friends as I was, it still took a while to let go of the notion that what I really ought to be doing was one of a seventy five “to do’s” back at the farm. Old habits die hard. On the drive back, Sally pulled her car aside at a crook in the road just so that we could fully take in a valley of gold tipped corn nestled beneath a steep forest of pine trees. For those few moments, time stood blessedly still.

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