A Thread So Thin Read Online Free PDF

pool-and-patio store, close up for the entire winter. Most of the rest shorten their hours and stay closed an extra day or two during the week.
    But that’s exactly why this is my favorite time of year: It’s the only time I can take a little time for myself.
    This winter, I’m not opening the shop until eleven and I’m not opening at all on Sundays or Mondays. Charlie is closing his restaurant, the Grill on the Green, on Sunday nights, Mondays, and Tuesdays, and I couldn’t be happier. Sure, it means less income for both of us, but after the spring tourist rush, followed by the even bigger summer tourist rush, then the fall foliage rush, and the holiday rush, it’s nice to spend a few weeks of the year not rushing. This last year has been especially busy.
    My best friend from Texas, Mary Dell Templeton, now the host of a very popular quilting show on cable television, decided to do a live broadcast from Cobbled Court Quilts during our third Quilt Pink event to fight breast cancer. For weeks leading up to the broadcast, the cable channel ran promotional videos about it and Mary Dell never missed a chance to plug it on the show. As a result, foot traffic in the shop quadrupled and our online sales went through the roof. It was a great event—hundreds of people participated and we made scores of quilts that will be auctioned off for breast cancer research—but it turned out to be more work than any of us could have imagined. I’m happy we did it, but I’m not sorry that things have calmed down a bit since then.
    There’s nothing much happening in New Bern now. Not a single charity auction, concert, or festival is scheduled during January or February—not a community obligation on the calendar. That suits me fine. Not that there’s anything wrong with those kinds of events. During the rest of the year I participate in all kinds of community celebrations and I enjoy them. But I also enjoy this quiet season in Connecticut’s quiet corner. It’s like a long and lovely Sabbath rest, a day when there’s plenty of time to read, to think, to plan and reflect, to finish up all of my UFOs—those Unfinished Objects that are the bane of every quilter’s existence—and spend unhurried, unscheduled time with the people I care about, as long as they are among the hardy souls who choose to hold their ground and tough out the New England winter. Fortunately for me, most of the people I care about are very hardy souls indeed.
    And then there’s the weather.
    I grew up in Wisconsin, so I know all about winter weather. When I was a kid I simply couldn’t wait for winter. As soon as Halloween passed I’d polish up my sled and keep vigil in the front yard until the first snowfall. Sometimes the snow would come even before the end of October. One Halloween, I had to wear snow boots and a parka over my glittery fairy princess costume, which kind of spoiled the effect.
    Lots of people born in cold climates like it as kids, but once they grow up and have to shovel driveways, pay heating oil bills, and jump-start frigid car batteries, the thrill of winter wears off. Those are the people who are first on the planes to Florida, the ones who don’t even stick around for the Christmas and New Year’s parties but get into formation and fly south the day after Thanksgiving. Not me.
    The more it snows, the more I like it. After I married my husband, Rob, and moved to Texas, I didn’t see a snowflake for the next twenty years. I missed it. Maybe that’s why, after we divorced, I instinctively headed north—like a Canada goose making a beeline for the border—found my way to the village of New Bern, Connecticut, and never looked back. This is home now. Spring, summer, fall, and even in the depths of winter, this is where I belong. The way I see it, shoveling driveways is good exercise, and as for the rest of it? Fortunately, my two-bedroom cottage on Marsh Lane is so small that even when the oil prices spike in winter, the bill is still