In 2006 I found some perfectly good navy blue sheets at the Methodist church needle-exchange thrift shop for about a dollar each. They remained perfectly good with only an alternating quick boil and hand wash on alternating weeks, and time in fresh air to dry the same day. In the last year they needed mending here and there. Then last week while sleeping I accidentally put my arm through one and it tore in half.

So, for the President’s Day holiday, it was off to the Goodwill store. The bed linen aisle was a bewildering array of odd sizes of folded fabric. Luckily, for one section some industrious staff member added tags: T, Q, K. That looked like twin and queen and king sizes, priced at $4.99, $5.99, and $6.99. What to buy? Well, I sleep on three stacked yoga mats, and they’re pretty narrow, so that seemed like a T size. The purchase quandary was that with a yoga mat there is no efficient way to tuck in the sheets. So by morning they can migrate off and roll up in a ball and the whole arrangement is all undone.

But then, here was a whole entirely new idea. The best fabric, in a sturdy cotton, was labeled Q. For only an extra dollar I could buy something roomy that was wide enough to accommodate even tossing and turning, and it would not scrunch up and wander off by itself! Why not?? Not only that, the Q had the most practical and pleasant pattern, flowers in mixed colors of cozy gray-brown-sage.

After some boiling and washing it draped out over all my furniture, and 24 hours later it was dry. The test run was last night. What a big difference. How nice to stretch out without the top sheet wandering off. It certainly is sturdy. The fabric won’t be wearing out any time soon. Now the only interesting complication was that the old top sheet was worn and chintzy enough that it draped right in, while the new sheet is sturdy enough to hold its shape, like a boat sail. That made it harder to tuck it in warmly. Still, this made a significant and welcome comfort upgrade.

On the way home from the Goodwill Store, I got off the bus to visit the local park, and then to walk the last 35 blocks home for exercise and fresh air. The park was very pretty, a clear sky with just one ethereal vapor cloud, shown below. Usually it would be nice to sit at the pond in the sun and watch for interesting animals and birds. But for some reason I soon felt anxious to get home, walking fast to try to warm up, racing the sunset and counting the blocks uphill all the way. With nothing else to do but hurry and feel stiff and cold, it was a good time to lean on my favorite prayers to ease the journey.

As it turns out, that vapory white cloud was a cold front rushing in, nicely combed and fluffed by high altitude winds. The precipitation that night looked like a sleetstorm, but was really rimed graupel, a weather pattern that forms tiny perfect spheres of soft snow!

The new sheet adventure, and getting back indoors, made two special reasons to be very thankful.

This pond is enjoying some sunshine, but the waters are choppy and the cloud is a cold front.