About the Candles
Siobhan just came home from college, and noticed a bunch of candles on the kitchen counter:
Indeed, one of those four candles was made by me from a kit, in my grad school days, and is of extremely low quality. I don't need any of these candles for anything, and indeed, only one of these four candles I really like - that's the one in the corrugated metal that has a "Fall Harvest" scent, which I bought within the last year... but the other three came from a stash of candles Stu just found under the bar....
....and I'm having to burn these all up before I can buy more of my favored candles, which is why a bunch of candles are getting burned by me when I do my early morning chores, like cleaning duck eggs, which you can see in the basket.
So far, I've managed to burn up one beeswax candle. This is going to be rough going.
I like my "stinky candles" - I do like scented candles quite a bit, but also the rest of the family don't like them, so they stay out of the kitchen while I'm washing dishes, folding clothes, ripping up cardboard, and doing other stuff I like to do and don't want other people bothering me (I'm also listening to my podcasts.)
Generally, this is not an issue at 5am (especially not after the DST switch - Siobhan didn't say the above to me this morning at 7am - she told it to me yesterday afternoon, when she got home for spring break.)
But sometimes I'm pottering in the kitchen in the afternoon and I don't want to be bugged, so I light my stinky candles nobody else like.
Addendum: about that stash Stu found: I think Stu boxed up my candles when the kids were little and we were living in our apartment in Queens (2000-2007). We did use candles from time to time in power outages, but we were concerned about the kids and mainly stuck to flashlights.... so he boxed up the candles, stuck them under the bar... and we forgot them for like 15 years or so. Or longer.
Anyway, I have a bunch of candles I need to go through, is what I'm saying.