Happy Sunday, friend-

I don't always get up as early as I mean to, and I've mostly stopped feeling bad about it. Some mornings I just lie there a while with the windows up, no phone, no computer, no TV, listening to the birds and the neighborhood slowly starting its day. Some of the common sounds are a car driving by,  a dog two yards over, and the sprinklers kicking on. It's one of the moments that I don't feel like I need to be available to anybody else. Sure, I could be up and moving, getting a head start on the list.  But, I stay put for a few extra minutes because that quiet is the best part of the whole day, and I don't want to trade it for productivity I won't even remember by noon.

And it's the reason I want to tell you what I've decided about this summer.

I'm calling it a summer of self-care. Not the kind that lives on a vision board or needs a weekend away or a budget I don't have. The real kind of self-care that doesn't need a big moment or lots of planning.  It's the kind of self-care that fits inside any regular day. Because if I've learned anything, it's that the calm I keep waiting for, the season when everything finally settles down, isn't actually coming. Summer is busy in its own way. There always seems to be something on the calendar.  So I'm done waiting for the quiet to show up on its own. I'm going to catch it where it already is, in the small open-window moments that are so easy to walk right past.

Here's what I think a summer of self-care really looks like. It's letting the evening be a little unproductive. It's sitting on the porch with your coffee gone cold because you got lost looking at nothing in particular. It's lighting a candle on a random weeknight for no reason other than you wanted the room to feel like yours again. None of it is grand, and all of it counts.

This is the part I want to be honest about, because it's the reason we do any of this. A piece of every candle we pour goes to mental health causes, and I think about that more in summer than any other season, when so many people are quietly getting through a stretch that looks easy from the outside and doesn't always feel that way. Taking five minutes that are only yours is part of something bigger that you can do for yourself and your mental health.

So here's my invitation for June (and I don't want it to feel big and overwhelming).  Pick one evening this week to open the windows. Let the dishes and laundry wait. And if you want something to mark the moment, our Summer Collection was made for nights like these. Summer Evenings especially, which smells like the hour after the heat finally breaks. If you're ready for a new ritual to carry you through the season, that's where I'd start.

Light it for no reason. That's the whole point.

love & do good - Debbi