We rolled into this holiday weekend with grand plans. But, last weekend, I was down for the count with a summer cold. And, this one, Jess got hit by it in turn.

So, while we started off as intended – a dinner date, followed by the Met Opera Outdoors at Lincoln Center – we didn’t make it to the end of La Fille du Regiment before Jess had reached sufficient zonked-ness to warrant heading straight back home.

Thereafter, as she was feeling even worse, the day at the beach was scrapped. And then the hike down one of our favorite scrambling-required trails.

By this morning, Jess was feeling doubly down – still sick, and also sad to have let the weekend disappear.

Fortunately, however, I had a trick up my sleeve: Jess, an inveterate candle-lover, had for months and months been saving the mostly-empty carcasses of burned-down canister candles, and the piles of wax from melted pillars and tapers, in a giant bag under our sink. I found them piled there a week or so back, and popped onto Amazon to buy a cheap pack of cotton wicks.

So, this afternoon, we were in full chandler mode. And though it was extremely slow going (melting wax, in either the microwave or a double boiler, takes approximately forever), with a good handful of missteps along the way (helpful hint: hot wax is burn-ey), we managed to kick out an even dozen candles, all of which looked wildly more professional (and, really, just more candle-like) than I was honestly expecting when I sprung the idea.

A first few are already burning nearby. And Jess, in the end, is feeling much better about the weekend, and life.

J&J Candleworks, apparently est. 2019.