My daughter sent a picture of the baby wearing the little gown I made and wrote that she wants to keep it for her own grandchildren. Ay, I read that more than once. I know people save christening things, but she said mine, the one I sewed at my kitchen table, and she didn't ask whether her grandmother would have finished the seams differently. I was very happy. Started to reply that it was nothing special and stopped because it did take work, and because I didn't want her to think I hadn't cared. Sent a heart instead. Then showed the picture to two ladies at the boutique who had only asked where the fitting rooms were.

At the nail appointment I chose a pale pink and let my hands rest where the lady put them, which sounds like nothing, but usually my fingers are searching for a pin or smoothing something while another person talks. The warm towel felt so good around my knuckles that I wished she would leave it a minute longer. I didn't ask. I watched the polish go on instead, that careful little brush making everything look neat. When I stood up my right heel reminded me I'd been on the boutique floor all morning. Still, my hands looked lovely on the steering wheel going home. I kept looking at them at the red lights.

A lady at the boutique asked what I would charge to shorten trousers she bought somewhere else, and I said I'd have to look at them first. That part is sensible. Now I'm trying to work out a price and I keep subtracting things before I've even added them, because it's an easy fabric, because she is nice, because the actual sewing won't take so long. The pinning and pressing still take time though. I know that when I'm doing someone else's schedule, just not my own. Wrote an amount on a scrap beside the machine. Haven't sent it. I keep turning the scrap over as if the back will have a more polite number.