What Small Things Make You Happy?

I derive inordinate pleasure from my yellow cooking pot.  I don't like anyone else to wash it, for that job is nearly sacred and therefore  mine alone. 

I love my gas fireplace on a cold winter's morning.   Better yet, couple that with tea and books.

Bengal Spice tea is practically a drug in my feel-good repertoire.  Especially when it's been steeped overnight.  Its natural cinnamony overtones sweeten it beautifully.

I love Ombra bubbles in my bath.  I could stay in there for hours, smelling their pungent smells.

I love Lululemon running clothes with their perfect little pockets made for carrying Ipods.

I love Anthropologie linens and Anthropologie everything.

I love the smell of lavender.

I love sunshine and positive people.  The two are sometimes directly linked, I think.

I love finding a new author I love, only to then discover that she's written scads of books. 

I love Zumba.  The ridiculous ways I'm asked to contort my body make me laugh.

I love freshly bathed kids with trimmed fingernails and clean ears.

I love watching my kids from my deck as they jump on the trampoline, a laughing, shrieking pile of happy kids reminding me of puppies, clambering all over one another.

I love sun-washed Hawaiian holidays with eminently whole sisters who are unashamed loud laughers.

I love waking up slowly on a weekend morning, only to find that someone in this world loves me enough to have placed a Starbucks coffee in an insulated mug on my nightstand.  He never forgets the cream.

I love the feeling of being completely surrounded by forest.

I love the smell of citrus peel.

I love cold, hard, crisp granny smith apples.  The perfect, unblemished greenness of them makes me feel like all is well in the world.  I think I like looking at them almost as much as I like eating them.

I love it when my Littlest says things like this to me still:  Moms are better than friends, I think.