It sounds like the snow will finally melt this weekend! Not a minute too soon. The prospect of a little warm sun and opportunities to ride my bike do wonders for my mood, but in These Trying Times, it’s always a good idea to find small joys and celebrate them. So these are some of mine lately.
My friend gave me this hat that she knitted, and it makes me so happy that I’ve been wearing it around the house.
And you can see them a bit in the background of that picture, but let’s give them a close-up, because my little collection of trailing plants just makes me so happy!
I’m particularly joyful about the string of pearls, on the left, because it’s so very pretty and because I have definitely killed this type of plant before. For me, switching to only bottom watering has made all the difference. It is an extremely specific and gratifying feeling to succeed in growing a plant when you have had to endure watching some of their relatives wither and die. Each new little pearl is a gift. I find myself murmuring sweet nothings to these babies multiple times per day.
Speaking of babies, my actual babies, both fully adult women now, are doing well! M is enjoying and feeling competent in her job, so that’s awesome, and J just found out she got her first-choice summer gig. So: yay, them!
And circling back to the joys of success after failures, one of Cute W’s recent birthday gifts was this block to use for jumping on as well as other workout stuff.
The first time I tried jumping onto the 20-inch height, it did not go well. But now I’ve managed to jump on and off that height several times in a row. It makes me feel low-key triumphant. To clarify, I’m not just using that term to sound like the younger generation. I don’t exactly feel full-on triumphant, but I do feel low-key triumphant. Which is still pretty good.
Another item from the “health and beauty” category is one of my new favorite things: this Nuvé callous remover. It is basically like a mini-sander. For years and years I’ve had dry, calloused feet, and sometimes they’d even crack or rip, which would hurt. I’ve tried pumice stones and those chemical peels and devoted lotion routines, and nothing made a substantial difference until this. So worth it. It is a quick, painless, and extremely satisfying process, and my feel are lovely and smooth and nice again.
I recently read Hail Mary by Andy Weir, and I liked it very much, even more than The Martian, which I liked, too. Between that and switching from silly romance audiobooks to nonfiction audiobooks, I feel a bit like I’m having a reading renaissance.
So much so, in fact, that I finally got around to heading to Barnes & Noble to use up a gift card I’ve had for a while. While I was there, I had to snap a picture of what I consider to be another reason for joy:
The YA category is so abundant these days that there are sub-categories! When I was a teenager, there was, like, a little corner bookshelf of options, and now there are so many fantastic books out there, and surely it’s a good thing that so many young people are reading, right? Although, fair enough, plenty of adults will read YA, too, and I am one of them. Among the books I chose with my gift card was a Rupa Sepetys, who I believe writes either mostly or exclusively novels that are categorized as YA. But if you are a fan of historical fiction and you haven’t read any of her books, you are missing out. Fair warning, though: they are often emotionally devastating. Hopefully, with my book renaissance, I’ll have more recommendations soon.
