The Small Joys

It's been a pretty good past couple of months. I can't tell you how good it was to get rid of the Christmas season. My brother was here during Thanksgiving, which was GREAT, always love to see him but after that it was hard. The good part of hard though is that it feels so good when it stops. I mean seriously, when I went back to work after New Years I realized that I felt SO much better. We were always Christmas lovers, but life changes can  make it different for sure.

We find ourselves now looking forward to Spring. Sounds pretty normal right? Well, again in the perspective of this situation time passing period is not something you just get happy about. It's not about "oh wow can't wait til it gets warm again" always. You may well be thing "here we are in a blizzard but here we still are!". Now, though as close as we are to Spring and as relatively stable as Brian has been I feel as safe as I can looking forward, maybe a month to two or even maybe three into the future.

As we look forward to Spring, again I think differently then I did in some positive ways. As I just think about stuff in general, I am far more inclined to pick up on whatever would make our lives easier/more fun/more convenient than before. Examples of small stuff I have done:


  • Got into a food/menu delivery service. They bring me three dinners a week to cook for us. Yup, it's ten bucks a serving but it's all planned out and you make it at home and you don't have to plan or shop for those nights. Spoiled and spendy, yes but I like it and it delivers me from take out temptations.
  • Scheduling the overpriced couples message at the Spa during vacation. Because I always wanted to, and it just plain sounds great.
  • Taking the time to make fancy blended drinks at home. Homemade margaritas, no special occasion needed. Not talking alcoholism here, just not waiting for "special" occasions for everything. Today is the special occasion. We are here, it's special. 
  • Just saying no to working Saturdays whenever humanly possible.
  • Stopped wasting time being mad or upset about stupid, meaningless things. Who cares about the trivial work hassles, the trivial personal hassles? I can't remember the last time I was really mad in traffic, and as much as I drive sometimes that's a big change.
The thing is, I could have done all of the above months, years ago. So can you! So do it and smile more :) 
The small things make a big difference. If the dream trip to Europe in not in the cards, maybe a weekend out of town is, or just a random nice dinner out on a Monday night. There is so much joy to be found in the oddest things.

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