This is a topic I’ve used before, and undoubtedly I’ll recommend some of the same small pleasures. But it was on my mind after this week. We had several dreary days of rain and 
cold. I was averaging two and a half hours per day driving in traffic for my commute. And now that Daylight Savings Time is over, I come home in the dark every day.
I find the change depressing. So I started making a mental note of anything that lifted the grey fog a bit. Here are a few small things that are a pleasure.
- The color of the last remaining leaves is especially brilliant this year. The orange and yellow leaves are gone now, but the deep red ones are still here.
- Observed in traffic on the Long Island Expressway: A Maine license tag with a lobster on it. Gotta love it!
- Going to the last weekend of the Great Jack o’Lantern Blaze at Van Cortlandt Manor, even though it was quite cold. It gets more spectacular every year, and the sound effects really add to the spookiness.
- The smell of clean sheets.
- My favorite sweater, an Esprit (yes!) which I bought more than 20 years ago and refuse to give up. It’s warmer than anything else and has the coolest ethnic pattern.
- The new pair of ankle booties I bought at DSW. Okay, I don’t look like the young’uns do, but they are pretty cute. A girl and her shoes are not to be trifled with.
- The word, “gallivant,” as in “gallivanting around.” Used by my mother as a term of disparagement sometimes, and others as a description. It means “running around from one place to another in the pursuit of pleasure.” Sounds like fun to me!
- Being told that something I did was “excellent.” No, it was not at my job, I’m sorry to say!
- Waking up in the night with a weight on my head, and realizing it’s the cat resting his chin on my head, and purring.
- Leftover food from any good restaurant for dinner the next day. No or less cooking, and something good that I wouldn’t ordinarily have!
If you have some small pleasures of your own, feel free to share!
writinghersense 