Every year, or maybe it's twice a year, Oprah celebrates herself and her wealth with a show dedicated to the luxuries only her money can buy. These are her favorite things, and she wants them to be ours. Me? I'm more of a raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens kind of person. In my opinion, one doesn't have to be an Oprah to share one's favorite things, so today's blog is all about that which makes me smile. I hope you can relate and perhaps share some of your own guilty/non-guilty pleasures.
1. Food Let's get the obvious out of the way. We live in America, and one of its benefits/downfalls (depending on your outlook) is all the food available. I enjoy it. One of my favorites is genuine New York cheesecake. I'm a purist and like it plain, creamy, and thick...no strawberries for me; toppings ruin the experience. I also love my mother's snowball cookies, peppermint bark, coconut ice cream, Bomboy's raspberry chocolates -milk chocolate only, turkey dinners, fresh out of the oven melt-in-your-mouth cream filled donuts, Fisher's caramel (no nuts please) popcorn, frozen margaritas (no salt), and cheddar cheese curls. While high caloric food has proven not to be my friend, I can't help but love those treats.
2. Losing Weight LOL! I don't mean those same three or four pounds over and over again, but weight loss that makes a change. I am wearing jeans that didn't fit a year ago. Obviously, I haven't had as many run-ins with pleasure #1 as in the past.
3. The First Big Snow I love that first big thick snow that blankets the world with pure dense white fluff. I especially love it at night in December when it quiets the neighborhood and the snowflakes dance in the street lights. No blustery wind is a plus.
4. Live Theater I love it all, good or bad. I like to act in theater productions and I am an enthusiastic audience member. Give me a Broadway spectacle like Lion King or a Tidewater Player's version of Spelling Bee (any production with Chad LeFleur is a bonus), and I am happy. I will have seen two versions of Steel Magnolias within weeks of each other, and that's ok with me!
5. Flowers in Nature I love it when spring ends the dreary winter with blossoming pear trees, flowering lilac bushes, clumps of purple pansies, and sprouting tulips. Give me fragrant petunias to sniff all summer. Inside my house, I love tiny white chrysanthemums. Their perfume can hide the fact that an old dog lives there (Trixie, not me).
6. Good Books I read a lot. I enjoy most of what I read, but sometimes there is a book that I hate to see end because it's just the very best story I have ever read. When I come across one of those, I feel like a library lottery winner.
7. Television I watch a lot of it, and frankly, I enjoy it. I have watched Saturday Night Live since my college days and it still makes me laugh. I watched Luke and Laura get married when GH was General Hospital, and I still tune in today to see how my Port Charles peeps are faring. Grey's Anatomy is almost as good as a doctor's visit that ends with, Keep up the good work.
8. Vacations I love to go away to see the world or just to relax. I've been lucky to visit some memorable places: most of Europe, Kuala Lumpur, Bali, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China to name a few. Two of my favorite trips involved warmth and beaches. I went to Mexico for five days the summer after my father died. I still rank that as one of my best get-a-ways. Last February I went on a cruise to the Bahamas with the Paperbackswap gang. That was a great trip!! Every year I go to Allenberry for a weekend: theater, food, snow, friends and fun. Those three days combine lots of the things I love in one well-rounded vacation.
9. Winning I go to a lot of quarter auctions. Lately, they haven't been much fun and I realized it's because I haven't won anything. Heck, the last two times my number wasn't even called. But, I love to jump up and squeal, YES!! when I win something. Don't even get me started on winning at the casino. I once won $500 on a nickel Whoopi Goldberg machine. I have been trying for years to duplicate that adrenaline rush of hearing the bells ringing and seeing the hundred dollar bills being counted into the palm of my hand. I'm sure it will happen again. Somebody has to win, why not me?
10. Letters in the Mail As a voracious pen pal, I used to get these so often they were commonplace and expected. I had pen pals all over the world. Soldiers in Vietnam were entertained weekly by the silly unbosomings of a young girl (to paraphrase Anne Frank). My college mailbox had a daily reminder of the loved ones from whom I was separated. I once even got a letter from my Dad because Mom made him write to me (I know that because he told me in the letter). I have saved many of these letters. Now-a-days, I mostly communicate through emails and phone calls. But occasionally I find a real old-fashioned handwritten letter amongst the bills in my mailbox. What a thrill!! Thanks to Cathy, Margie, and Marilyn for still engaging in the lost art of letter writing and for engaging in it with me.
11. Dimes Finding these is very meaningful to me, and I plan soon to blog about them. Suffice it to say, they appear at the darndest times and remind me that my parents are still with me. I found one last night, and boy did I need it. Yep, dimes make me happy.
Enough for now. "When the dog bites, when the bees sting, when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad." Thank you Sound of Music, one of my absolutely favorite musicals.
Beautiful Barb. I remember something that you either wrote in a blog or on facebook of how you see other peoples comments and look at their pictures you are (for lack of a better word) jeaulous. In reading your blog I am jealous of you and the way that you look at life. I wish that I could be that way. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to see you in January. Joyce
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