What brings you joy today?

They look delicious!


My husband went out to lunch with his brother so I had the place to myself for a while not during my work day.

I had four enormous overgrown day lily plants that had overtaken part of my garden. Yesterday the were wrestled out of the ground and separated. Now they are about 40 new smaller plants all going to good homes and I have new plants in their place.

Central air and my cats. Also my mom borrowed a vhs dvd converter from the library and I was converting some home movies we had to the DVDs and there was one of my high school graduation and seeing my grandpa and my grandmas talking and being awesome was pretty darn amazing. Also seeing my dogs. We have very few actual photographs of my first dog -he was 13 at the time so had been my childhood pet and there aren't many good pictures of him- and seeing him run around and just being silly made me so happy. Seeing my other most handsome pup just made my day. I have pictures of him, but seeing him run around and in his funny little way and the way he was so happy to be with me just made my heart happy.
Seeing my high school friends and family was really fun.

DH and I knocked out a couple projects around the house from our to-do list. Feels good to make progress on the list. Now on to some take out and cocktails and enjoying the central air bc the humidity has really set in here!

One of my favorite memories with my dad as a kid was his love of long drives in the country and we always stopped for ice cream. So today, my 18 year old and I went for a long drive through the back roads of CT and stopped for ice cream and it was just a warm, fuzzy feeling of a day. Plus, she said how much she loved the drive (and the ice cream) - just a good feeling all around.

We are remodeling our kitchen and we got a number of tiny things taken care of today. We went to the hardware store to buy Benjamin Moore ceiling paint. I had with me my samples of our countertop, our flooring, and our cabinet wood. I’ve been struggling to be pleased with every neutral color on the B/M website A clerk asked if I needed help and he took me to the paint swatches- less than three minutes later, he’d selected the perfect color in a totally different color way than I’d been looking at.

I rarely ask for help when shopping for anything, but I’m going to do it more often now!

Mine is a little different, but it did bring me great joy, so I'm going to post it.

I have a sort-of neighbor who lives on a cross road about a half-mile from me. She is difficult in many ways and most people avoid her. But she is 78 and although most of her troubles are due to her own actions, she is still a person I know my God loves every bit as much as He loves me. So I try to do for her what I can. She has a hard time walking or taking care of much of anything. And no money to hire. Well that said, the immediate problem has been the lawn. As lawns do, it has grown. And grown. And grown. Until it was almost waist high. I dropped hints all over the place hoping someone would go do it, but to be honest people are not very sympathetic with her. My DH had eye surgery and has not been allowed to mow even our lawn. I was at my wit's end and feeling a bit desperate. I just couldn't leave her like that. So about a week ago I stood in front of her house (I pass it 2x a day on my walks--we live out in the country). I prayed that God would send someone to mow her lawn.

Today I went for my walk and I could hear a lawn mower. My steps quickened and I started feeling a bit excited. And sure enough, her lawn was being mown. By TWO people on two mowers. They were neighbors as well and I was stunned as I had not expected them to do it. But when I stopped to basically hug them for their kindness, they told me they hardly ever drive up her road (it is a very little traveled road) but happened to the other day. As soon as they saw the lawn, they knew they had to help out. And there they were, both of them on lawn mowers doing a fantastic job mowing down the waist-high grass. They told me they always bring food to her as well on major holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. And here I was, thinking I was the ONLY person who cared about her. Humbled me a bit, but oh the joy I felt as I continued my walk. I had prayed for help and God answered my prayer.

I know not everyone feels the way I do about God, but for ME, He is just my everything and the answer to all my problems. So that simple bit of lawnmowing filled my day with absolute joy!

Our house came with raspberry bushes. We'd get a handful of berries a year until I decided to buy another plant at the garden store. Now raspberries are trying to take over the yard and we have more raspberries than I know what to do with... so every time I have 5 cups (every other day), I'm making sorbet. It's just raspberries (they have to be put through a strainer to get the seeds out) water, vanilla, sugar and lime juice in the ice cream maker but it's so good.

After fretting over fabric samples for weeks, I was planning to go today to place a custom order for an ottoman.

Decided to check my favorite consignment store's website this morning "just in case" and they had the perfect one! I called as soon as they opened and it was still available. DH and I brought it home this afternoon.

Got a bargain and I don't have to wait 6 months for delivery.

Finding someone I haven’t spoken to since March comment on a YouTube video 2 years ago that I happened to find today ☺️

😳😳😳

My local library finally opened for browsing. I had a good time yesterday poking around the shelves and seeing what was new since March 2020. Every time I saw my book stack today, I smiled.

This morning, it's a great cup of coffee bringing me joy. My son just moved out of state yesterday, and before he left he brought me a bag of coffee beans from a new shop near his old apartment. It's delicious, at a time when I'm missing him.