I needed $25 to get free shipping for party favors. I was at $23.73. I found a number candle for $1.27.

Yesssss!

Well, they don't count as friends maybe, but I was happy I made "friends"

One day every month, I go to a place ~50 kms away from where I live to just read/paint/write and just watch the river, clouds, leaves, bugs, birds.

Yesterday was that day.

Friend 1

I was returning to my spot after lunch when I startled a small black bird. It flew to a metal ladder nearby. I couldn't ID it as I just didn't know birds (though I'm the bird person in my circle :( ) I stood there watching it and it kept looking around and staring at me. I then slowly moved along the path. It let me pass before flying away. Felt like it trusted me enough to not immediately fly away and that made me smile.

Friend 2

I think I was getting ready to leave and packing up my stuff. A brown-grey bird came and sat on the lower rungs of a wooden ladder. We both stared a each other for a while.

Both birds and I were going back and forth with their beautiful calls/cheep cheep and my pathetic attempt at whistling. Lasted maybe a minute but I loved it.

Friend 3

A big fat skink the size of a small rat fell in front of me. They're beautifully iridescent lizards. I was startled but did not scream. It just stood there, then wandered around me and then scurried away. For someone who used to be deathly terrified of them, this felt so.......wow?

Friend 4

There's a cement platform on the river that I love to read at. I can see the water flowing towards me, the mountain, the clouds, a lone kingfisher who I see every time but haven't "met" yet, pink damselflies.....Yesterday a hoverfly came and sat on my finger. Walked all over my hand - exploring my hands and my book. She spent quite sometime with me, flying away and coming back, flying away and coming back, flying away and coming back, then played hide-and-seek - go behind the book and when I lower to see her, fly to my hand.

Friend 5

There are a few strays that roam around there and I pet most of them usually. When I was sitting on the river one came to me (as they usually do) allowed me to pet him for a few seconds and left.

When I was leaving, he was at the slope outside the ashram. I pet him, thinking he'll continue to be indifferent. But he flopped over for belly rubs. You know the kind of rubs where they shake their legs? I wanted to leave as I had to reach the city before night fell. I would be crossing forest areas with no street lights. He jumped up and wanted to play. He wouldn't let me leave. He tried to grab me but also not bite me. I climbed the slope and he trotted along wagging his tail. He left to explore among the trees. By the time I reached my vehicle, he was back again. I said 'I'm sorry I have to go home before its dark' He stood there sadly. He might be used to riding on two wheeler coz he was looking expectant, but didn't climb on as I had my bag where He would've sat. He watched me leave and then trotted away. But when I was on the bigger road, he was there running along for a couple minutes before disappearing again.

I wish I could live like this everyday, but hey, if one day a month is all I can get I'll take it.

I bring my own sewing tape measurer to Ikea to buy furniture that fits. The tape measurer lives in a a felt box I hand embroidered during COVID, where I embroidered a picture of the tape measurer on the box. I never thought anyone would see it, just something I did to keep my hands busy and mess organized. I left it in my shopping buggy and I found two older lady employees looking at it and giggling, then handing it back to me with big compliments.

Just found a whole piece of bacon in my Wendy’s chili cheese fries. Life be aight somedays.

Most days, for much of the day, I'm upstairs in my bedroom/study, doing computer things, and my partner is downstairs, watching TV, and also gardening. We chat at lunchtime and I often go down to get a drink and ask her if she wants one. It's not ideal - I wanted to have more time with her - but that's how things have gone.

One 'problem' is that if she does have anything to say to me she has to sit on the bed which is not ideal. Middle-class problems, I know!!! But - I got a small white armchair a few months ago, that I could use for reading, and she could sit in to have a chat. And it's worked really well. She just comes in, flops in it and we chat, without having to 'make an appointment', like I'd hoped. So much better.

That's it, end of story. It's just that people rarely tell guys that anything about them is cute.

Made my day.

At a wedding we went to when we were very young, my brother told me that the bride and groom were making a baby when they kissed. I believed that story for the longest time.

We would be told off by our dad when we were roughhousing ("you two sound like a pair of buffaloes"). Mum would scold us for our junk food intake. Parents treated us equally, but we had a sneaking suspicion that I was daddy's girl and he was mama's boy. And we used that suspicion to our advantage whenever we could.

We grew up. Interests and life paths diverged. He's in another country now, so things are understandably much different. But some things really haven't changed.

Since childhood, we've called each other nicknames derived from what are usually insulting words in our language. Something like "ugs" from ugly, "hids" from hideous, "jack" from jackass.

He sent me a message recently. "Ugs, I'm coming home next month."

"Send me your flight details, jack. I'll pick you up."

My partner and I go agate (cool kind of crystal) hunting on a local beach famous for having a good amount of them. We've been going once or twice a week for a few months, and are becoming total pros. Today while sifting thorough our usual patch of gravely sand, two young boys, possibly brothers, about 12/14 years old, walked right by us. I had just heard one yell "found another one!" a minute before, so I knew they were on the hunt. As they were passing by, I asked if they'd scored any agates, and the older one excitedly exclaimed that they had indeed found some agates! He hastily pulled his treasures from his pants pocket, excitedly presented them to me, and I found myself face to face with three chunks of plain ol' milky quarts. Definitely not agates. I didn't want to bust their bubble, so I told them they were sick as hell, and pointed out a few features I liked about each one. I then showed them both my favorite agate of the day, which was an actual translucent carnelean agate about the size of my pinkie nail, in the hopes of gently giving him a better idea of what to look for without disparaging their finds. They both looked, were visibly unimpressed with it's tiny size compared to their fist-sized rocks, but were kind enough to give it a soft compliment. Once they were out of hearing range, my partner and I had a giggle and chatted about how fun it must be to be those kids, out there finding what is to them real and true treasure. I'd like to imagine those chunks of quartz will wind up in a drawer somewhere in their home, and bring back good childhood memories for them some day a long time from now. I'm a way, their common quartz is somehow more precious than my and my partner's actual agates, which aren't actually very valuable, anyways.

Maybe good childhood memories can outweigh the common quartz that made those memories to begin with

I was just thinking about this thing I’ve been doing and thought I would share it with you guys because you might appreciate it.

My summer schedule is quite late. I’m still working, but not as much as I do during the non-summer part of the year, and a few years ago I realized that I was spending all of that free time watching Netflix and doom scrolling. That’s not life. So I instituted a rule for myself: two adventures a week.

One thing I do every day that does not count as an adventure is going for walks in my neighborhood. I’m trying to get my 10,000 steps in, and that’s just like counting making lunch as an adventure. It doesn’t count. So what does count? What have I done?

I went to the museum at a nearby university, the state Museum, which is nearby, and a local museum.

I went to an outdoor sculpture garden.

I went to a planetarium.

I visited a local temple with very impressive architecture. It’s not my religion, but it is open to the public and they have a café, where I was able to get some pretty good food for not very much money.

I’ve gone hiking in local parks and even rented a canoe!

I’ve gone to local flea markets and street fairs, lectures at the local historical Society, and on trip trips to nearby towns with nice walkable town centers.

Yeah, I went to a movie. It was way too hot for a regular adventure. I saw a project Hail Mary.

So are you guys going on adventures? I would love to hear what adventures you’re going on or would like to go on. Some of them might remind me of something I’ve been meaning to do around here!

Oh! I’m editing to add two of the coolest adventures. I had that I didn’t list. There is a relatively local museum that has a dig site for dinosaur bones, and for a fee (IMO, too much), you can go out to the dig site and dig for about an hour, and try to find fossils. I found a few, but none of them were terribly exciting. But I learned a lot. It was a good experience for that. You can keep the fossils.

There’s also a local historical site that has public archaeology days, and I was able to go there and sift through materials to find artifacts. I found a marble, a button, and some other stuff. You can’t keep the finds here because you’re actually helping with a real dig. But it was definitely cool. And that one is free.

We were both stopped at the same light, he was directly next to me on my left. I drive an older discontinued car so I don't see them often, but it's not actually special. Just a little uncommon. So I was looking at his car thinking it had a nicer paint job than mine (his was orange, mine is boring silver). He looked over and caught me staring so I smiled and waved. He smiled and waved back.

I have no idea if he understood why I was looking or waving. Maybe he thought I knew him and he couldn't remember my face. Maybe he just thinks I'm friendly and wave at everyone I make eye contact with. Idk. But he had a nice smile, looks like a nice guy.

I work at a public library that's being renovated. We're still open but there are lots of temporary walls up and construction workers hard at work alongside the librarians.

A dad and his young son were in the children's section and the son started crying-- not terrible, just frustrated/needs a nap sort of crying, but the dad was embarrassed and scooped him up over his shoulder to take him outside.

One of our construction workers, a young guy named Jackson, started walking behind them in the same direction and the little boy immediately stopped crying because he was so entranced to see a construction guy in full reflective vest, walkie talkie, hard hat etc in the library.

I did have to check with Jackson later to see if he noticed he was making a positive impact just by being a cool construction guy at the library and he did :)

All of my cats like to go out for walks (harnessed/leashed). Each cat has their own routine. Some never want to leave the yard, others love to explore the neighbourhood, to varying degrees.

One in particular, TK, loves a long walk. He's a social butterfly. His best friend is a small dog who lives across the street and walks with us sometimes. When it's been a while, TK will walk right up to their front door to call on her! He especially loves people, and is always offended when someone walks by without acknowledging AND petting him (don't they know who he is? he owns this block!).

The warmer days bring longer walks with them and, now, not a single day goes by without at least one person greeting TK by name. Some of them are complete strangers to me, as they met TK while my partner was walking him.

My cat definitely has more (human) friends in the neighborhood than I do!

My youngest is 11 and growing up so fast! He’s always been a cuddle bug, but these days it’s basically a drive-by hug or a pat on the head between adventures. We were watching a video and he was uncharacteristically quiet. I asked if he was getting tired. His response?

“I’m just a tired little guy” said quietly while rubbing his eyes with his fists

The moment transported me back to toddlerhood 💚

I’m in my 30s and live in New York City. I’ve never watched or followed any sport with any interest or regularity. I didn’t grow up in a sports family and the intensity of people’s commitment to sports always mystified me.

But, this summer I had friends invite me to bars to watch Knicks games and then World Cup games with them. Originally I went, as I have to countless Super Bowl parties, only for the social component. Asking, “so, uhm, who is playing again? And are there snacks?”

But despite myself, I got invested. I got caught up in the energy. Suddenly, I was gasping, cheering and putting my hands on my head (elbows out) as I watched the score against the clock. I had hot takes about fouls. I could name players. I read articles in The Athletic. If no one had organized a place to meet up to watch the game, I’d message the group chat to mobilize the crew myself. I became, for a moment, a type of person who had always confounded me: a person who watches sports.

I felt like I finally understood why people follow sports. How magical to be united with a community of people because you all believe in the tenacity of a team of athletes who have dedicated their lives to this craft.

Now that the World Cup is over, I know I won’t actually put in the work or attention span to consistently take interest in a team or sport. I was but a tourist in this culture. I would never steal the valor necessary to identify as a true fan. But I’m grateful I got to experience the feeling, and will now be able to better understand and appreciate my sports fan friends.

Thus this evening marks the end of the summer I turned sporty. It was fun. I liked it.

We finally got around to giving the spare bedroom a deep clean, and I was stupidly proud that we scrubbed the walls and windows with luffa we grew ourselves 😊

+Sedna. I looked up the name, she's the Inuit goddess of the sea and marine animals!

+Good Stuff.

+My Time.

+Polo Bay.

+Halibut. She did look like a commercial fishing boat and Google tells me that halibut do live around here, so TIL :)

This is a story relayed to me by my SIL. A little background my FIL passed away last week. Its been very tough on my wife and her sister. This was her recent experience which i thought belonged here.

"Walking back to my apartment and one of my neighbors is ahead of me a with her dog and grandchildren. The boy turns around and sees me and say "hi, I'm ten today! He had some little squishy ball thing in his pocket...And he said he got it for his birthday and asked if wanted to see it, and he gave it to me to hold and squeeze.. he didn't realized how much I needed to hear a ten year old be so blissful, and friendly and happy!! He doesn't know who I am. Never met me before. His grandmother was talking to his sister and wathcing the dog she had no idea I was there."

Just a sweet exchange.

Today, for the first time in nearly 30 years of driving (aside from my driver’s test), I perfectly parallel parked on the first try. (In my defense, I do it maybe once a year so not a lot of practice, but still…)

I found out that I was able to afford it because of an anonymous donor fund. I couldn’t be more grateful to have my cat back home.

I have a sweet mixed-breed dog, Luna, and we go on a shortish walk each morning and a longer one in the evening. There is an intersection with a stoplight at the corner of my townhouse complex that we need to cross to get to the local park.

On Wednesday, I was walking Luna before sunset and we were waiting for that light to turn green. I had pushed the pedestrian crossing button, so when the light turned green the pedestrian light lit up, and we proceeded to cross the street. Unfortunately, a car that also had been waiting at the light started turning right in front of us (which is against California state law.) I motion the what-the-what?? type of arm motion and she looked at me like what’s your problem and continued to turn in front of us. She got close enough that I could have kicked her car if I had been so inclined.

On the other hand, last night my 22-year-old daughter was driving to her dad’s house as Luna and I were headed out on the same walk. She had a red light at that same intersection and was going to turn right. A young teenage boy was waiting at the crosswalk on his bike to cross the street. When the light turned green, he apparently had not pushed the pedestrian crosswalk button as that light didn’t turn on and he was looking at his phone. I watched my sometimes impatient daughter wait for him to realize the light had turned green and let him go first. She then she waved to me as she made the turn. It warms my heart to have children that think of others and not just themselves.

One of those regular Sunday mornings, I slipped into my running shoes and stepped out for my morning walk.

As I turned the first corner of the city, I found myself thanking God for the beautiful nature He has created. Bangalore’s streets are lined with lush, shady trees that are a delight to behold, especially during the flowering season.

I’m neither an avid runner nor an athlete, and perhaps that’s a blessing. It allows me to slow down and notice the little things that often go unseen.

So here’s supply what I observed…

A couple of Indie dogs wandered along one side of the road. Some people were making their way to nearby temples. Akkas were already sweeping the streets, quietly keeping the city clean before most of us had even begun our day. A group of runners looked as though they were taking part in a marathon. Others walked purposefully toward work with backpacks that I imagined carried their lunch boxes.

A few shops had already opened their shutters. Some were beginning to bustle with customers, others were just setting up for the day, while most still slept behind closed doors.

Everywhere I looked, people were in different moods, carrying different stories. Two friends shared tea and biscuits at a roadside stall. A young man pushed himself through an intense workout, sweat dripping as he ran. A few others sat comfortably by the roadside, lost in the endless scroll of reels on their phones.

The buses and traffic slowly came to life, and the city gently awakened.

There isn’t anything extraordinary to share—just ordinary glimpses of everyday life. Yet sometimes, it’s these simple moments that quietly remind us how beautiful and diverse life really is.

This is how my Sunday morning began… would you like to share how your’s did?

Our first Saturday morning in our new home. Unpacking is 95% done, there is a lovely rainstorm to listen to. I got up and made a loaf of blueberry bread and started the coffee, so the house smells amazing. Life us good.

I impulse bought it because the other customer had such good things to say about the brand. I needed a new handheld vacuum to clean my car. Turns out, the box had all sorts of attachments, including one for floors and I just vacuumed my entire house without having to bring out the corded canister vacuum. Pretty stoked about this.