This year has given us all some time for introspection. Well, that or video games. And if that’s what makes you smile, go for it. We each have different needs.
My garden makes me smile. Looking out at the flowers, stopping to smell the peonies (which smell like roses!), admiring the sunflower that has sprung up in the keyhole bed… particularly after losing all the sunflowers I planted out back to some hungry critter, and unsure whether the front yard sunflowers will survive whatever’s leaving holes in the leaves.
But I can’t complain too much about the critters… I just smiled at a rabbit hopping through my back yard. And have you ever watched a woodchuck run? It’s like a low to the ground penguin waddle, with hips shifting back and forth as it leaves a trail in my grass. Of course, that may be who ate my pea seedlings. It’s hard to tell, I’m not spotting the rabbits or woodchucks in the raised beds.
At a guess, it’s birds eating my strawberries, but at least that’s the actual fruit. If the sunflowers had grown to full height, most of the seeds would have been consumed by the birds. The peas probably would have been shared between us and the woodchuck.
And then there are the indoor critters, sources of amusement and frustration. I walked in to these faces this morning. I was immediately suspicious. This was after breakfast, so they weren’t expecting food, and the third cat, Arwen, wasn’t in sight. Arwen is the main troublemaker, the one who figured out how to open the crockpot over Memorial Day weekend, landing a paw in my chicken soup. (Knowing it was possible, Diane then followed her example.) As it turns out, Arwen was lounging in the bay window, and I still have no idea why these two were eagerly awaiting my return from the garden.
I also happen to enjoy food, eating it and preparing it, given enough time. And it’s a mix of things I grew up with – like omelets, which Dad would make on Sunday mornings, grilling on my Big Green Egg – a gift from Dad, or making a pizza from scratch. We’ve developed a Friday night pizza habit, and while the multigrain crust is pretty much the same each time, the toppings vary from week to week, and sometimes I switch from tomato sauce to pesto.
This is by no means the entire list of things that make me smile, just a few things that came to mind. What makes you smile?