After writing my blog post last week about my favorite Valentine’s Day memories, I had such a feeling of gratitude after dwelling on the things that make me happy. As I was looking through draft posts and topic lists to decide what to write today, I realized that I use this platform a lot to express my opinions about what I think is wrong in the world today and how we can fix it. (Enneagram Type 1 much?) So this morning I decided to fully dedicate Fridays to things that make me smile going forward.

I’ll still do occasional recipe posts and my monthly book reports, but on other Fridays my plan is to do a quick list of 5 things that brought joy to me from the past week. My hope is that this will prompt others into a grateful mindset or give people some fun ideas to check out for themselves.

1. My house plants! This past week of winter weather has been brutal for a lot of people. I am lucky that Colorado wasn’t as severely impacted as some other parts of the country, but it’s still been frigid and gray here. Seeing my green plants thrive inside my house always makes me smile.
2. The TV show Superstore. A few weeks ago my sister recommended that Tyler and I check out this show and we’ve been loving it! It’s a very funny show with some quirky characters and offers a witty and satirical look at issues in today’s society. We’ve been watching old episodes on Hulu every night.
3. Nightly Aquaphor. Winter in Colorado can be mild, but dry dry dry. So to keep my skin from drying to a husk overnight, I’ve been putting a small amount (like, maybe a pea size) of Aquaphor on my face over my usual nightly skin care. There’s usually enough leftover to rub into my hands as well. If you think I’m crazy, look up “skincare slugging” and you’ll see lots of articles talking about the benefit of using either Aquaphor or Vaseline on your face.
4. The Daily Page Planner. You guys…I’ve been using the digital version of this planner for a few months now and it’s everything I wanted in a daily planner. It’s super simple…monthly pages and daily pages. The daily page format has space for your top 3 things for the day as well as the rest of your to-do list. It also has room for you to either plan or track your meals and track your water intake. There are a couple other notes fields for health/wellness notes as well as general thoughts and ideas. I don’t use every section every day, but it certainly has helped me keep on task! I’ll have to do a longer post in the next few weeks about how I use it on a weekly and daily basis. Sold on Etsy if you want to search for it.
5. Giving advice. Seriously, being asked for my thoughts on something is one of my favorite things. I’ve always felt like I have a gift of asking the right questions and helping people see things from a different perspective. I’ve had several conversations recently where I feel like I was able to help someone determine the next steps they should take in order to drive toward resolution. And it really brings me so much joy to feel like I’ve helped in some way!