A few readers have shared with me that they have been unable to comment on some of my blog posts, that WordPress won’t allow them to register their responses without jumping through a few website hoops. In general I don’t get a lot of comments anyway, so I really didn’t notice this was happening until I heard from a couple of readers I actually know. It seems to be a random occurrence. I am not really good at figuring out the mechanism for why that is happening, but I’ll mess around with it at some point and see if I can fix the problem, just in case anyone feels they have something they want to say.

This past week it was reported that some winter weather was headed our way. Often when that happens, it sets some people off into a flurry of panic buying for the bread-milk-toilet paper triumvirate. Since the roads are usually clear by the next day or two after a storm, this behavior always seems to be a bit on the hysterical side to me. Perhaps if you have a number of young children in need of milk, or a large household full of hungry people, or live in a very remote area, that is probably practical. I guess if you had no toilet paper in the house to begin with, that might be an issue. The only thing I did was cancel an appointment for early the following morning, as I had no desire to drive anywhere in messy weather. Then I settled in for what I anticipated to be a cozy day of being snowed in with no obligations.

Well, the snowstorm was a bust, as it never materialized. It landed in other areas but missed us. We did get rain – a lot of rain. It rained all night and it rained all day. It rained so much that it washed away most of the snow from the previous storm. It never got really that cold either. But I settled into the day anyway and enjoyed a number of little pleasantries. The foodie things – a bowl of homemade, hot chicken soup garnished with crispy chili flakes. A side of warm cornbread slathered with butter and pepper jelly. Freshly baked brownies laden with walnuts. Cups of tumeric/ginger tea.

There was the good feeling of being snuggled up in a brand new fuzzy blanket with a soft little dog curled up against my side, reading a library book. And overindulging on chocolate peppermint bark candy, which only seems to be available during the holiday season (so get it while you can). I’ve been eating it constantly for the past week. I’m actually eating my very last piece now as I type this.

In between I did a couple of loads of laundry. Does anyone else thoroughly enjoy removing the lint from the lint trap in the clothes dryer? For some reason, I find peeling that layer of fuzz out of the machine is very pleasurable. I realize it is a visual indication of your clothing essentially wearing away, and yet it gives me great satisfaction, the layers of stuff sloughing off the now-clean clothing to reveal a fresh layer below. Fibers, lots of dog hair (lots and lots of dog hair in this latest cycle), invisible unidentified weirdness and whatever. I know I am not the only person who likes the lint trap. Every time I empty the dryer screen I get that same cheap thrill. Doing laundry is one of the domestic chores that does not really bother me. Folding and putting away the clothes is not especially the fun part, but the wash and dry is pretty okay. Clearing out the lint trap is the icing on the laundry cake.

During the rainy day there was some reading, scrolling through social media and binge-watching a few television series and movies. I napped under the new fuzzy blanket, which I had washed first. It had filled the entire lint trap in the dryer with a huge, furry pile of smoky blue. Yes, very, very satisfying.

Other thrills of the week – a few of the crows have returned. Yesterday three or four of them huddled together on a branch in the crow tree, noisily consulting with each other.

While I am smiling about this tiny appearance of a few crows, a friend of mine recorded a gathering of crows happening outside her home. I was a little envious of all the corvid action going on in her neighborhood, which I thought was pretty cool.

One loss of the day – a jagged chip broke off the top of the glass cannister I kept on the bathroom vanity that held cotton swabs. This container had once belonged to my mother, who kept it filled with cotton balls. It was decades old. So there is yet another little daily reminder of my mom that is now gone. I replaced it with something else I had around the house. It’s okay, but I admit I felt a bit wistful.

On a happier note, Rudi is enjoying his new Gumby squeaky toy. I think I am enjoying it too. Is Gumby a thing of the very distant past? Do any children today even know who Gumby and Pokey are (or were)?

And the feel-good for today is that I gifted my old Canon digital camera to a stranger – a woman that actually still enjoys taking photos with a camera, as opposed to using a cell phone as a camera. There are still people out there who do that. They are artists! I hadn’t used the camera in a very long time. It seemed to find it’s right person. I really like when that happens.

I am gathering all of these little thrills and pleasures I have enjoyed over the last few days as a means of balancing perspective within The Big Picture. Doing that seems to help temper the things that are happening which I am finding frustrating or worrisome, sad or scary. Because there are those things going on too….as they probably are with most of us. I think sometimes it is important to dwell in the brief moments of the simple pleasures, the small occurrences in life, to help keep our emotional batteries charged.

~*~