Feeling Blessed

Sometimes it takes the most random and tiniest of things to make me realise how beautifully blessed my life is. I am so thankful for these moments of complete and utter clarity. :)

Happy Monday

Yesterday I had problem falling asleep because I was too excited about today. I had not been performing at full capacity since last Tuesday (some relatives from overseas came to visit and after that I wasn’t feeling very well). Luckily, I am given a gift of another week to start all over. I woke up early today, cooked breakfast, cleaned the room, did the laundry and completed planning for the work week by 9 am. I’m feeling good today!

May you have a happy Monday too! :)

Happy Things on Sunday

Waking up to Fat Cat’s chubby face staring at me, purring loudly
Breakfast with the whole family.
Long and engaging conversation with B over coffee and pie.:)

Beautiful Sunday

Cat rubbing its wet nose against my toes
Green tea and warm sponge cake
Lavender and chamomile body lotion
Good hair day

Sensory Candy Land

I’m gonna be blogging everyday this month! I’ve lost the momentum to blog following my month-long European trip in May so I’ve also signed up with NaBloPoMo, where you pledge to blog everyday for a month based on a suggested theme. September’s theme is “Beautiful”.

I love Septembers. It’s the start of the rainy season here. I have mentioned a couple of times  here about my love for rainy days. The day gets cooler, the colors of the leaves get more saturated and there’s a thick, fresh smell of evaporating grass perfume. Wait, did I just say grass perfume?

I see the world as a candy store of magical sensory experiences. Smells to be smelled, interesting textures to be caressed, poked and squeeze. The world is indeed a beautiful place.

One of my favorite sounds is the gentle clicking of Ricola breath mint boxes when you open/close them. I could go on an on opening and closing them. When I walk into a bookstore, it’s not just words and pictures that invites to be explored. Paper is one of my greatest weakness. The multitude of textures, the different smells when you browse through the pages, the feeling a certain tone of off-white gives me.

I had an interesting experience at the bookstore the other day. A book was inviting me into its pages (creamy and pockmarked with miniscule pits). Through experience, I can tell how a certain type of paper is going to smell like (No, no I don’t spend all my time smelling pages of books, I have a lot of common paper samples as a graphic designer) but this one was a mystery. So I decided to do the necessary — I drew my nose closer to the book and took a deep whiff somewhere between pages 100 and 165. The smell was a delicious combination of vanilla and grass perfume. I didn’t notice that someone was beside me until I closed the book, let out a very tiny, “mmmh” and smiled to myself. After getting giving me a derisive stare and unapproving sneer, the stranger walked away slightly disgusted. I looked at the rest of the folks in the bookstore. They were either grabbing something purposefully or reading the first few pages or blurbs at the back covers. I strolled to the kids section and was met with a boisterous littly boy negotiating with his mum about how he really wanted a book because some of pages are bouncy. A girl was seated on the floor touching a drawing of a colorful fairy, totally entranced.

Somewhere along the road to adulthood we lose this sense of wonder and delight in seeing normal things in a novel way. I’m glad I didn’t lose that gift because there’s just so much beauty all around just waiting to be discovered and enjoyed. Why don’t you join in the fun some time?

PS: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movie is coming out soon (I just love that title). Pancake rain sounds good in small doses.

Easily Amused

My cat is sleeping on the bed, oblivious to the thunderstorm brewing outside. His curled up position makes him look like a baby seal, so chubby and cute. But I bet baby seals don’t whine as much as he does (he whines about 179 times a day).

The coffee on my desk is 5 hours old and tastes like what a 5-hour-old coffee should taste like – bitter, with resentment for a glory lost.

I have a handful of pistachio shells on a piece of recycled paper. I wondered what they could be reused for. Googling for an answer, I found “helmets for snails“. LOL :)

PS: Busy week for me, yay for weekends!