Small Pleasures

• clean sheets, warm blankets, cozy Italian greyhounds, and the sounds of my husband rustling about in the kitchen
• the tempting smell of morning coffee and the feel of a perfect pot-bellied mug's warmth against my palms
  
• watching Pride & Prejudice with a friend: five hours of dancing, costumes, and fine horseflesh
  
• the particular way that lemon and poppyseed drop-cookies form tidy circles in the heat of the oven
• the lovely contrast of pale yellow of the dough with blue-grey poppy seeds
• the process of cutting circles of parchment paper with pinking sheers to layer in a tin with the freshly baked cookies.
• the promise of home-made cookies for an after school snack later this week.
  
• the windowsill parsley pressing its leaves against the sun-lit glass as against a lover
• the click of mahjong tiles on the kitchen table and my teen-aged sons' patter
  
• a steaming bowl of mushroom soup
• evening sun on my face as I wash up after dinner
• piling onto the bed with my youngest son and two dogs to watch a movie all cuddled up.
  
• the tactile pleasure of reading a library book in an edition published in 1950 with soft, rounded, edges of the worn paper (and enjoying the book, too)
  
• monolith (what a word!)

May you, too, be so blessed.