I love Philosophy!

I have a Simple Pleasure that I enjoy every day.This isn't a paid advertisement; it's just a love letter to Philosophy  bath & shower gel and body lotion and their spiritual labeling.   It's especially a love letter to "Inner Grace" and its wonderful fragrance. I'm a shower gal...no baths for me!  When we had our master bathroom redone this past winter, we just enlarged our simple shower to a spacious tiled space.  At my request, our contractor built a little corner "step" for ease in shaving my legs!    When I get old, I'll put in a shower chair.      Back to "Inner Grace."   After my shower, I add the "Inner Grace" lotion and avoid any additional fragrance for the day.   I feel and smell delectable.   ;-)

Today, I'm linking up with Dayle's Simple Pleasures theme.

  

A Simple Pleasure in Polyester

Dayle has her mother-in-law's silverplated flatware for her Simple Pleasure this week. It's in a glass jar, in view and easily accessible when needed.   My Simple Pleasure is in my bedroom.

Remember those garish polyester fabrics?  Textured prints such as jacquards and the like?  Years ago, my mother used to sew "throws" out of polyester squares with washable fleece backing.  The idea was that these quilt-sized blankets could go anywhere... on the floor, on the lawn, out in the woods, college dorm rooms...and then just be thrown into the washer and dryer.   I've had my bright colored one for longer than I've been married....that means it's older than 33 years.  The fleece Mom chose for the backing turned out to be less-than-wonderful for easy care, but that hasn't affected its use over the years.  Children and adults have used it for naps.  I draped it  over the sharp-edged coffee table in the family room when my little great-niece was just learning to walk.  And every night my husband lays it out on my side of our king-sized bed because I'm always cold. (I'll have to admit that only on the hottest July/August nights does the throw stay on the chest instead of the bed!)

Substituting for one that Blogger lost

When Blogger went on the blink, we thought our "lost" posts would eventually return.  In fact, all of Dayle's Simple Pleasures disappeared.....and my hummingbird post was gone, too.    I see that the most recent Simple Pleasures is back on Dayle's blog, but the link to my post doesn't work.  After all, there's no hummingbird post anymore!  And the Linky is closed.   So I'm re-posting my hummingbird image, just to have it on my blog.   It's a Rufous male feeding at the large feeder outside my little kitchen window.  It's located perfectly for photographing from inside the kitchen.

I'm also linking up with Nancy's "Your Sunday Best" challenge on her A Rural Journal blog.  I love new photo opportunities!

The Rufous male is the most colorful of the hummingbirds in this area.  

A simple yellow daffodil....bud

My Simple Pleasure for Dayle's blog doesn't compare to the eye-popping blue orchid she discovered at a nursery.  But my little yellow daffodil is my first to actually promise bloom after this seemingly extra-long winter.  The first!   I have a planting of daffodils under the oil tank on the east side of the house; they are still green with only a hint of yellow.  Last fall, though, I planted 12 or 16 daffodil bulbs on the other side of my house in an area where an ugly old juniper shrub once stood.  Now I can see flowers from my one tiny west-facing kitchen window (the result of an addition 30 years ago that put the kitchen in the center of the house with little natural light).   Those first flowers will be a happy yellow.

Yesterday morning, a "fuse" blew on a power pole just half a block from here, and I was without electricity for more than 3 hours.   It was morning, chilly outside, and the rain was coming --- again.   I felt  a desperate need to take a photograph, to find something delightful in this gray spring landscape.   I did.   It will be wonderful when all those yellow blooms are open to the sun.


I played with textures but decided straight out of the camera was the best.  

Grown Children at Home....a Simple Pleasure

It's time for Dayle's Simple Pleasures visit again.  I haven't participated since mid-March, and that was the week our oldest son flew to Oregon from New York .  He spent some time with his brother in Portland, and then they drove east to "home"  to visit together for the first time in 2 1/2 years.   One thing the oldest (a chef in Brooklyn)  said he wanted to do while here was have a "cooking class" for the young daughters of his three girl cousins.   Creme brulee was the menu choice, involving breaking and separating eggs, tearing basil, and burning raw sugar topping with a propane torch.   The class included five girls, ages 16, 11, 8, 7, and 2.     The audience included 12 adults in my sister's kitchen.    Although I've had two photo books made to preserve this delightful evening, I have some favorite images: separating the eggs and "torching" the sugar topping.

I suppose the evening was "simple" only for us who watched, but it was certainly a pleasure for everyone.
(Each of the photos can be enlarged with a click.)

Even the 16-year-old isn't jumping in right away!

This was the 2-year-old's second egg.   She crushed the first one.

Whisking the sugar and egg mix is the next step. 

Tearing basil for the flavoring.

Like the TV shows, the final product was prepared the night before. 

"Brulee" means "burned" which is where the torch comes in.

Where do the years go?

Linking to Simple Pleasures today. Dayle has posted about photo albums, those wonderful archives of memories through the years.

My post title could apply to so many things, and it usually does.  Mothers ask that when a child has a birthday or reaches some milestone in life, and couples ask it when they celebrate another anniversary, or they attend a school reunion.  It goes on and on. "Where did the years go?"     Today, I was photographing a potted white kalanchoe which I had just placed into a hand-thrown pot,  when I remembered the pot's origin.  I checked the bottom just to be certain---the potter's name was carved there.  This pot held a jade plant or some other succulent when it was delivered to my hospital room more than 31 years ago after the birth of our first son.  There hasn't been a live plant in the pot for years; I have very little good light in my house.  But I store the pot on a shelf and bring it out to hold a smaller potted plant now and then.   The potter is someone I've known for years: his wife was the first-grade teacher of our son; the potter's son was a teaching colleague of mine some years later; the potter moved from pottery to foundry work when he worked as an artist-in-residence at the high school where I taught.   Where have the years gone?

Handing Simple Pleasures down

I had never heard of Chocolate Cobbler until I read Dayle's blog today.  Now I have the recipe!

I acquired some new-to-me Simple Pleasures this week, but they are really rather old.  While visiting an elderly couple from our church congregation this week (both are ill, and I made a prescription run for them), I noticed a small collection of dusty Ball canning jars high on a little corner shelf in her kitchen. One of the jars was that beautiful green, and beside them was a little set of 'books,' which really aren't books at all.  They have been cut from wood and painted to look like books.   The woman was an elementary teacher for many years, so someone must have given them to her then.  I asked if I could borrow some jars and the books to photograph, and she told me to take them!  Their daughters have told her to start de-cluttering the house in preparation for a move to assisted living within the year. (Beth has a lot of collections -- all dust-catchers.)    I was thrilled to get the items.  Already I've been photographing still life arrangements, which I'll be adding to my Photostream and blog soon.  (The glass insulator is a piece I bought at a yard sale some years ago.)

Simple Pleasures -- I'm spoiled

Dayle spotlights a beautiful window vignette with a sentiment about Friends on her blog today; she writes of the importance of friends far and near, even those we might know only through blogland.   I have many internet acquaintances, some of whom I've shared personal stories with in the way people talk to strangers on the plane. But these "friends" are ones I continue to have contact with, unlike the airline passengers.

Today, my Simple Pleasure is something I take for granted many months of the year; I joked with my husband that there was only one month that I didn't use it last year.   The photo is of the control for my side of the heated mattress pad on our bed.  I LOVE it, and I really would not like to get into bed without it on.  My husband goes to bed before I do (he gets up at 5), so he turns my side on high; when I get into bed, I turn it down for the night.
It's almost as nice as the heated waterbed we had for the first 10 years of our marriage.

Simple Healthful Eating

My Simple Pleasure this week is just that:  simple.   After getting what seemed like an avalanche of not-so-good news about the condition of my body ---many related to my age, I suppose---I decided to work on an anti-inflammation diet.   It's relatively simple, but it did make me own up to the fact that I do not eat enough fresh fruits and vegetables.    Fresh fruit right now includes beautiful oranges and 'mineolas,' as well as crisp, sweet Fuji apples.  (I never thought I'd ever pay $1.99 a pound for apples; the Pacific Northwest grows apples, for heaven's sake!  But I'm doing it, and it's worth it!)   This bowl of citrus provides wonderful color on these gray late winter days.

"60's on 6" -- a Simple Pleasure anytime

This blog post appeared a week ago, but I couldn't ever get the link to work....so I'm linking the post this week!  


Riding home with my husband one night after eating out, a Simple Pleasure for Dayle's weekly challenge jumped out at me from the dash of our car.

I'm a child of the 60's...actually, it was the 50's, but in the 60's, it was college and the start of my teaching career.  I love the music of that era!  When we bought a new car a year ago, it came with a 3-month subscription to Sirius XM radio.  I soon extended that subscription, and I now have "60's on 6" tuned in almost all the time.  Now and then, I switch to the 50's station.  (Maybe Dayle listens to XM radio while wearing her warm driving gloves! )

I'll take candy any day!

I have a sweet tooth; I admit it.  Jelly Belly candies are just about my favorite, but during the winter months, I crave Peanut M&M's.   I'm a sucker for the holiday ones.  I took the 'regular' packages back when I found that the Valentine-colored ones were also on sale. Most would agree that Dayle's massage is more pleasurable, but  these are my Simple Pleasures for the week.

And antique simple pleasure with fuzzy inhabitants

My Simple Pleasure today doesn't have anything to do with the kitchen, as Dayle's fabulous chicken noodle soup does! (The kitchen isn't on my list of favorite places!)    This American Victorian settee (or whatever a one-armed seat was called) was handed down to me by my mother; it was part of a suite of handcarved  furniture in her grandparents' house.  They were married in 1881, but I don't know the age of this piece.   The upholstery is original.  Now it holds my small collection of teddy bears, and I try to choose carefully when I decide to add a bear to the crowded seat.

Two Simple Pleasures in one day

I always look forward to Dayle's "Simple Pleasures" opportunity on Thursdays; today she blogs about her new great-niece and the sheer delight in taking care of her for even a short period of time.

Yesterday was a trip to "town"  (20 miles away) for a couple of routine medical "maintenance" procedures. Afterwards, I stopped at the local Safeway store for a roasted chicken and some deli salad; DH was working later and we host a weekly Bible study, so I didn't feel like cooking.  (Actually, I don't need an excuse for that!)  I found the bunches of white carnations Elizabeth had blogged about on "Just Following Jesus in My Real Life"...and I bought some for myself.   After checking out, I was pushing my cart toward the door when I saw the display with discounted Christmas items....and there sat Marley!  He's one of those squeezable plush bears with a winter scarf around his neck.  I couldn't resist:  he was marked down to $4.99 from $12.99!  It's been a while since I've added a teddy bear to my small collection.

So here are my two Simple Pleasures:  Marley and some white carnations.

Back to photos.... for Simple Pleasures

I haven't done much in the way of photography from Christmas on....other than some family shots and high school basketball.  It's nice to get back in the groove with Dayle's Simple Pleasures.  (Her photo of reading in bed reminded me that I'm only 1/3  into Pillars of the Earth---a book I started 3 months ago!)  This week my simple pleasure was delivered by UPS on my birthday; it was a big box from 1-800-Flowers and contained a huge arrangement of "Peruvian lilies" or Alstroemeria.  They were cold ....it was snowing here....and the flowers were only buds.  After 18 hours in "fortified" water, the buds are opening in a variety of colors.   It's a pleasure to have a grown son who, in spite of his hectic life as executive chef of a busy Brooklyn restaurant, takes the time to send his mother in Oregon flowers for a birthday she would just as soon skip!

Blue is always a pleasure

I simply love blue!  Every room in our house has blue somewhere, and two bedrooms and two bathrooms are painted shades of blue.  This Simple Pleasure for Dayle's blog is a blue glass globe  on a brightly lighted base, looking somewhat like stars in the heavens.   I bought the two pieces at IKEA a few years ago, and I never tire of seeing it on my console table.  Generally, I forget to turn the light on, but each time one of my great-nieces visits, the globe is glowing again.   At Christmas time, it sits nicely among  blue LED lights and  an artificial evergreen  garland.

Frosty the Peep

My Simple Pleasure doesn't measure up to a new great-niece like Dayle's, but it will have to do for this week.

Peeps...those sugary-covered marshmallow confections that show up at Valentine's Day,  Easter (were the original Peeps Easter chicks?), Halloween (love the jack-o-lanterns!) and Christmas.  I like them all, except the new chocolate ones.   But my Peeps need to be dried up and crunchy.  That means that I cut the cellophane off the box and put them in a cupboard---or on top of the refrigerator---for a couple of days.     (Today, I just didn't feel like waiting; that's why  three are missing.)

My birds are back! It's a Simple Pleasure.

Each winter, I put up finch feeders outside our family room window and start buying that expensive black thistle seed to keep them filled.  Goldfinches are such wasteful little creatures, covering the ground with black hulls.   I also put up a feeder of black oil sunflower seed, which juncoes and chickadees enjoy...along with the handful of house finches that visit.   As for the goldfinches, I continue feeding them into the warm weather of early summer and then wean them off the easy feeding.   Last week, I put up my feeders after the first (early) snow.  It took only one day for the flocks to descend.    They are a beautiful Simple Pleasure, so I'm linking up with Dayle's blog.

Simple Pleasure in a cup

Dayle features a great Goodwill find on Simple Pleasures this week: beautiful amber-colored votive candle holders on long stems.   There's no Goodwill near here, and to be honest, I haven't been out for a few days.  Today, it's spitting snow; it's wet and gloomy outside.  But I start every morning with my flavored coffee.  I'm really not a coffee drinker; I want too much sugar in it.   But I discovered this sugar-free French vanilla cafe' mix, and I am 'hooked.'   (Next time I'm in 'town,' I'll check out the second-hand store for a great find!)

Blue is my favorite color

Dayle appreciates an empty dishwasher as her 'Simple Pleasures' photo this week.  I know the feeling!   As someone who lives in a dark house because of its orientation, I appreciate the light from windows.   In my tiny kitchen window, I keep cobalt blue glass bottles.... I think they were just $1 apiece....and I never tire of them.  They'll look beautiful when there's snow outside, as well.

Simply a pleasure in November

I love Dayle's Simple Pleasures challenge each week; it makes me look at things in a new way and recognize how much I appreciate them.  Today is November 4 in NE Oregon, agricultural zone 5.  We have had night-time temperatures in the 30's, and there's snow on nearby hills.   But yesterday, I found this California Poppy.  It's growing in deep gravel that surrounds the local high school events reader board.  Persistent little thing and definitely out-of-synch with the season.   How fun!   It's simple...and it's a pleasure!