The Simple Pleasures Challenge!

I am part of a mailing list group, where we get one challenge delivered to our mailbox everyday. Simple things many a times, that we can do as part of a formal challenge, to have a feeling of some accomplishment by overcoming that procrastination that many of us suffer from.

Well, long story short, today's challenge was to think about and share the simple pleasures of our life. It made me smile, because in many ways, that is what Winkie's Way has been about for me. Stopping to think about those simple things that really make me happy. Today, I want to pause again, for my challenge, and think of a few that really connect with me today, as I am...

1. The weather is warm with that slight nip in the air. The season is spring. The mood is a quiet ecstasy. The scene is the driveway, where I lounge on my easy chair with a book in my hands, watching the boys make merry with every simple thing they can lay their hands on. This feeling is a simple pleasure...

2. Having a whole new CD of bhajans to listen to, and sing loudly with, in the car, and suddenly we are enjoying a mini-family satsang, right then...right there...

3. Watching American Idol with Winkie, hearing his opinions on who he thinks would win, telling him about my favorites, and enjoying the music with volume on max and the boom box on!

4. Watering all the plants, and watch the dry soil change color from light to dark, as it drinks up its sustenance.

5. That feeling immediately after a shower, when your skin tingles from the treat of flowing water, and washes everything away, making you so decidedly comfortable in your own skin!

6. After all the effort of shopping for the weekly vegetables, and that extra step of putting it away, those few seconds when you can stare at your freshly stocked fridge, cooking up a range of possibilities right there in your mind...ahhhh, the pleasure of it!

7. That moment when Thambi is tired, and decides to listen to his body, and he asks to be held, so he can lay his head on my shoulder and fall asleep...its the simplest, sweetest, most peaceful pleasure there is...

8. That twilight instant at bedtime, when the boys finally tire of all their energy and settle into their little inner cocoons, and I finally hear the silence that I have yearned for and earned...and soaking up that silence, and the soft light from the bedside lamp to read just a few pages of my book, before sleep becomes possessive and asks for me...

9. When I hang the clothes to dry, that little snap of the wrists to straighten out the garment, the sounds of it as it snips through the air crackling the energy, and watching that garment conform to the line so perfectly....its my own personal meditation!

10. Watching the growing pile of books Winkie has finished reading, and even more than that, watching the very act of his absorption between the pages of his current interest....sensing his own personal meditation...now that is a pleasure!