Simple Joys of the Week, August 31st Edition

End. Of. August. Holy. Cannoli. I can hardly believe it! Can you? I mean, summer is over, which means it's basically fall, which means it's basically the holiday season, which means it's basically 2013. Life is moving too quickly!!! 

So, lets slow things down today by reflecting on our simple, sensory joys from the past week or so. What has brought a smile to your face? A few of my little pleasures are below...

Hear: My new Gluggle Jug

OMG! I had never seen one of these until a few weeks ago (when I came across them in a gift shop and thought they were really cool...), and now I have one, given to me my a dear friend as a [totally unnecessary but super sweet] thank-you gift! I may be the last person on the planet to know about these (if so, just humor me...), but in case you, too, have never come across one, here's the deal: it's a pitcher that gurgles/gluggles when it's 3/4 of the way full of liquid and that liquid is poured out. It makes these crazy fun sound effects, and obviously, that makes it a lot more enjoyable to use. You know it's these kind of funky, whimsical things that make me happy, so if you ever want to drink a beverage from a crazy noisy jug, you know where to find me! ;)

---

See: Bunting for the wedding

Look! Can you believe it!? It's my homemade wedding bunting! An entire box of it--enough to cover the entire wedding with fabric garlands! I'm obviously very excited, and it's all courtesy of Kimberly Wilson's mother, who whipped it up for me in no time in her living room in Oklahoma. I mean, seriously, it took her like NO time to make hundreds of feet of the stuff! Amazing. When it arrived this week I got really excited, as the wedding is getting close and all of the decor elements that I've been obsessing over for so long are finally starting to come together. You'll have to wait and see the wedding pictures to get the full concept, but I promise, the bunting will be a really fun way to add some handmade, festive flare to the celebration. Yay! 

---

Taste: Green beans + nutritional yeast a la my Dad's recipe ;)

You know how whenever you have a dish that you always have at home, it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like you're connecting to your roots? That's how eating these green beans felt this week. The recipe? Cooked green beans, a little butter, lemon, and nutritional yeast. Very simple, very delicious and very healthy (as long as you believe, as I do, that in moderation, a little butter is totally fine). Ben said I put too much nutritional yeast on them ("I can't eat any more of these, you put too much yeast on them and it's making me feel weird"), but I think you can never have too much of the stuff ("you don't want yours? I'll eat them! Give them to me!"). So maybe just a SJOTW for me, not for him, poor guy...

---

Smell: New haircut (love that new product smell!)

This should probably also be touch, as you know there's just nothing like feeling your healthy new hair after a haircut, but I got one of the best haircuts of my life this week. Seriously--I've never had my hair styled this well after a cut, and if I wasn't a yoga teacher who then went and put my hair in a ponytail and sweated a bunch of times the next day, I probably still wouldn't have washed it to try and savor that amazing volume. I asked the stylist how he did it so wonderfully, and went to buy some velcro rollers as he recommended, but sadly I've already learned that I'll never be able to do what he did--no matter how many tools I have. That's why we pay the big bucks to go to stylists, isn't it!? So yeah, it was definitely a simple joy to see my hair looking so bouncy for a day ;)

---

Touch: New "his & hers" mugs

Yesterday, I gave Ben this early wedding present. I ordered them from Etsy last week, got them this week, and was just so excited that I had to give them to him right away. I arranged them in the mug cabinet yesterday morning when I left before he woke up, and when I got home, was happy to see that he had used his and left it in the sink :) Backstory? Ben LOVES "his & hers" stuff.  I gave him some plastic "his & hers" glasses back in college, and it was one of the first times I'd ever seen him completely touched, so I wanted to reenact that as our wedding draws nearer. I'm probably embarrassing him a bit right now, but it's just the sweetest that he likes this kind of stuff, isn't it? Anyway, I thought these mugs were adorable, and you, too, can get a set in Dustyroadgurl's Etsy shop. Just make sure your guy is into "his & hers" items first...

Another simple joy of the week? It's Labor Day weekend! And we have our very first wedding in DC (actually the first wedding that either of us have been to that we haven't had to travel for...crazy, huh?)! And I'm teaching a yoga class for the wedding party! And we have a fun wedding Happy Hour to go to tonight! It should be a full but very fun weekend :)

I hope that you, too, have a special holiday weekend planned--whether that means resting at home, enjoying the last few days of summer outdoors, or getting away to a fun vacation spot. Whatever you do, don't forget to stop and reflect on the simple things in life!

Namaste,
Mary Catherine 

---