Simple Joys of the Week, February 10th Edition

Happy Friday, bloggies! Here we are again...this week has been a total blur, but I'm excited for this weekend, during which I'll be hosting my first ever Baby Shower (so exciting!!), attending a fun "Dinner Club" meeting with a group of friends (aka, the Dinner Clubbers), yoga-ing, CrossFitting, and running a team meeting at Tranquil Space. Just a little jam-packed, huh? 

Anyways, as I hustle off to finish gathering supplies and preparing for the weekend's events, take a look at some of my simple, sensory joys of the week. What were yours?

Hear: "Big Jet Plane" by Angus and Julia Stone

I can't get enough of this song. Really. I've added it to this month's yoga playlist (and to those who have requested that I post my playlists here--it's coming! I promise!) and I've really been enjoying practicing to it. They're an Austrailian brother & sister duo who came together in 2005, but I believe they're both off on their own recording solo albums now. Anyways, their voices are beautiful and they have a really great website :) Take a listen to "Big Jet Plane" below!

---

One of last year's sketchbooks (via blog.sketchbookproject.com/)

See: The Sketchbook Project: Limited Edition 

After debating about it for a while, I finally signed up for The Sketchbook Project yesterday--and good thing I did, as I got one of the last 4 sketchbooks (bought sketchbook #4996 out of 5000!). It's a really cool project run by the Brooklyn Art Library, where they collect sketchbooks by 5000 artists from around the world, archive them, and exhibit them to the public. Every contributor to the Sketchbook Project will also be included in a series of art books documenting the project (plus, I signed up to have my sketchbook profesionally digitized, so I can share it with all of you!), and the idea is that the series will "provide insight into the imagination and process of each artist participating in the project." Cool, huh? I'm excited to be a part of it :)

---

Image via 5dollardinners.com

Taste: Quinoa

I'm obsessed. On Sunday, I decided I was going to make a big dish and eat it for lunch all week--so I made some quinoa (easiest thing EVER if you have a rice maker!), added black beans, chili pepper sauce, red, orange, and yellow peppers, avocado, and salt & pepper. It has been divine. It took no time at all to whip up this meal, and I've had a ready-made, healthy lunch all week. YUM :) This is definitely my new go-to meal. And yes, Ben, you can continue to call me the "grain monster" all you want--I'm not giving this up! 

---

Smell: Trader Joe's Vanilla & Cinnamon Black Tea

I bought this tea two winters ago (yep, in 2010!), but never really got into drinking it until this week. It is SO good! I had it as an after-lunch treat/pick-me-up twice this week, and it was really delicious. The smell is divine, the taste is very vibrant and surprisingly sweet (but not too sweet!) for a tea, and it's even better with a splash of milk. Problem? I have no idea if they still sell it, so I may need to savor this one old box...I guess I'll have to check for it the next time I'm there. Oh, and are you getting sick of me writing about tea yet? I hope not, as there's a lot more where this came from :)

---

Image via egyptiancottonblogs.com

Touch: New sheets on the bed :)

There's just nothing like putting fresh sheets on the bed, is there? Ben and I worked together to change  our sheets on Sunday and for some reason, it's made a huge difference in our sleep this week. I'm making it sound like we never change our sheets--and we do (!)--but for some reason, this time around, it's been sublime :) Ben asked, "Why don't we do this more often? It's amazing!" To which I replied, "We do. I do. You've just never helped before so you didn't know it was happening." Isn't that cute? Haha ;)  Oh, and the other amazing part? I "slept in" until 8am two mornings this week. Woohoo for giving yourself permission to get a few extra hours of zzz's...


So that's it from me! I hope that you, too, were able to find lots of small moments of happiness and/or contentment over the past week. 

Here's to a weekend full of simple joys!

Namaste,
Mary Catherine

---