Simple Joys of the Week: May 13th Edition

Welcome to the Friday the 13th edition of Simple Joys of the Week! It's been a busy 7 days since my last edition, but I've still been able to enjoy plenty of simple, sensory treats throughout the week. Read on for some of my faves...

Hear: "Keep Your Head Up" by Andy Grammer

This song makes me really happy. It's such a simple, uplifting song, and I just put it on my latest yoga playlist, so I've been listening to it a lot this week. I'd never heard of Andy Grammer before hearing this song, but I guess it's been around since last year? Anyways, I may not be on top of things, but I sure do love catchy tunes! Listen below:

---

Taste: Banana Bread

I picked up a loaf of banana bread from Firehook for a meeting I attended earlier this week, and since only a bit was eaten at the meeting, I was able to take the rest of the loaf home with me...um, yum! Such a fun treat. Obviously, it's lame because I didn't make it (and it's not homemade at all!) but it has still been D.LISH. I always forget what a wonderful treat banana bread is until I have some...I'm going to have to start doing some baking so I can enjoy a healthy, homemade loaf more often.

---

See: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

I finished this book this week and absolutely LOVED it. Although it was sad, it was also realistic, gritty, heartwarming, sweet, and beautiful all at the same time. I highly recommend it, although I did cringe as I read through some of the gruesome descriptions of surgery and medical issues. What I didn't know until after I read the book is that Verghese is also a doctor, which is very impressive to me because the book is so well-written. What a talented man! As he traces the life of a few pivotal characters--weaving in and out of each others lives throughout the novel--Verghese does a wonderful job portraying both the dark and light sides of life. Also, as a sidenote, it's a fairly long book, which I love because it kept me occupied for a while (I hate it when good books are really short because I don't get to enjoy them for as long!).

---

Touch: What Should I Read Next? Website 

You might be asking yourself, why is this website included under touch? Well, the answer is because I love it, wanted to include it, and since we use our fingers to touch the keyboard in order to type, I think that's reason enough :) I learned about this site from Daily Candy this week, and I think it's absolutely GENIUS! You simply go to this site when you're looking for your next book, type in a book that you recently read (and enjoyed), and it will give you recommendations on what you should read next. How smart is that? I typed in Cutting for Stone and was given a list of amazing books, a few of which I have already read and absolutely adored. Can't wait to start using it once I finish Bossypants by Tina Fey (just started and it's already great!).

---

Smell: My new TOMS :)

As some of you may remember, I included the silver sparkly TOMS in my Simple Joys of the Week post back in March (and yes, I put that one under smell, too, because I wanted to share and figured that shoes--new and old--have a certain smell to them...).  To follow-up on my previous post, I have to admit that although I loved the silver sparkly pair, after trying them on I realized that I couldn't pull them off, so I got this pair instead (a bit more me)--and I absolutely LOVE them! Now that I have a pair I can say that they truly are some of the most comfortable shoes I've ever owned. I kind of want to get about 100 more pairs. And as I mentioned in my last post, buying them is a good thing because of their one for one movement :)

---

And there you have it! What brought you simple, sensory joy this week?

Namaste,
Mary Catherine