Simple pleasures...
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I thought we could have a thread where we post the simple things in life that give ourselves some quiet enjoyment.
I'll start...
My Island home is on the route most flights take between Europe and North America. Most days I can look up and see airliners more than 30,000 feet above flying one after another. I say most days because my seeing the jets is dependant on the position of the jet stream relative to our Island. More often than not the corridor the flights are taking is visible from my deck. One day I'll see them all heading to Europe but the next day I notice they are all going the other way. I really enjoy taking a quite moment and watching them. The shiny metal tubes full of people travelling such big distances. I often think of the simple pleasure many of them must get looking out and seeing our Island. Most likely have never been here on the ground and so I imagine their curiosity about our lives just as I imagine theirs. They are up there with a little bottle of Johnie Walker while I'm looking back at them from my deck with my beer in hand. It is a simple pleasure but one that brings me some quiet entertainment.
Regards, Ross
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That's a nice thing Ross - you can even say "cheers" to each other!
Well, I like hiking in the mountains around and I have a special place that I really like, a rock high over the hill side with a beautiful view (see embedded picture - on the left, "around the corner", behind the hill foot is where my home town is)
Anyway, this is not as daily a routine as yours maybe but what I really like is to go up there when there are no other tourists (in the evening or so), take a bottle of wine, maybe some food, my sleeping bag and spend the night up there (especially when it's full moon). The rocks (red sandstone) radiate enough heat back to let me sleep there even around these days and only some incidental rain may cause some surprise.
Really relaxing though when I do not go just by myself, can be a bit tiring, too...
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Ross,
Great topic! I truly believe it is the small pleasures and the little things that can make a big difference in life. I find the small pleasures in my daughter and my soon the be daughter (days away). Seeing my daughter smile or feeling my soon to be daughter kick brings me joy. I work as much as I do to try to make a better life for my family. Long hours and a lot of work make it all worth it to see my family happy. I went through a real rough patch a while back where I was just a real bitter person and was nothing less than a real jerk to be around. I was holding far to much emotional baggage and took out my frustrations on the ones I loved and also people I did not even know. One day my daughter asked why I never smiled and why I was always upset. She said it is hard to be happy when you are so sad. It was like someone hit me in the chest with a baseball bat! From that point on I realized that I need to find the little things in life to be happy about, and she was right in front of me. From that point on I have dropped my emotional baggage and lived for my family. Life is far to short to be bitter.
All I can tell people is that you get one chance to live and if you are not living life to the fullest then you need to re-evaluate things in your life. One quick look around you and you will see something to be happy about.
I know this might be a little off your subject but my simple pleasures are seeing those around me happy and if I can have a little hand in that then I am doing something right.
Best regards,
Scott
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Scott,
That's a touching tale, I think I have something to learn from it.
Before the birth of my son, whenever I get home in the evening I would just plonk myself on the sofa, tired. Now he monopolises that sofa but just seeing him smile (at me) when I reach home makes me forget the stress of driving home. BTW, he is now 8 months old.
Guite
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Children are pleasures, but seldom simple.
I live in a very flat, relatively rural area. I drive through fields of soybeans and corn every day. Knowing and appreciating the condition of the fields year long is a simple pleasure for me.
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Beautiful thread!
The simplest pleasure for me is to smile at the sun and imagine that everyone in this world could see the same sun, maybe some of them look and think the same right now too...
Marne
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Great topic Ross and friends! Scott, very cool...to be able to make such an important life change early...that's priceless!
Ahhh simple pleasures...anybody who knows me well, knows that I enjoy a lot of things, and it is because I am able to bask in the light of simple things. Here are a few:
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For Ross - a week driving around Nova Scotia and Prince Edwards Island with my wife in her convertible...just enjoying the peaceful scenery...the farmland that dissolves into the ocean, the Falcons and Eagles floating above, and the sound of the wind and the engine singing in harmony.
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The utter and complete joy that our dog Tiki shows every time she greets us. When Talisker, who's the much more emotionally reserved Sheltie, wags his tail gently hoping that he is pleasing us.
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The sound of a well tuned racing machine running on the edge, and being piloted perfectly. (A Ferrari 312 v12 1960's Grand Prix car comes to mind..)
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The smell of racing fuel, or of two stroke exhaust mixed with the smell of fallen leaves.
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A nice glass of wine, a warm fire and your best friend(s)/family at your side. ...maybe a little Billie Holiday or Miles Davis in the background...
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Getting to sleep in, when your bed is warm and the morning is cold.
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The silence of standing in the woods during a snowstorm.
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The moment that your strike lands squarely and your opponent is knocked out before they hit the ground...nothin like a knockout when it comes to simple pleasures!
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The "click" of the torque wrench when you've finished the last nut/bolt on a long mechanical project...and the anticipation of testing out the newly upgraded component.
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Finally reproducing a bug that no one else can figure out! ...and hearing that a fix has been noticed.
Alas, I could go on forever...
...if only that were possible.Cheers,
- CraigD -
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Nice thread.
I thought about this for a while and even though I have many things to be happy about and many pleasures to mention, there is one that makes it all worthwhile.
My wife and I work hand in hand she is the construction end and I the concept design. She is onsite more than at home office and has an inner strength greater than mine, a way with people I could not even fake, she is confident, beautiful, sharing, happy and a joy to everyone she interacts with. So my simple pleasure is the moment she arrives back from site and greets me with a kiss, knowing I have made the best decision of my life by marrying her and would do it all again.
(bytw, Eric she is a Southern girl from your neck of the woods, Huntsville, Alabama)
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Solo you make us all jealous...
congratulations on finding what we all search for...
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SU aside, I think this is the best thread we have had so far (this and maybe the fun little game). I'm all for being happy!
My girlfriend is great, just started living together.
I like running at dawn, try to do it daily, I'm no athlete but it makes me feel healthy and chilled out. The picture below is just one that I have captured on my phone at that time of day. The building in the background is the Deep, the only submarium in Europe designed by the architect Terry Farrel.
My cat Ginger, is fantastic too. He is very intelligent, possibly an evil genius if he had opposable thumbs.
My new found passion is the shed I've just built for my mountain bikes. I can't explain it. Build a shed if you haven't done it before.
Also I like growing vegetables, we have an allotment near our home. Mainly growing weeds at the moment though.
Lastly and not least, recently there was a major flood in my city, two thirds of all houses were flooded, but everybody pulled together and actually it was quite a novelty. Nothing better than seeing a man canoe past the local pizza shop.
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@solo said:
(bytw, Eric she is a Southern girl from your neck of the woods, Huntsville, Alabama)
We grow 'em nice down here don't we? My wife was born and raised in Huntsville.
A few simple pleasures for me...
A clean woodshop, after a project is done, the finished product sitting on the assembly table. All the machines dusted off, polished and ready for the next run.
My daughter's face in the evening as she is falling asleep and then again when I wake her in the morning.
A clean, well organized SU model. No stray lines, everything in proper copmonents with all back faces where they should be.
Knowing who my creator is and that no matter what I do he still loves me unconditionally.
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@unknownuser said:
I like running at dawn,
Take good care of you knees. Running and cycling used to be among my greatest pleasures, simple and sometimes complex, but that is over.
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Something we affectionately call "ugly days"
No work, house work or otherwise. Jammies all day (brushing teeth is not required, but requested) No cooking, only ordered food, preferrably pizza. Snuggling, watching movies all day. Maybe a nap here and there. Optimal for disposable plates and utensils to be used, but if not dishes can wait until tomorrow.
I long for an "ugly day"........
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