Monday, August 16, 2010

These are a few of my favorite things...

I was walking around Target the other day.... okay it was WalMart! Listen, I hate WalMart. BUT, my brother and his now wife registered at WalMart for their wedding so what was I to do? Swallow my hippie pride and enter that Death Star of sweat shops, employee abuse, local economy-suck, and destroyer of rural community mom and pop stores to get my best brother a WEDDING gift or... ya know... not. Well I chose to get them a gift. Familial love and obligation outweighed my hippie principles that day and I suspect, it will probably happen a few times more in the future. It's WalMart. It huge. It's convenient. And DAMN they are so CHEAP. Sigh... an internal conflict in the most diabolical sense. But this post is not about WalMart (thus comments alluding to either pros or cons... but mostly pros about that Evil Monopolistic Empire America is ruthlessly injecting into the wider world will likely be ignored. It's my blog! Stamping foot! Lip pout!).

Anyway... where was I.... ah yes...

I was walking around WalMart on my way to the pots and pans section and happened to come upon the "Back to School" displays, kiosks, aisles, and displays. Dear Internet, a bit of childhood excitement leaped into my throat as I felt my pace instinctively slow and a drop of drool begin to creep down the side of my mouth as I glanced over the glittering new plastic binders, the neatly organized pocket folders, Lisa Frank (true!) pencils and pencil boxes (me want), and beautifully virginal 3 ring binders, college-ruled notebooks, glistening ball point pens, highlighters, the smell of  number 2 pencils and backpack vinyl and... siiiiigh. It was a little moment of heaven I tell you. I love, LOVE, love back to school supplies. Though tanned and tow-headed students claim utter despair at the thought of returning to school - it's mostly a ruse. A farse put on for their peers that "only those nerds REALLY like school, right?" Well wide worlds, I'm not ashamed to say that I did and continue in my deepest of hearts - to love school. And I particularly love back to school season. There's an air of excitement and anticipation when the school year starts again. It's magical! I remember buying new pencil boxes and picking out a bran new backpack every Fall in elementary school. I remember buying seven college ruled notebooks and three ring binders, labeling them neatly. for each class in Junior High and High School. I remember packs of pens and highlighters; I remember the smell of new clothes, the feel of new socks, flipping through textbooks, putting .5 led into my mechanical pencils, and school time haircuts. Truly...

1. Back to school season is one of my favorite things.

And that got me to thinking... what are some of my other favorite things? Just simple lovely things that give me such joy and excitement as the feel of a bran new number 2 pencil scratching across a completely blank lined sheet of paper? Here's a few I came up with...

2. Fluffy kittens and their little "mews?" Aw.
3. The smell of chlorinated swimming pools
4. The smell of books - yep - I'm the crazy you spotted sniffing all the books she picked up in Barnesy before even glancing at the back cover.
5. Summer nights in Utah - when the temperature is just so, and the breeze just so, and the sky is pink, and you know it won't be dark for another hour at 8:00pm.
6. Showering after you've been sweating really hard - like after an intense hike or a vicious game of ultimate frisbee. NOT like standing in 106 degrees in St. George (see: like today... ick).
7. Watching a movie and eating Junior Mints alone in my apartment
8. Coming home to a squeaky clean apartment - oh man - one of my FAVORITE things
9.  Fresh Flowers - anytime and all the time
10. Fall - everything. Crispness, school, football, birthday (me!), Halloween, nutmeg, pumpkins, sweaters and jeans, mustard yellow and burnt orange,comfort food, and warm woolen mittens.
11. Glasses - the wear on your face kind
12. Getting packages in the mail
13. Airports - I really like airports.
14. Sincere compliments - Sincerity in general
15. Warm feet - as in my own feet being warm - cause it seems like they're usually cold
16. The word "schmuck."
17. Men's scruffy faces and hair slightly starting to poke over their ears. I love that.
18. Dressing up to go to the symphony, ballet, play, on a date you're actually excited about...
19. Purple
20. Eating out on weekends

Siiiiigh. Right? What great favorite things!

Go on then... what are a few of your favorite things? (and if any of you smarty pants say WalMart... (fist shake)).

5 comments:

Jaime Van Hoose Steele said...

Nice list!!! I gotta say I loved back to school myself as well. All crisp colorful new stuff just begging to be doodled on by your multiple new color pens! (I still get excited every time I need to buy new gel pens, journal, or any office supply). New clothes hanging in the closet cause I won't wear them until the first day of school. The excitement of finding out what your class schedule will be and what cute boys are in the class. The way the school smells of books and clean and the outside smells of Fall! (which is my all time fav season as well!) Love it all! I can't wait to have kids to get excited with them for school! I have butterfly's in my tummy just thinking about it all!

Ps- I love your list! It's all stuff I too appreciate :-)

Mike & Emily West said...

Oh! I love those things...it made me smile...all of them, I would have to agree, especially fall things! I would also have to add in: freshly roasted vegetables, the smell of freshly cut grass and gas from the lawnmower, ancient ruined castles and quirky Scottish accents. (The last two are recent adds) Fun post, thanks!

Nasher said...

Favorite thing: knowing that I never have to take a final exam or write a massive paper ever again!

Andrea Jolene said...

Dear Pete - you win.

Craig Barlow B. said...

Honestly, I kind of dislike back-to-school time. I actually like school, I just want to be either in school or out of school. I hate sitting on the edge wondering, "I wonder how school is going to be?" When I'm in high levels of anticipation it means I am in extreme emotional turmoil.

I also love coming home to a spotless apartment/home. That is such a good feeling. Especially if you are going to go to bed immediately, and your bed is already made and the place is clean. Wonderful.

I love going on vacations where everything just falls into place.

I love going to an outing or event that I can look back on as if I'm watching an interesting movie.