Little Lifesavers

I recently read a post from Anne Bogel at Modern Mrs. Darcy, in which she shares little things that are keeping her alive right now, the small details and blessings of life that are helping her retain her sanity. Since then, Tsh Oxenrider (one of my all-time favorite bloggers, authors, and podcasters) wrote her own post on the same topic, and I really liked the idea, so I decided to run with it for my own post. In the midst of whining about the weather, traffic jams, or getting up early for work, it's good to remember what things in life are making me happy. These are some of the things that I'm finding to be little lifesavers:

Running outside again! While it may be short-lived, considering the impending forecast of colder weather returning, I got to run outside again this weekend, and it was glorious!

Gilmore Guys podcast. I adore Gilmore Girls (and am super excited for the new season to come to Netflix!), and the commentary these guys offer as they watch the show is comedic gold. Disclaimer: the episodes are not 100% clean; they do use some coarse language periodically.

Party planning. I got to help my cousin plan her son's birthday party last weekend, and it was such a blast! We had a train theme, so the sub sandwiches were lined up like a train, complete with cucumber wheels. We also had a "lumber" car with pretzels, "animal" car with animal crackers, "coal" car with red grapes, "dairy" car with cheese, and some "produce" cars with carrots and bell peppers. So cute! I'm also working on planning a murder mystery party with my sister for her birthday, and I'm getting really jazzed for it!

Fun, exploratory grocery shopping. I've been going to more stores lately to search for ingredients that are more obscure than what I typically shop for. I've been broadening the range of foods I cook (I recently used pomegranates and tomatillos for the first time), probably inspired by the insane amount of cooking shows I've been binge watching on Netflix. As a result, I've found myself spending hours wandering the aisles of Whole Foods, taking trips to my local Mexican supermarket, and making plans to go to Trader Joe's (which I'm super excited to revisit-- it's been a long time since I've been there).

What things are keeping you alive these days? I'd love to hear them!