Love List

I recently read a post over at She Likes Purple where Jennie shared her current Love List with us. And honestly, I’m in need of remembering what is good and lovely and wonderful that I love in life for a mood reboot, so I’m totally borrowing her inspiration to do my own love list.

My rules are simple: what *I* love (not who), be it large or small, but for this exercise I’m leaving out anything to do with the kid or the husband. They are such a big (MASSIVE) part of my world, I want to see what I can come up with that doesn’t revolve around them. I’d love to know what your love list is too, while I’m at it.

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I love the smell in the air in the morning when spring arrives and the feel in the air in the morning when fall hits. I love the feeling of water rushing around me when swimming in a still pool underwater. I love the first night’s sleep in clean sheets. I love the first sip of a fresh fountain Diet Coke. I love the sunset in Arizona which is different than the sunset I love in California which is different than the sunset I love in Texas. I love the beaded angels and bells that hang on our Christmas tree that my great grandmother made. I love the excitement and nerves of learning a new dance. I love dancing, even if I don’t do it very often anymore. I love so much Mexican food, it’s not even funny.

I love the feeling of getting utterly and completely lost in a good book, the kind of lost where you start reading during the day and you look up in what feels like a blink of an eye and it’s night. I love waking up when my body wakes me up. I love singing along loudly to Bohemian Rhapsody, complete with headbanging. I love pickles. I love drinking from cold martini glasses, particularly when they’re filled with a well made cocktail.

I love the previews at the movies. I love the utter silence of a snowstorm, and the fresh slate feeling of that first blanket of snow before the plows or the even humans can come along and mess with it. I love Arizona monsoons, and the air immediately after the rains come. I love getting emails from friends. I love the feeling of nailing a project at work. I love feeling less alone when I blog about something and someone else says “hey me too!” I love my great-grandmother’s vanity that I have carted from one end of this country to the other…and back. I love the slight hesitation of the first fork through the cheesecake. I love the last soupy spoonful of ice cream.

I love Twitter.

I love a cat purring happily in my lap. I love a dog sleeping on my feet. I love the first 30 minutes of being completely alone in my house–however rare it may be these days. I love the light and warmth and feeling of freedom (even if there is none) of summer. I love dinner parties particularly when they’re small enough to talk to everyone and even more so when the conversations are so good you can’t get anyone to leave. I love laughing so hard you lose your breath and then can’t find anything that doesn’t make you laugh. I love swimming out past where the waves are breaking and picking up my feet and letting the ocean rock me. I love amusement parks, even if I don’t love rollercoasters.

I love my sequined Chucks and my sequined flats, and more importantly, I love that I’ve made the most ridiculously impractical shoes into some of my most worn ones–because even work outfits can use some sparkles sometimes. I love the cross-stitch my grandmother made for our wedding and for Jackson’s birth. I love caprese in every form I’ve found it.

I love wandering New York City without an agenda on a crisp fall day. I love the moments right before you land on a flight back home. I love Starbucks Soy Chai Latte. I love the Flatiron Building (who doesn’t?). I love that I feel like I found a home in Southern California. I’ll always love the Organ mountains, where I first knew the words “purple mountains majesty” were real and not just poetry.

I love a long hot shower, when you have nowhere to be after you’re done. I love a good long bubble bath, if you fit in the tub and have a good book that is. I love Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Charmed (but not the last season), Top Chef, Project Runway and way too many other TV shows than are good for me. I love the opening notes of the music from the Harry Potter movies. I love finding a great nice date night restaurant, but I really love finding a little hole in the wall taco shop or pizza joint.

I love how sharp and professional I feel when I dress snazzy for work, but I REALLY love how relaxed and comfortable I feel when I take that outfit off at the end of the day and put on my pajama pants. I love this one skirt I have that twirls like a dream. I love my strut in high heels.

I love relationships that can handle sitting in silence…or talking a mile a minute.

I love being barefoot.

I love that my life and my home is filled with music.

I love the way my whole body will relax if I sit on the beach and close my eyes and focus on the sound of the waves crashing.

I love when the words rush out of my fingers and spill out onto the page without forcing them out. I love when they, even remotely, live up to my idea.

*****

Another thing I love? I started this exercise thinking I’d get a few hundred words out and call it done. Almost a thousand words later, and I could honestly keep going. I’m forcing myself to stop lest this become a 3000 word opus. It’s an amazing, AMAZING reminder of how much wonderful and amazing stuff is in my life, that I’ve experience, that I enjoy, that I love.

So how about you…what do YOU love?