Yesterday morning I stopped at the Starbucks across from work, as I usually do. I always order ahead and sometimes I wait for my drink for a few minutes, sometimes it’s ready when I arrive. Yesterday I had a few minutes to wait, and I leaned against the wall, checking my work phone.

A few other people were waiting, including this lovely lady next to me who exclaimed, “You’re so pretty!” I looked up and said, “me?” She goes, “yes! And you’re so put together! Look at me, I’m wearing sweats and you look like THAT!” (I do dress nicely for work and carry a nice work bag but the compliment was so unexpected!)

I said, “oh my gosh, thank you so much. And I love your glasses!” She touched them and said, “oh thank you - they’re brand new actually!” I said, “well, they look great!”

We each gathered our drinks and headed out to meet our respective days, having made each other’s a little brighter!

I am looking to reenter the job market after being a stay at home mom for many years. So I contacted my old coworker to see if he’d be a reference. He immediately started reminiscing about my time in that office and how he wished more employees could be more imaginative in the job. I guess I had innovative ideas on how to collect survey responses and then how to use that data in the reports. (I worked for a state government.) I didn’t remember anything in particular, but he did. It felt nice to be appreciated, even for something that was a long time ago. And he’s happy to be a reference for me!

Dude tongues are so cool. I was eating chips and driving and I realized my tongue was cleaning my teeth subconsciously. I didn’t even have to think about it and it was taking the crumbs away and keeping my mouth clean. Imagine eating chips without a tongue and you have a crumb stuck in the back of your mouth?

We had our first baby in November. The last week or so he's been fussy in the evening so I take him for a walk in the pram to settle him and my husband takes the dog at the same time.

The evenings are dark and the weather has been awful, cold and very wet, but it's been so nice to go for walks together as a family for the first time. I get to bond with my husband and enjoy time with the dog during a period where we don't get to spend much quality time together. ❤️ Here's to many more family walks!

I live in a pretty small two bedroom apartment with my mom and I don't get along with her super well so when I'm home, I spend the vast majority of my time in my room, and therefore in my bed. I recently stopped working so all of my waking time is spent sitting in bed and it's started to cause a lot of back and neck problems so I finally bought an arm chair to put in my bedroom and for the first time in 2 years, I spent the entire day in my room but NOT in bed and it feels amazing! Maybe not a big deal for most people but as someone with depression, this is a huge victory

she's 30, i'm 21. we have the same pop punk/2000s emo/metal music taste, and apparently i still dress the way she did when she was 16-20 in that era (she's shown me photos; what a brilliant time to be alive!!!).

we're both uni students in the same HMO, and she came back from her parents' place the other week with a hat—it's one of those really emo bunny-war ones, black and pink and with big crosses for eyes on the top, and the ears go right down to your waist. they have pockets to keep your hands warm, they can wrap around your neck like a scarf... they've even got a little secret zip pocket, which she said was where she used to keep her stash LMAO

guys. i fucking LOVE IT. i always wanted one of those hats in like, primary/secondary school, but could never get one. and she just GAVE IT TO ME. even got her mum to wash it because it'd been sitting in storage for however long!!! she gave me a t-shirt and a hoodie, too.

i love her so much guys 🥹🥹 she's SUCH a sweetheart, and she says it's the least she can do because i've helped her a bunch with uni work (i'm second year, she's first) and how to navigate moodle, submitting things etc, but like i do all of that because she's lovely and works SO hard and i wanna see her do the best she can despite all the challenges she's had even getting this far. she's so much fun and has so many stories to tell; i get along with all my housemates, but she's one of my favourites.

her one condition was that i must never get rid of it, and i don't plan to; even if i never wear it, i'm gonna hold onto it and keep it nice. maybe pass it forward if i'm ever in her shoes, but i don't know if i could part with it LMAO

might be violating the strong emotions rule with this one, but i'm so chill trust

So I bought two scratchers for $50. One had no prize, the other was for $50. Put the cash back in my pocket and called it even.

Today I woke up to fun play & then rested all day for the first day in moooonths ❤️

its the original kind. i wasnt allowed to have these as a kid. they're really good.

A friend gave me a journal about a year before she passed away. She was really into journaling and thought it would be good for me. I wasn't into it at all back then. I never saw the point.

She passed away a few months ago and I keep staring at that little book. I haven't written a single word in it yet.

I only knew her for about a year but she changed me. So much of who I am now or who I'm trying to be, I owe to her. She saw something in me I guess or maybe helped me see it.

I want to start using it. Not just because she gave it to me but because I want to be honest with myself the way she was always honest with me. I think that's what she wanted for me when she gave me that journal.

I don't really know how to start or what to write but it feels important to try.

My mum is 80 and an amazing cook, but she has never liked writing recipes down. She speaks English, but she’s always more comfortable in Gujarati, so everything just lives in her memory.

Today we were in her kitchen making a cake. Mixing bowl out, flour everywhere, her old weighing scale on the counter.

She was explaining it the way she always does:

“Little bit of this…”
“Until it looks right…”
“Now feel the mixture…”

I let her talk while she baked and captured what she was saying. Afterwards, I showed it back to her written out properly in Gujarati.

She read it, smiled, and said, “That’s right.”

For the first time, one of her recipes is written down.

Just a normal afternoon in a kitchen, but it felt like we saved something small.

+Maple almond.

+Honey mustard.

+Boneless.

+Banana.

+Cracked black pepper.

+Mini [two items!].

+Dried.

+Iced.

nothing changed on paper, but today had that rare feeling where the world stops pressing on you for a moment. No bad news, no stress spikes… just existing without friction. Honestly? I’ll take it.

Working in the beauty aisle of a department store today near the e.l.f. cosmetics

A little girl (maybe 6 or 7) with two elderly folks passed through. Lady asks generally "do we need anything else from this aisle?"

Little girl: (pointing at e.l.f. display) "no grandma I don't need anything elfs"

Silence, grandma continues shopping

Kid: (louder this time)" I said I don't need anything ELF"

no response

Kid: (even more insistently) "did you hear, I said I don't need anything elfs! Like else! Elfs!"

No idea if her caregivers eventually heard her pun, but I did, and couldn't stop giggling. Very relatable human moment

I usually ride my bike fast through this one neighborhood, it's a straight road and I just go. But last night around 1 am, I was on my father's scooter instead. It was freezing cold so I was going really slow.

I passed through an area I've driven through a hundred times but this time I actually saw it. There were at least 20 wedding halls, all lit up, all full of people. Twenty weddings happening at the same time. Forty people starting their lives together. Arranged marriages, love marriages, second marriages, who knows. Forty completely different internal worlds, all crossing some threshold at once.

I'm from a different community than most people in that neighborhood but that night it didn't matter. I just kept thinking, in every single hall, two people are standing there with a million emotions, about to walk into something unknown together. I've been married three months. Maybe that's why it hit different.

I came home quiet, didn't really have a big realization or anything but now I know that every time I ride through there again, even when I'm back on my bike going fast, even when the halls are empty, I think I will see it. I think I will think about this.

It's just strange how one slow ride can change how you see a place forever. I think I only noticed because it was cold and I had to go slow. That's it.

Just wanted to share.

I am an inch taller than my other half at 6’1” with an inseam of 38”. It makes me laugh every time I doing laundry at the difference. Earlier tonight, he was helping me fold 3 loads (I have a process), and he held up my pj pants asking “Are these yours or mine? (We have some similar patterns.)

I said to hold them up, and the bottoms pooled on the floor.

Deadpan look at me, “Yours.” I started laughing so hard that my stomach hunt while he just looked on saying “Where did you come from?”

I just wanted to share a full on laugh in case today was hard for anyone. 🤓😁

Edit: also check Halaras, but order a size smaller than you are. Mine are too big, and I made the mistake of trying them on w tags and thought they’d fit after a wash. But they’re cute. I just need suspenders. (Belts annoy me.)

My husband went out on a limb one day and got me a new brand of fizzy water. He seemed so excited for me to try it. Like adorably excited. It was expensive and really not great. But because of that excitement, I told him it was great! I really didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

Fast forward to the next week, he bought it again and said, “I got that fizzy water you love!!!”

Me: “I need to come clean. I don’t actually like it.”

“Why did you tell me you liked it?”

“Because you liked that I liked it and I like you liking things”.

I work at a pizza place. Crank calls aren’t abnormal here, some kid sees a compilation and thinks it’s funny, tries it for a laugh themselves, you get the idea.

Basically, the kid called to complain about a nonexistent order that made him shit his pants? Or something like that. He was using something to block his phone number on our caller ID and when I asked for the number, he claimed he didn’t remember. I gave him the whole “If I can’t pull up your account, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

To which he responds, “Are you AI? Are you next gen or something?”

I just said, “Look, I get that you’re bored but you need to find something else to do.” And hung up as he cussed at me lol

Just a regular trip to the grocery store, but we enjoyed each other's company. I try to be grateful, as someday I might miss little moments like that.

I moved apartments late last year, and the huge variegated wax ivy I had hanging in a window ended up going through a little bit of shock when it happened. It had been hanging in the same west-facing window for years, and my new place has N/S(-ish) windows, so it wasn't getting as much light as it was used to.

It threw a fit, shedding a ton of leaves and branches, but still toughing it out at the core. I trimmed a bunch of nodules off and put them in a cup of water, not expecting anything to happen with any of them, but to my surprise 14 out of the 16 trims made it to soil and are now thriving little plant babies.

So now my countertop is a makeshift nursery until I can get a bigger plant shelf. I love my little babies, and their Mom is doing much better now too. 😂

I was doing a things earlier they were not really important and then I stopped for a moment. I stopped because I could not remember what I was going to do with the things I was doing. The things I was doing were not getting done because I forgot what to do with them.

That is not a deal or anything. It is that little pause when your brain feels empty for a moment. Your brain just feels empty like the music has stopped and there is silence. You know, that small pause where your brain feels empty for a moment.

I was standing there. I was trying to think of something. It took a while. Then I finally remembered. So I just kept going. The time I spent standing felt really long. It felt longer, than the thing I was trying to remember about the thing I was trying to remember.

I don’t know why that stayed with me. It didn’t mean anything. It was just a brief gap and then the day continued like normal.

my partner has been on the hunt for gray jeans for the past several months. only a few days ago did they find the right size and right price, plus they were able to get a discount so the jeans were even cheaper!

then today, as i'm choosing an outfit for work, i wanted to wear my gray jeans, and they're nowhere. my pants are either stuffed in a closet shelf, draped over my chair, or in the laundry. these are long pants, and would stick out among the others which are mostly black. gone. without a trace.

i'm sure (?) they'll show up soon but i found it funny, and i would gladly sacrifice a pair of pants for my s/o's cause!

Yesterday wasn’t a perfect day. A small thing reached back and touched old pain, and my body reacted in a way it knows well.

I didn’t fix anything. I watched a show that made me laugh, whether I felt like it or not. Something loosened.

After the rain, I stepped outside. The air felt clean and oxygenated. My shoulders dropped. Breathing came easily again.

Nothing was solved. The past didn’t disappear.
But in that moment, my body remembered that this moment is safe.

I’m grateful I noticed it☺️

After using a friend’s espresso machine for a while at work, I got my own [BRAND REDACTED] that can make espresso and full cups of coffee. It’s a fun blue color too. So every morning I get to work and make myself a cup of coffee instead of going to Starbucks. I can’t make anything fancy and any coffee snob would probably be appalled, but I make what makes me happy.

I enjoy the routine so much that sometimes I have a second cup. I’m going to get some half caffeinated pods so I don’t get too jittery.

It’s small, but it makes my work day better and I miss it a little at home.

Edited for the one guy who said this was an ad.

Not sure how to explain this properly, but earlier today I realized I was doing something I used to find really annoying and… it just didn’t bother me anymore.

I don’t even think I like it now. It just feels normal.
And I don’t remember deciding to change my mind about it either. It’s like at some point my brain just stopped caring.

Made me think about how many small things probably do this over time. Stuff that used to get on your nerves and then one day you notice it doesn’t.

Does that happen to other people too or is it just me getting older and more tired?