BS: Little Luxuries

Subject: BS: Little Luxuries
From: LilyFestre
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 07:23 AM

What are some of the little luxuries in your life?

I was thinking about this last night after I crawled under the covers. For me, some of life's more simple things are the best!

For example:

*Going to bed on a cold, wintry night with clean flannel sheets and a pile of quilts on the bed

*A warm towel, right from the dryer, when getting out of the shower

*Sitting in front of the woodstove and reading

*The smell of something baking in the oven

*Waking up to sunshine streaming in the window and the rooster crowing

*A hug and kiss in the morning or when I get home (or when he gets home)

*A purring cat curled up on my lap (or on my chest when my heart hurts)

*A weekend breakfast at home

*A ride (or walk) in the woods

*Reading a good book (and time to read for as long as I want!)

*Spotting animals in the field

I could go on...you get the idea. What are some of life's little luxuries that you enjoy?


Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Susu's Hubby
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 07:29 AM

....sitting beside a small lake on a warm spring day with a line in the water with no bait and an adult beverage in my hand. My idea of perfection!

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: John O'L
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 07:31 AM

The kids are off to school, the wife's at work, the dog's been walked, the washing's on the line, there's no shopping to be done, nothing around the place needs urgent fixing, mowing, cleaning or cooking, and no threads need urgent responses.

I can get out my fiddle and rosin up.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Crystal
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 07:48 AM

Eating very good, very expensive chocolates.
Getting dressed up and going to a ball (costs about the same as the aformentioned chocolates)
Baking, and iceing cakes
Making sweets
Flying kites
Singing at the top of my voice because there is no-one around to hear me.
Walking on a warm day.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Jeanie
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 08:45 AM

Chair, desk, paper& pen, or book or newspaper, and a large cappuccino. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm...........

I was talking to someone the other day about how we would survive if we ever had to move into a retirement home, and it struck me that as long as I could have the above items (plus a radio), I'd be totally content for years on end.

- jeanie :)

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 08:56 AM

A decent, working car; a full tank of gas, and "getaway money." And, of course, the time to go out and see what there is to be seen -- aye, there's the rub!

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 09:03 AM

Taylor's Landlord, draught Guiness, malt whisky.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 09:08 AM

'Fillet steak' cooked very rare, with all the trimmings and a bottle of good red wine.
Getting a smile from a beautiful woman.
Hiking in Derbyshire, especially around Kinder.
Climbing into pyjamas that have been warmed on the radiator and in between flannelette sheets.
Getting into a hot bath which has been liberally laced with 'Dettol'...please try it.
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Layah
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 09:18 AM

Friends
Getting on a horse and looking for the middle of nowhere
Hot chocolate when it's raining outside (snowing, hailing, etc)
chocolate
a good book and time to read it
hugs (and kisses, although I am more particular who they come from)

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Mooh
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 09:20 AM

A quiet view of the lake, fishing rod and/or guitar, picnic meal or shore lunch...why's it gotta be winter right now? Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: RichM
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 09:34 AM

meeting every friday afternoon in a private room in a nice pub that has great beer, with retired friends who like to pick a few tunes.
---and occasionally,having our working significant others join us after work.



watching my bird neighbours at the feeder.
Handing a peanut to a polite squirrel who knocks on the patio door...


communicating with fellow mudcatters here!


RichM

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 09:37 AM

My 18-inch dishwasher. Save so much time and mess.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 10:04 AM

Three meals a day; a place to live.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 10:34 AM

Cuddle up to a naked lady in the sack - lovely

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 10:50 AM

My little luxuries are -
                        Servants.
                        fox hunting.
                        The right to shoot peasants who trespass on
                        my land.
                        The Harri Watts band.
                        Gold plated cigarettes.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 11:07 AM

flamenco ted, what are your big luxuries?

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: SINSULL
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 11:22 AM

Feeding she lled walnuts to the squirrels. It's been a hard winter.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Peace
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 11:24 AM

Ever since I let the Rolls go I have had to invent work for the chauffeur. You have no idea how DIFFICULT that is.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: mack/misophist
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 11:38 AM

Dead silence. (I live in a lage city.)

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: GUEST,wow
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 11:47 AM

pure luxury

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Peace
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 11:50 AM

Stop taking jabs at Clinton.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 12:10 PM

Did she lose a contact lense?

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: heric
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 12:37 PM

orange juice

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 12:59 PM

Contact lenses are a little luxury. Such an improvement over glasses.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 01:01 PM

Except if you drop them under your boss' desk.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Wesley S
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 01:14 PM

Hot popcorn while watching a movie

Fresh strings on the mandolin

No one in the kitchen when I'm cooking

My four year old going to bed by himself like a "big boy"

Watching "Bear in the Big Blue House" with that same four year old the next morning at 5:30 AM.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: LilyFestre
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 01:33 PM

A good cup of coffee

Riding around the yard on tractor

Listening to the chickens cluck

Watching the chickens poke around outside

Watching the new chicks try and catch bugs that swarm to their heat light at night.

Playing with the dogs

Seeing the secondary leaves pop out on new seedlings

Watching for and finally seeing the leaves burst out in the springtime

Getting my hands all dirty while planting seeds

A few rooms lit up at night by candles

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Charmion
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 01:39 PM

Waking up to the smell of coffee, bacon and toast wafting from the kitchen

The Saturday Globe & Mail, a fresh cup of coffee, and time to enjoy them with help from the cat

A new blossom on one of the potted orchids in our living-room window

The smell of earth thawing in the warm spring sun, accompanied by the rush of melt-water in the storm drains

The thud of feline paws galloping down the stairs as we come in the door at the end of a day at work

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Wesley S
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 01:54 PM

Are we rewriting "My Favorite Things" ? Someone call Rogers and Hammerstein for permission.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 02:04 PM

Reading about others luxuries!

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: RangerSteve
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 03:42 PM

Limeade
the first night in spring when it's warm enough to keep the bedroom windows open.
A night in spring or autumn when it's warm enough to sit outside but cool enough to keep the bugs from flying around.
a home-made apple cobbler that I baked myself.
Driving on a limited-access highway late at night and no one else is on the road, and there's 1950's country music or rockabilly on the car stereo.
A supper of fried fish, hushpuppies, macaroni and cheese and leaving out the vegetables.
Coming home from work after a cold rainy day and fixing a mug of hot chocolate and sitting by the fire place. Before my type II diabetes set in, there would be booze in that chocolate.
More limeade. Anything that tastes or smells like limes.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Layah
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 03:46 PM

Have you tried key lime pie? Incredibly easy to make, and ooh so yummy limey

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 04:40 PM

snuggles with my sweetie – skin on skin contact, mmmmmm!
orange juice – fresh squeezed
singing – in harmony, with one or more folks who can sing well and hold their own, so you can feel the harmonies vibrating
         in your throat as you sing
my home-made chocolate chip cookies
crawling into bed – when you're really tired
cool, smooooooth sheets – older ones that have been washed hundreds of times are the best
listening to someone who sings and/or plays really well
irises
my sweetie – heroically – letting me warm my icy cold hands/feet in/on his hands/feet (is that true love, or what?)
at choir practice, the magical moment when we sing/hear our parts all together for the first time –
         suddenly getting to hear the wonderful (hopefully!) blend our director had in mind when he arranged the parts
the wonderfully intense purple-blue color of lobelia
dancing barefoot
the delicious cool of a walk in the evening air after you've worked up a sweat dancing
a cold drink when you're thirsty
a hug from a friend
a good book – and the time to read it (I seem to have much more of the former than I do of the latter!)
a lovely waltz or hambo – with a partner who really knows what they're doing
a really good Mudcat thread

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 04:41 PM

The odd bar of good chocolate, being able to get in a car and drive away to somewhere green with a good friend.... soft toilet paper.

That about does it really....

Now if we were talking necessities......!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Allan C.
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 04:54 PM

Good coffee!
Caresses
Getting that little run or chord sequence just right on the guitar
Preparing a delicious meal that looks almost too good to eat
Watching the snow fall from the warm and toasty side of the window
The smell of summer rain
Daffodils
The sound the creek water makes as it flows across the rocks (There really should be a word for that!)
Sunrise
Twilight
Sunset
Moonlight
A nice glass of something pleasantly alcoholic in the late evening - Okay, maybe just one more glass...
Listening to the Blue Plate Special CD's, the Blue Bottle Special or any other of the many CD's made by Mudcatters. (El Greko's Ordinary Heroes is my current favorite.) I continually marvel at the talent we have assembled here.
Wildflowers
Seeing my wife laugh

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 05:22 PM

It is now one year and 5 months since my wife and I were separated..Now divorced.....and I am feeling the loneliness that is inevitable.......Glad you can all enjoy these things........
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Mingulay
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 05:46 PM

Snap, Mike. But sometimes loneliness can be a luxury giving you time and space to be yourself, to chill out and let the mind go all muddly for a while. Have a little drink, play a little music and just fester.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Wesley S
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 05:47 PM

Layah - I make a key lime pie with an oreo cookie crust. And it's pretty darn good if I say so myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 05:52 PM

"... soft toilet paper."

well, yes..if it's also resilient

Discovering that your sweetie has prepared a special meal as a surprise.

Having someone see and appreciate the work and creativity you put into a project. (in my case, a special woodturning)

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: GUEST,Bill the Collie
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 02:20 AM

A really good bottle of Sancerre

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Teresa
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 02:59 AM

The first days of spring
dark chocolate (that might be a necessity, though :) )
learning a new instrument (currently mountain dulcimer)
waking up with my cat's cheek laid aside mine, and his body sprawled all over me
And, though this is a material sort of thing ... having a washer and dryer in my own apartment (went to laundromats for years and years)

Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 03:47 AM

Watching beautiful ladies eat bananas.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: GUEST,Chongo
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 03:48 AM

Meeee toooooooo

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 04:06 AM

At the risk of sounding nauseating:

Topping out on a particularly tricky climb;
Learning a new tune and it actually sounds like a tune when you play it;
Dancing with a bloke who makes you think "wow, if he can dance like that, what else can he do so skillfully?";
Getting 2 aces in the hole and another on the flop alongside a nice pair of face cards - or another ace;
Going for a quick drink after work with your mates and getting home at 7am the next morning after staying up all night laughing and getting blootered;
Running and running and running;
Coffee;
Red wine;
Digging with a mattock on a crisp sunny morning with the smell of cold soil in the air;
Buying shoes;
Cleaning the cooker with baby oil.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 11:39 AM

Cleaning the cooker with baby oil ?

Please explain, unless it would disturb people. We might notice the diffrence...

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Dani
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 11:52 AM

Is it 'burbling', Allan?

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 02:48 PM

A luxury... being able to ease a suffering pet out of the world, gently. Amber the tortoiseshell to be exact.. eased out gently this evening.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: number 6
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 04:14 PM

Sitting, watching my garden grow.

A warm autumn day on Deer Island.

An early Sunday morning out on the Fundy coast (with my camera).

Having a good session on my guitar.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 02:18 PM

Sleep. Farting. Hugs. Puffed-up pancakes with sour cream & maple syrup. Sherry. Emacs. George Orwell. Heat. H. L. Mencken. Singing. Reciting poems. Candied grapefruit peels. Malicious fantasies. Watching happy people. Watertight boots. Kindness. Beer. Sentimentality.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Q. Why do so many people smoke after intercourse? A. Inadequate lubrication. :||

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: gnu
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 02:29 PM

Going to bed tired from a fruitful, hard day's work. Of course, even better is waking up, ready to enjoy the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Allan C.
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 04:34 PM

Yes, Dani. I like that. It sounds so much better than the hackneyed, "babbling".

Another thing for my list is those rare moments when I feel that I somehow managed to say or do precisely the right thing at the right time, thereby getting the desired (or even better) result.

Hm-m-m-mmm... that brings up another one: getting results that exceed expectations - pleasant ones, I mean.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 05:53 PM

Good cask ale, straight from the barrel, in a tankard, on a hot summers night in between dances....

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Layah
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 09:02 PM

Making someone smile
Going barefoot, dancing barefoot
Friends (I know I mentioned that one, it was worth mentioning again)
the sun (oh how I miss it)

Most of the things people are listing are more like little pleasure than little luxuries. Quite a few of them when I read them I think "oh yeah, that's really nice!" It's a make me happy thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 09:15 PM

Learning new words like,'blootered' (smile)
Dancing to a good blues band or around a fire.
Festivals!!
Loving it when I get inspirational and write a good tune or poem.
Taking friends through the herb garden, that are willing to sample the sweet with the bitter and laughing.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 06:43 PM

Coming into the house after a hard day's work, and seeing that special smile that my wife turns on when she sees me. It makes all the house lights seem to dim out to nothing, and suddenly I don't feel tired any more. This after nearly forty years of married life together.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 04:02 PM

Feeding she lled walnuts to the squirrels. It's been a hard winter.
What about the he lled walnuts?
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: frogprince
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 04:08 PM

One more vote for snuggling up to a nice warm bare lady. Then too, there's the rare chance for a relaxed skinny-dip with same said person.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 07:53 PM

That, or some close equivalent dependant on preference, must be a necessity. But a good case could be made for it being both....

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Layah
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 08:05 PM

Snuggling must be a necessity, since I certainly keel over dead when I don't get it. And chocolate. And books. And friends.

Layah (from beyond the grave)

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 05:05 AM

Re: cleaning the cooker with baby oil. I have a big steel range cooker and the best way to make it shiny is to buff it with baby oil on a soft cloth after cleaning off all the cooking gunk. Works wonders and is very theraputic.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: bflat
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 12:19 AM

Taking a vacation from cold and windy to warm and sunny.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Luxuries
From: LilyFestre
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 11:07 PM

Going to a FANTASTIC cello quartet in the middle of the week!

Michelle