A bit late with my Saturday post of simple joys but wanted to do one. Been a bit of a busy week so I’m going to keep it shorter.

Chickens

One day last week at work, the kids made paper plate chickens. I loved all the unique personalities of each one.

(The one with all orange is mine. Made it at home the night before and only had orange construction paper. Not even sure why I had that.)

Tiny Flowers

The asparagus fern is happy again and showing it with tiny little white flowers.

I bring them in each winter and they struggle so much but then, outside in the summer, they are happy again.  Also, not exactly flowers as tiny as on the asparagus fern, but the brown-eyed Susan flowers are as tall as me and blooming again.

(I love my garden and flowers some theme of flowers or plants probably going to be mentioned every week.)

Dinosaurs!

We went to see this today and I enjoyed it. Had some nice throwbacks to the original film without pandering. Definitely a lot less silly than Dominion.

Kind of went back to the scary roots of the franchise. Wouldn’t have minded seeing it in 3D.

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What simple things brought you joy this week?

I’m back today for a second week of Simple Joys Saturdays. I have three simple joys today.

Sandals!

My sandals aren’t new by any means and I’m not wearing them right now. I had to go out a bit this morning and I have a weird thing about driving in sandals. However, I usually come home from work each day and switch into these. I wear these to water flowers and wander to check on the garden during summer mornings. These sandals just say summertime to me and that, of course, brings me so much joy!

Fireworks!

We didn’t do much to celebrate yesterday. G had separate plans and no family/friends were doing any big gatherings. I’d love to do one here except ugh, trees. And Fourth of July is the only time you’ll ever hear me say ugh, trees. I love my trees! Unless it’s the Fourth of July and I want to have a party but we can’t because it’s hard to see the fireworks. We still do a few fireworks in the front yard/street. And my husband, J, and I had fun doing just that. And watching the backyard/corner neighbor’s huge show through the trees.

I have always loved the simple joy of watching fireworks. (And I like to light some as well, not as much now…think I’m mellowing on that a bit)

Bees, butterflies, and moths

I took this picture at work. We’re starting to see a lot more bees and butterflies now. I included moths in my first sentence because of the picture (I said something about a butterfly to a preschool kid and was immediately corrected that this was a moth, ha! Smart kiddos.). The butterfly garden at work filled with milkweed, coneflowers, and spiderwort to name a few always brings me a bit of joy. I even spotted two goldfinch in it on Wednesday! Bonus joy in getting to share that with one of the preschool students who also saw them before they quickly flew away.

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What simple joys did you experience this week?

So I’m going to try a little series here while I’m working full-time hours without much time or brain space left to post as much as normal. A simple joys Saturday post. The idea came from this fortune cookie paper: 

I can’t promise every Saturday but I’m going to do my best. Each Saturday, I plan to share a simple joy (or two or three) from my week.

And of course, if you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you can guess this week I’m starting with the front porch and flowers!  These bright pink petunias greet us as we come and go up the porch steps:

Here’s a little view from my front porch bench where you’ll see another pot of pink petunias. The pink petunias are a summertime favorite of mine.

They are called wave petunia and I believe the color is “bubblegum.” They are a bright pink that fade to a light pink after blooming. You have to remove old blooms from petunias to keep them going. These flowers will last until and maybe a bit beyond our first frost!

It brings me joy and I find it soothing to pick the old flowers off the petunias to keep them going. And I also enjoy getting up extra early so I can get out there and water my flowers before work (very important during a heat wave).

Surprise Flower!

The main simple joy I want to share this week is my surprise sunflower! Surprise flowers make me so happy. By the way, if you scroll back up to the first picture of petunias, there’s a surprise dianthus getting ready to bloom in there. Just noticed it!

I didn’t plant this sunflower as I have terrible luck with sunflowers despite them being one of my summertime favorites. It just showed up in the garden area at the edge of the driveway and fits in as if I planted it there.

It hasn’t bloomed quite yet but it’s getting closer.

Summertime flowers always bring me joy.

What simple things brought you joy this week?