Simple Joys

Welcome to Simple Joys on Chief 187™Chatter.

The word simple means not complicated. Joys are the things that bring you happiness. Together these two words form the concept for this weekly post.

Simple Joys are the events that happen in the day that bring you pleasure. They need not be expensive, time-consuming, or life-altering. Simple Joys enhance the day, bring a smile or a ripple of laughter, and provide lightness in the heart.

It’s that simple.

And now, without further ado, is this week’s Simple Joys.

Ninja. My food processor broke this summer. I’d had it a long time and it wasn’t an expensive one so it lived a good life. I found it of its demise when I was preparing to make pesto sauce with the fresh basil from our garden. I scrambled to find an alternative method to process the ingredients and dumped them into my blender. Thankfully it worked and the pesto was delicious.

The blender, however, has never been terrific. It often stops rotating at the first sign of obstruction – ice, hard ice cream, or the like. Blenders are supposed to blend those things so I set out to find a solution to the loss of both of these kitchen appliances.

My search brought me to the Ninja Kitchen System Plus. I was fortunate to find it at Bed Bath and Beyond, use my coupon, and cash in on some store credit I’d had from a return.

This item is fabulous! It pulsed my parmesan cheese in seconds (I buy it in bulk), and made three batches of my adored pesto sauce in record time!

Finding a viable alternative to two much needed kitchen appliances in one item that actually works was a Simple Joy I was thrilled to invest.

Pesto Sauce. Fresh basil, olive oil, garlic, toasted pine nuts, and parmesan cheese are the only ingredients. Process them together and they make manna.

I am making batch after batch to freeze so I can taste my basil pesto all winter and spring long!

Having my pesto sauce in the house is a Simple Joy I savor all the year through.

Play. On a nasty day that kept my daughter and me inside I decided to take her to the mall for some playtime at the indoor playground. It is not elaborate, big, or even the coolest, but it is fun and safe. She ran in with reckless abandon after chanting “indoor playground” the entire twenty minute drive to the venue.

With shoes off and energy abounding she ran, climbed, drove a pretend car, rode a cow jumping over the moon, scaled a giant baseball, and interacted with other children around her age.

Having a place to take my pre-schooler on crummy weather days is a Simple Joy that I am most thankful.

Change. I was courting a hair color change for a year. Each time my appointment came around I decided to stay with the status quo. I loved the way my hair came out, but I was always dissatisfied with myself that I hadn’t asked for change.

This past weekend I mustered the courage to ask for the change I’d been wanting for a long time.

Change is never easy to accept – the kind we are forced to accept or the kind we desire. But without change we stagnate.

I’m no longer a blonde. I am now, once again, a brunette.

The Simple Joy of bringing a desired change into my life is very satisfying and exciting indeed!

Selling Popcorn. Both of my boys are in the Cub Scouts. Their father is the youngest boy’s den leader and I am the older boy’s. This is the first – and only – year they will overlap as scouts as my oldest is crossing over to Boy Scouts in February.

On Sunday we were thrust into duty selling popcorn at a local car wash for fundraising. We set up a table at the exit and unsuspecting, kind-hearted people buy the popcorn or, at the very least, leave a donation for the Pack.

For the first time we sold popcorn at the same location at the very same time. It was the whole 187 crew in force!

Spending a Sunday morning together for a good cause in our uniforms was a Simple Joy I will always remember.



My Simple Joys are, by definition, not elaborate and bring me immense happiness throughout my days, weeks, months, and years.

The key to getting through rough days, difficult periods in life, and the rigors of everyday life is to find and embrace the Simple Joys.

Wishing you all another week filled with Simple Joys.

Please join me tomorrow as I wax poetic on yet another topic on Freestyle Wednesday on Chief 187™Chatter.