Brown paper packages tied up with string

Life is good.

These are a few of my favorite things, in no particular order, with an incomplete sentence and brief description for your viewing pleasure.

My adorable German neighbor. He gardens in his dress socks and floppy hat and hates our dog but loves us nonetheless. Bless his heart, and pray Lupe never accidentally gets to one of his hand-painted gnomes. Germans are tough; it wouldn't be pretty.

My fleurs. I planted seeds this year. I think I planted them too early in my excitement to be a new home owner, though, and nothing happened for months except some spotty looking plants that looked suspiciously like tomato bushes. Without any warning at all, they exploded into these beautiful orange flowers. Isn't it great?

Our place in line (after 45 minutes of waiting) when De and I went to the Layers clothing warehouse sale . It was 150 degrees in there, and smelled of Mormon women. It's a sister-in-law-ly tradition to go to these types of things in our pajamas and laugh at the girls with giant hair who got up early to put on their makeup.

Beto's. Always good for a laugh-- and a burrito that tastes great going in and is likely to hurt coming out. Sometimes, it's a risk you take.

This grainy cell phone photo of a water spot on black pavement in the dark. One time, we were hanging out with Bri and Kinzy, and we just might have been wandering out onto a freeway overpass to laugh at an obscene teenage stunt. On our way back to the car, it's possible that we may have seen a full grown woman pull down her pants, squat against her truck in the parking lot and, while delicately balancing her cigarette between her lips, urinate right out in public. And I might have taken a picture of it with the sole intent to blog about it later.

Finding out the 'fireworks' setting on my camera lets me take wicked sweet campfire pics.

This empty room. It's meaningless to the rest of the world, but priceless to me. You see, this room has been crammed with junk, garbage, clutter, and miscellaneous items that didn't really belong anywhere else in the house since we moved in. In March. Today, as part of my Labor Day Weekend Goal List, I have finished organizing it. I was way too embarrassed to take a picture before I started today, so you'll just have to trust me-- this is a big deal.

The way taking a Jeep camping always makes it look like it belongs in a Jeep brochure or something.

Simple pleasures, indeed.