What are your favorite simple pleasures?

• First few pedals on my bike, the change in locomotion is liberating.
• Cutting through a rubber block after finish sketching. It feels like butter.
• A perfectly toasted slice of bread - tanned and rough.
• A really cold drink after exercise on a really hot day. Even better is first bite of a cold watermelon on a hot day.
• A warm beverage and a blanket on a cold, rainy day.
• The first perfect peach of the season.

Sitting by the woodstove on a miserable day.
Watching the cats scamper about.
Walking through a forest.

Thank you, for posting this topic and reminding me that I should think about these things every now and then.

• The sound of rain on the tin roof of a dimly lit outhouse
• A long, uninterrupted gulp of water when you're hurtin' with a thirstin'
• Taking off ski shoes after skiing for a bit
• Taking off socks at the end of a long day
• Pure silence in rural snowfall
• curry rice, taco rice, sukiyaki, veggie base pork tsukemen

The first coffee in the morning combined with putting on an album

Cycling

Im starting to enjoy writing.

Tea that has hot the perfect level of heat, just shy of tolerable, and you can just feel it crawling down your esophagus.

Hitting a warm bed on a chilly night. Getting your blanket and pillow situation just right. Waking up and realizing you don't have to get out of bed. A really good stretch after a reallu restful sleep.

Not everyone's cup of tea, but I also enjoy a perfectly timed joint - like after a day of working hard outside, then enjoying a joint at sunset.

Any situation where I'm more or less impossible to interrupt. Shower, bathroom, everyone has gone in a road trip and there's no physical way for them to interrupt me earlier than the next hour.

Sipping my morning coffee while playing MTG Arena.

My cat curling up on my lap and going rumble-purr. Similarly: every night when I go to bed she walks up on my side and makes paw-biscuits on me while purring for a few minutes before laying down to sleep on top of me. Adorable.

Portal-Isekai webfiction and audiobooks. (escapism junk food for the brain).

Being in my home office with my electronics lab - it's my happy place.

This one may be a bit more oddball: watching and chatting during one of Computer Booter's gaming console repair streams. It's a fun little portion of the electronics nerd community.

• Going outside on the porch while it's raining. Or putting a window down so I can hear the rain from inside the house
• Going outside at night and staring at the stars. I weirdly like how minuscule and insignificant it makes me feel...It takes some of the pressure off.
• Waiting for a passing train in the car and rolling down the windows to listen to the train noises
• A beer after a really rough day (physically, emotionally, whatever). Like a beer that you're drinking because you earned it, not simply because you want it.
• Cranking the volume for that part of "In The Air Tonight", "Bohemian Rhapsody", or any other beloved old song

when you get into a comfy position before the cat snuggles up

when the cat returns a long blink

opening a yoghurt and getting a clean lid. bonus points if theres an intact plane of yoghurt bridging the gap

trying a new food / flavour / ingredient haphazardly and it not ruining the meal

Hearing a song I love on the radio that I haven't heard in years.

When I finally get into "the zone" when playing a game and everything else in life just melts away to the background.

Reading a really good book before going to bed and being excited to continue it again the next evening.

• The first taste of durian for the season
• Seeing my kids help each other or learn something new
• Sitting down with a good book and no distractions
• Eating a good street food dish or a new combination of curries in a big plate of nasi kandar
• Holding my wife's hand
• Listening to a podcast while doing housework
• Stumbling across a new album of background music to listen to during work

The color of the leaves this time of year (in the Northern Hemisphere): they turn to brilliant shades of red, yellow, and orange that eventually looks like the embers of the coals of a long-burning fire before finally falling off and painting the ground in its colors.

As someone obsessed with coffee, it has to be opening a new bag of coffee. Whether it's more traditional beans that's natty/washed or newer coferments/thermal shock/carbonic maceration, any time I get to open a new bag and brew my morning coffee, I get excited.

Other things include dropping from sixth gear to fifth to pass someone on the highway or crawling into bed at night.

From today:

• crunch of a crisp grape
• squish of risen pizza dough
• the existence of pineapple, and how their enzymes digests your mouth as you eat them
• when everyday household objects are fuzzy or have cute ears
• both fuzzy and cute ears on objects
• satisfying small pop when stretching back
• softness of a bunny's fuzz, smolness of paws
• whimsy of internet
• recalling and ancient meme, sharing it with spouse, and we both laugh heartily over it
• sharing said meme with child
• for the third time, their eyes, rolling
• seeing so many mentions of cat things on this thread
• heated blankets in winter
• that first tiny pair of seed leaves of plants (cotyledon)
• the existence of words like cotyledon and temulent and petrichor

Remembered

• bumblebee bum in the air when her head is in a flower
• fuzzy tiny blue fairies ( wooly aphids )
• rolling game credits, me, a sobbing mess of catharsis, brain already full of head canon
• when it rains, then the sun comes out the next day, the geese are especially clean and perfectly white and fluffy
• how happy they are even when it's sideways raining with 90km/hr gusts

When my cat comes and cuddle with me in bed. I like feeling her fur and her weight against me. It's like a tiny weighted blanket. I also like feeling her breathe? As the chest/body goes up and down while she's breathing.

I basically focus on all that while we cuddle and it helps keep bad thoughts away.

That first hit of a fizzy drink after eating salty food.

Nachos.

Playing card games on the back porch with my daughter and losing track of the time.

When I find the perfect architecture/design for my code.

No matter what kind of day I've had, seeing the total joy in my dog when I come home to her after work.

I love this thread, a few more:

• Petrichor in the rainforest
• Falling into the zone. Someone else mentioned the zone in the context of gaming but I feel like it deserves a general shoutout too. That place where everything just flows. Especially nice when you're building something while you're there. Or making art.
• The Northern Lights. As we speak they're visible in much of the northern US. Just saw a pic from TN. KPI is dropping though, so go check now!

Being warm under a blanket when its cold.

Walking through a quiet forest
A cozy fire - reading by or just watching the flames while drinking tea or hot chocolate
Listening to it rain and thunder (combine this with a cozy fire or rain with a forest is even better)
On a sunny days, floating downstream, eyes closed facing the warm sun as the waves gently splash against the hull of my Kayak.

Immersing myself in video game worlds...
Just running around for the sake of running in video games with parkour physics.
Wandering around in well made game worlds, ignoring the game (quests, awards, chat, etc...)
Flying in games (example: I'd just fly in bird form as a druid in WOW)

Cycling to and from work. It's a nice day to start and end my day.

Playing 90s dance music and dancing wild with my daughter.