25 Things That Made Me Smile Today

Sometimes life can suck the joy right out of you, right? Like even though my basic needs are met—food, water, shelter—everything else still blows on occasion, because adulting can be a total buzzkill.

But when my world seems wrong and upside down and downright terrible, life has a way of throwing smile-worthy things in my path to remind me that it’s not all bad.

Here are 25 things that made me smile today:

1. Coffee. It gives me life—literally.

2. Explaining anatomy to my son within earshot of my 2-year-old daughter, who spent the rest of the day shouting “Testicles! Testicles!”

3. Random stick-figure drawings of our family. We always have inordinately long arms and legs and freakishly wide smiles (which is really quite accurate, now that I think about it.)

4. Adele. Hello.

5. Someone painted “LOVE” with shoe polish on the traffic mirror in the Starbucks drive-thru—the one that keeps cars from hitting each other—and I held up a line of cars behind me to take a picture of it because it made me smile so big.

6. Holding up the asshole behind me while I took a picture of the “LOVE” sign at Starbucks, because I love karma.

7. Irony. It always makes me smile.

8. Bite marks in the stick of butter, and the block of cheddar, and the apple pie. One day I’ll miss these and have to do it myself—you know, just to make myself feel better.

9. Overhearing my husband pretending to be a friendly dragon who breathes candy at the kids instead of fire.

10. The elderly couple holding hands in the grocery store parking lot. Even if they’re holding hands just to keep each other upright, and not because they’re madly in love, it’s still really sweet.

11. The clearance rack was full of clothes in my size. What are the chances?!

12. I actually had a coupon on my person that wasn’t expired, and I remembered to use it.

13. My cell phone. It enables me to avoid real human contact when I want to, which is a major win in my book.

14. The cute cashier who flirted with me, or maybe I’m delusional, but overall the giddiness was worth it. I still got it, bitch.

15. Opening the dishwasher and finding it empty.

16. My husband’s furry arms. They’re warm and really relaxing to pet.

17. My son calls bras “booby casts.” I don’t know where he got that from, but I will never, ever correct him.

18. Memes on social media that have that impeccable balance of snark and profanity. I fucking love that.

19. Baby wipes. They work on everything.

20. My kids weren’t the biggest assholes in the room. Parenting win!

21. Watching a hipster try to get the perfect picture of her food. Actually, that made me do more than just smile. I snort-laughed.

22. Looking up at the clock and realizing that bedtime has finally, blessedly arrived.

23. Late-night snacks. Because no one is around to judge me, and donuts are delicious.

24. Finding the perfect pair of earplugs. I really don’t think I could do life without earplugs.

25. Drinking wine out of a plastic Spider-Man cup, just because I can.

It’s the little things that remind me that life isn’t so bad after all. In fact, it’s pretty damn good.