Small, or perhaps not-so-small, pleasures

Words are tools and companions.  They do their best to establish some order in the mind, they look swell on the page.  I am a fan.

It was 28 years ago, give or take, that I discovered art rubber stamps.  Images, alphabets, words, quotes.  It was 2 1/2 months ago that I discovered the site for rubberstampchamp and for scarcely more than the pennies retrieved from beneath the cushions of our old couch before it was voted out of office, I can order small (they also make LARGE) custom rubber stamps of words I would not find on the open market.  The link, by the way, is to the rubberstampchamp page for custom hand stamps, where prices start as low as $3.25 for a 1/2" square stamp.  Yesterday I ordered one that size, 2 lines, that says Thank You.  Nice and tiny.  Do not underestimate the usefulness of a tiny cluster of words.  Earlier I ordered a 1/2" image of my crocodile puppet drawing, shrunken yet defined, with my initials. to use as a logo.  In addition to stamps that cost less than candy at the movies, at rubberstampchamp, shipping is free on orders of $10 or more.  I ask you!

Expected to arrive with the wee square Thank You are a caption for one of my rubber stamp figures and a quote I wrote about this week, "be vast and brilliant" which can be a caption for the new sun postcard I will order before the sale ends tomorrow.  Among my two new and most favorite things, ordering Vistaprint postcards made with some of my art and dreaming up rubber stamps I never thought I could possess for less than $4 apiece.  Other recent, nourishing pleasures include the discovery of new-to-me artists, Pinterest most of the time and summer, simple and free, summer. My son proclaimed years ago, when we used to, for reasons now murky, watch Dawson's Creek, that he didn't believe in the existence of "guilty" pleasures but rather, just pleasures.  I could pretend that we were visionaries, capable of knowing the break-put potential of Michelle Williams or, even more surprising after the train wreck that was Pacey, Joshua Jackson in Fringe, but the truth is we like what we like, no explanations, no apologies.  So while there may not be guilty pleasures, I do believe there might small ones, joys that cost little or no money, that are available to all or nearly all of us.  Or no, this may actually make them enormous pleasures.  Foolish woman and her foolish semantics.  Pleasures make us happy, may actually alter our chemistry (if happiness is the opposite of abuse).  Whatever summer remains where you are, be greedy, grab it by the handful.  I'm glad the cherries and blueberries were so delicious and frequently affordable this year.  If only they could be year-round products at discount prices, all orders over $10 shipped free.