Well there’s a dark and a troubled side of life
There’s a bright and a sunny side too
But if you meet with the darkness and strife
The sunny side we also may view

Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side
Keep on the sunny side of life
It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way
If we keep on the sunny side of life. – Ada Blenkhorn and J. Howard Entwisle

On Monday, my sister Bec blogged here that she found a taste of “creature comfort” in this rather dark period with an ice-cold martini and a bouquet of her favorite flowers, pink tulips. I loved her sentiment, and so did many others. In fact, quite unexpectedly, a number of people commented about their creature comforts on both the post itself and on Facebook, where I download my blog daily.

My sister Jen, for example, said she was brightening her days by giving herself permission to buy Kindle books from Amazon instead of putting the book on hold at the library. A good book that was a click away was her creature comfort. Several people indicated chocolate provided them comfort. Chocolate Reese’s candy bars for one; chocolate for breakfast for another. Bill would concur with chocolate as a creature comfort…..

Another added Diet Mountain Dew and her hope for bright flowers soon as her creature comforts during the pandemic.

I have found it interesting, if predictable, that many people are looking for things to cheer them up. I say predictable because I think, when it’s all said and done, Americans are optimistic in general. Give us a roadblock, and we’ll look at the sunny side. There are examples during some of the roughest days in our history. Images of Rosie the Riveter during WWII. Yellow ribbons around the old oak tree during Vietnam.

Even before posting Bec’s blog, I had people sending me photos of things that were making them happy. My friend Denice, for example, sent this photo of her Christmas cactus that decided to bloom right now. Cactus-strong, she told me…..

My brother Dave has been working his butt off moving from one Basha’s Market to another baking bread to fill the shelves so people can have their toast in the morning and their children can eat their peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. He hasn’t complained, because he wouldn’t. But he sent this photo the other day, saying that he had finally gotten a chance to drive a big truck like he’d always dreamed of doing. A creature comfort…..

As for me, here are a few things that have made me happy in the past week or so…..

The orange blossoms are out here in the Valley of the Sun. The fragrance is beautiful as it hits my nose when I go out for my walk…..

When our Canadian neighbors went home, they gave me their geranium plants. Geraniums always make me happy because my mom planted them every summer no matter where she lived. Always red…..

When we were still in Denver, about the time that the pandemic was becoming real to everybody, I looked out in my flower bed and saw these yellow crocus peeking through the debris…..

And finally, last weekend, Bill and I went for a drive. It was a beautiful day with a bright blue sky. We came across this field of flowers, with an old rusty car parked right in the middle. It was all so pretty…..

What are your highlights or creature comforts during this difficult time?