5 things that bring me joy this week

Check the entire “5 things that bring me joy this week” weekly series here, a collection of seemingly insignificant things that serve as a reminder to appreciate the little things — those small joys that make a difference in our day-to-day.

This past weekend, we escaped Tampa and ventured just a bit south of us. It felt nice breaking out of our routine and even driving for a little while longer — I just missed seeing a different scenery than the one around us (aka same neighborhood).

This small trip of ours gave me a whole new level of appreciation for the seemingly small things that are actually crucial to our everyday lives, so technically, they’re a really big deal. It also gave a whole new meaning to my choice of celebrating the small things, even if it means taking a few minutes out of my day to enjoy the sky or the trees.

Here are the 5 things that are bringing me joy this week:

this insanely beautiful world of ours! Visiting a museum, and watching some of their informative shows reminded me how insignificant we can be and just how incredibly beautiful and complex our world is.
getting to watch manatees feeding on lettuce at the Manatee Habitat of The Bishop Museum of Science and Nature. If you’re in the area I definitely recommend visiting. Unless you stay to watch the shows in their full-dome Planetarium, 2 hours is all you need there — we saw “To Space and Back” and definitely enjoyed it and learned new things. *Free parking is available in the public parking garage just “across” the street.
adding a bit of plant-based creamer to my coffee. Usually, I like to add coconut milk to my coffee, but with the food shortages, I fell out of the habit of buying it (hubby prefers almond milk), and have been drinking black coffee for years now. Well, this past week I’ve been feeling fancy, haha, and treated myself — it’s the little things.
tuna tacos for dinner — yum! I will be weird and admit that I cook my tuna the same way I’d cook chicken — aka, fully. I limit the raw fish I’m eating to sushi only (and I’m very picky about it) and never eat any raw meat for safety reasons, and the fact that I don’t find raw meat appealing at all. Fully cooked tuna with plenty of spices (garlic!) and lemon juice tastes amazing — trust me on that! For the tacos, I top the tuna with roasted bell peppers, corn, fresh cabbage, and tomato (and more lemon juice for good measure).
all the spring dresses — I just love warm weather dressing (I said warm, not hot 😝).