Friday Five: Something New

Songbird at RevGalBlogPals tells us: “There's a new baby on my street, a double PK whose Mom and Dad are Methodist pastors and church planters. I'm hoping to go over and meet her today. I love new babies, the way they smell and their sweet little fingers and toes. Little K has me thinking about all the new things that please us with their shiny freshness.
Please share with us five things you like *especially* when they are new.”

1. KITTENS! Puppies too, I suppose, but I have more experience with kittens. Since the passing of our cat Heidi last summer, we have been a cat-less household for longer than we’ve ever been during our whole marriage. Heidi and Rusty never got along very well, so this seems like a wise plan, and yet, we occasionally catch ourselves wistfully wondering whether a new kitten (well, 8 weeks old, as our state law requires) could get used to Rusty and he to it and that there could be peaceful coexistence or even friendship.

2. APPLIANCES! Since we moved into this house in 2005, we’ve replaced the washing machine, the clothes dryer, and the refrigerator; most likely the stove will be next, although I both hope and fear that its replacement is a while in the future still. I still appreciate all the newer appliances, but when they were really new and shiny I appreciated them even more, making excuses to wash and dry things, trying out new arrangements for the refrigerator shelves….

3. NEW PENS, NOTEBOOKS, ETC! I like these far, far too much. At this point, I am making myself use up the pages of old notebooks to write my first drafts of blog posts (I generally do FFs off the cuff, but the others I write in longhand first), because I have so many lying around. It’s a little easier to feed my addiction to new pens because they do get used up or lost/misplaced regularly. I like gel pens mostly, with black fine point as the default. But sometimes it’s fun to write with a thicker blue line, or red or green or purple. This picture is from a blog that I’m going to have to start reading because it seems to be all about pens and stationery! A trip to Staples is both a joy and a struggle for me as I try to resist buying things I don’t really need, but really, really want.

4. NEW BOOKS! New to me, at least. But even though I have no problem with used books and library books, there is still something extra special about crisp-paged, brightly-colored, hot-off-the-press new books. The new book shelf at the library is great, too. This photo is from the Legislative Library in New Brunswick, Canada. I'd be interested in that rubber duck book.

5. NEW SLIPPERS! I’d really like some. Pretty soon they’d be old slippers and I’d still like them even then. Wicked Good slippers from Bean’s, size 11, color immaterial. New shoes are nice too, but sometimes problematic because they can need to be broken in. But new slippers are comfy and warm right away.

I have to say, I do like new babies, for all the reasons Songbird mentions; but as I’ve seen with my own children, the wonder of their babyhood just keeps getting better and better as they grow. I might like to visit those baby days for a little while, but not forever.