Writer Jessica Gross launched a fun site called Things We Like, where she invites people to submit lists of ten things they like. Here’s my list, published this week:
- Watching squirrels scurry in the morning, wondering where they have to be
- Karl the Fog, especially when he creeps over the mountains
- The secret language I’ve developed with my husband, in which we frequently use the poop emoji
- Binge-watching House Hunters
- Jungle and techno from the ’90s
- My mother’s adobo chicken, the day after she cooks it
- Naming inanimate objects, from my laptops to my tiny house on wheels
- People who actually dance, rather than face a DJ on stage and pump their fists
- Pictures of farmhouse sinks in rustic industrial kitchens on Pinterest
- A rare session of automatic writing
Things We Like is a simple project, and I love how each list is short and sweet: a perfectly sized bite and glimpse into another’s life. I also like reading things on strangers’ lists and thinking, yes, I like exactly that, and finding idiosyncrasies in common.
It was hard to keep my list above to just ten things. I even considered focusing my list on something specific, like things related to California, or music, or even TV shows, but then realized I was overthinking it — as usual — so submitted a general mix of things about me. I’m reminded of a post I published on this blog a long time ago called “100 Things About Me,” but I took it down last year during one of my content purges.
So, since I do love lists (and outlines), here’s a longer list of things I like. Just for fun. I knew I could add to this list and never stop, so I gave myself an hour and stopped when my timer went off.
(More) Things I Like:
- Paddling on the Russian River on a hot day
- Lip balm, in my pocket or easily accessible at all times
- My LOST Dharma Initiative coffee mug
- Farmhouse ales, Belgian beers, and creamy stouts
- Day drinking
- Bengal cats
- Mogwai
- Turning into a gremlin after drinking too much tequila
- Wearing the same WordPress hoodie all week
- Working from home and rotating locations, like a lion in a cage
- My work team at Automattic
- Buying a new blouse and wearing it every day until it falls apart
- Saving articles to Pocket that I never read
- Favoriting tweets because I have nothing witty to reply
- Obsessing over @wolfpupy
- The Lux and Sharpen tools on Instagram
- A perfect piece of sake sashimi
- Conquering a super burrito
- Cracking an egg over instant beef ramen
- Ridiculously expensive dinners
- A creamy, buttery Chardonnay (don’t hate)
- Pinot Noir from Mendocino
- Baby goats
- Flip-flops that last for years
- The curves and shapes of Art Nouveau
- Going out dancing and recognizing faces from back in the day
- San Francisco house and cybertrance from the nineties
- 2 am DJ sets from Tony and Carlos, and Mars and Mystre
- Old-school jump-up, breaks, and speed garage
- Listening to the same tracks on Soundcloud over and over again
- Montreal in the summertime
- Being in Kauai with my family
- Hiking with my husband (pictured above: Kauai’s Na Pali Coast)
- Our red lounge chair and ottoman from CB2
- A newly arrived CB2 catalog
- Including yellow or orange in a color palette
- Having too many desktop stickies on my laptop
- Refusing to set up and use iCloud properly
- Cloudup for everything
- When my mom tells me I have a typo in my post
- When my dad signs his emails and texts with “xoxo”
- The sounds of all the birds in my parents’ neighborhood
- The perfect clutch for all special occasions
- Never checking my bag when I fly
- In-flight rituals, like listening to classical and drinking ginger ale
- Chopping all my hair off
- Catching up with my hair stylist
- Remembering my friend Aki often
- My nephews and niece
- My big, warm, and welcoming extended family
- When my nephews use unexpected vocabulary
- Overpriced beer and hot dogs at day baseball games
- Nate Schierholtz and Barry Zito in Giants uniforms
- Occasionally speaking to my husband in a British accent
- Our imaginary friend Leavenworth, to whom we speak as if he’s a royal butler
- Wine tasting and joining wine clubs that we eventually cancel
- Describing wine in my own way (“This is what you would wean baby vampires on”)
- Orphan Black
- Wondering what George Costanza would do
- Wandering off and taking pictures
- Figuring out a metro/subway system in a new city
- Blending in
- Traveling and exploring alone
- Abandoned buildings and places
- Shopping by myself
- Teardrop trailers
- tinyhouseswoon.com
- Buying round-trip tickets with my United miles
- Thai massages
- Stand-up paddleboarding
- When reading a piece of writing becomes an experience
- When the writers I admire and respect get recognized
- Underdogs
- Happy hour cocktails
- Other introverted Leos
- Other left-handed people
- People who can happily sit in silence together
- Random encounters that teach me something
- Bowling turkeys while buzzed
- Playing pai gow in Vegas
- Winning with four deuces in video poker
- Open-faced Chinese poker with my family
- Feeling (and acting) like a child most of the time
- Doing my own thing
Read my follow-up list, published in 2019, sometime after I had a baby.
Thank you. Really inspiring list. I see myself in quite a few of them, like being an introvert Leo 🙂
Reading your list gave me the impetus to write my own and get back into learning more on how to blog. Thanks, Cheri.
Wow..!!! It’s really wonderful. Making a list of things is like converting them into reality. It looks so inspiring.
I love this! I am constantly making lists, and I love yours. It’s so personal to you, yet I feel like I can relate. Thank you!
Making a list of things I like helps me feel grateful for all the goodness in my life; and if I find that I don’t have enough of what I like in my life – well, then, go after it!
What a wonderful way to remind oneself, how much there is to be happy and grateful for. I was excited to find quite a few things that we “like” in common. I will be building my own list shortly. Thanks for the idea.
I’m late to the game and just stumbled upon this and I’m in love. It’s exactly what I need right now. I hope you don’t mind, but I am going to follow suite. I can’t thank you enough for posting this.
I love this idea! When I began my maternity leave I knew I wanted to make the time to connect with my children and slow down and dedicate a small corner of beauty for myself, where I could share the things that make me smile and laugh out loud about my life and the world I live in. This list is perfect… thank you for sharing! Reading your list is as much of an experience as creating my own… like my new adventures in blogging, it’s about putting yourself out there… and connecting with others… or at the very least reconnecting with the things that make up who we are…Very inspiring!
I’m surprised (but pleased) that my own list was inspiring to a number of people. Thanks for the note!
After reading this, I was inspired to write a list of things I like. So, I took out my pen and paper, put it on the table and started thinking…for five minutes, I found it difficult to ink even one thing on that piece of paper. A torturing few minutes later, I could only come up with “dusk”. I really like dusk.
I’d have to look at myself and the world differently from now on. 🙂
This is interesting to see that bloggers create blogs around Lists. I love it!
It felt a little like ‘voyeurism’ to read your list especially the longer one, but I also like this peak on your personal tastes. I share a few “likes” with you, such as Montreal in the summer, Pinot Noir and baby goats.
For the longest time I thought I was weird to make lists. When I was young I really thought it was not really “normal.” Then I met this guy who became my husband and he was totally into lists. This is when I understood that many people needed lists to go on with their lives. Listing things we have to do but also things we’d love to do is a good way to visualize a little bit of our lives. So of course lists of Things We Like can only make me smile and want to write yet another list.
What an inspiring post and clever list, makes me want to sit down and write my own…
Egads, your lists are inspiring! You have so many activities and people to love and immerse yourself in–so I sure hope you feel fabulous! Lots of alcohol references (noted since I don’t drink :)) that were interesting since I haven’t tasted most of them. Binge watching House Hunters and tiny houses–yay! Pretend (?) British accents, my. Baby goats, lip balm, flip flops, paddling, hiking with husband, nephews with such vocabulary. And the perfect clutch and blouse, ahh. Cheri, you have a thing for being alive and I do appreciate hearing about it!
Cynthia — thanks for this comment! Your enthusiasm for my enthusiasm for creating lists makes me smile. I’m really glad that this was inspiring to you in some way — it was fun to write, and I continue to think of things I wish I should have added. Maybe for the next one, then!
The first one is probably my favorite, “Watching squirrels scurry in the morning, wondering where they have to be”
Everyone wants to know where squirrels are scurrying to. Especially on Monday mornings haha
Great post!
Yes! They’re just so busy, aren’t they? 🙂
I wish I could shadow a squirrel for the day — follow it everywhere and see where it goes, what it does, who or what it runs away from…
Lol same here. If they made that a reality show, I’d watch haha
I love this idea! I’ll be posting the 10 Things I Like on my blog and try to make it a weekly post. Thanks for this! 🙂
This post instantly made me start to think of the things I like and I realized there aren’t so many of them as I thought there’d be 🙁
I think I need to start a daily list of things I like in order to appreciate life more!
Thanks for sharing your list, loved it!! xx
It’s an interesting exercise, isn’t it? At one point I thought, well, I could certainly write a list of things I hate, but I think it’s better to be positive, and I agree that it’s a nice way to remember — or realize — what is important to you.
Exactly!! 😀
Instant gratitude, love it.
“Being in Kauai with family” and “Farmhouse ales, Belgian beers, and creamy stouts” are not bad at all ~ and this would be a great project for anyone to sit down and do. Doing this (or even reading such a list like I did with yours) makes it pretty clear that stepping back and enjoying the smaller (yet valuable, finer things of life) is worth making and taking the time for. Cheers to a great weekend ~
I think this is great, would it be okay to list our likes on our blog?
I think publishing your own list of things you like on your own blog would be fun — if you like and are inspired by this idea, go for it.
Gotta love those stickie notes! Couldn’t do without em.
OMG I love 90’s techno! XD
Day drinking! Love it
What a super list!! Thanks for sharing and inspiring x
“Naming inanimate objects” made me smile.