1000 awesome things by Neil Pasricha

As I went to bed last night with images of the devastating floods in Queensland searing my brain I wondered whether I should 'unschedule' this post.  But sometimes we need a distraction don't we? This is mine...
I may have been living under a rock, but I only became aware of this book

(which is apparently a worldwide best seller) and this associated blog (which apparently has won blog of the year) yesterday through reading an article on The Happiness Project blog...oh my, the ways that blog surfing can eat into your time...when you're not watching the flood coverage...but hey, I'm on holiday :)
The Happiness Project led me to this TED talk (below) and I was completely and utterly mesmerised for the 17 or so minutes it took to watch the author Neil Pasricha talk about his take on 'awesome'. I like his philosophy. It's simple. We're not talking rocket science here (that would be boring anyway). But it's simple because it's about simple pleasures, and appreciating them...which is sometimes not so simple. Not when we're in pain, or sad or weighed down by grief. Or dealing with a force of nature. 
But as Pasricha says, how awesome is it to crawl into clean sheets, hit a string of green lights on the way home, have a supermarket checkout line open and you get to be the first one through...people in parts of Queensland would certainly think those pleasures were awesome right about now I suspect.
Do take the time to view this if you can. I bet it'll put a smile on your dial :)

For me one of those simple awesome things is waking up thinking it's a work day and then realising it's actually not! Or walking outside into my little courtyard and finding that the first gardenia of the season has blossomed. What simple things (apart from donating to the flood relief fund and watching Premier Anna Bligh's graceful handling of this tragedy) do you find awesome?