I am in love. This is not infatuation. This is long-term lovin’ that is going to go the distance and stay hot night after night.
My friend Molly gave me a hot water bottle. She is one of those rare, modest, insightful folks who hears someone once mutter, “I could really use a hot water bottle” and then realizes that, in fact, that is exactly what that someone needs (in this case, me) AND even that someone doesn’t yet realize how much they need it.
I don’t know how my cold toes and I have lived for so long without this wondrous invention. Maybe They have tried, the hot-water bottle makers, but as far as I can tell, my hot water bottle looks exactly like a hot water bottle that my grandmother might have had. It’s VINTAGEY! It should be wearing 1940s shoes and swing-dancing with WWII soldiers on leave! I’m telling you, I love it, my fetishy red rubber, “Made in the USA” extravagance.
See? And you thought I just complained all the time. Mais non! I know a good thing when I’ve got my icy tootsies shoved up against it for seven hours’ straight. My peeps, the thing is so smooth and RED and sensual? I could practically make out with it. I probably would make out with it, if I were a phone sex operator. It’s sitting here beside me right now, looking at me with that elegant long neck and naughty diaphragm-esque head, whispering, Fill me up, baby. Fill me up nice and hot. It’s time, all right. I want your cold feet on me, and I want them now, and all night long.
I can SO appreciate the little things. See? I can. Can’t. Stop. Touching. It. Can’t. Stop. Petting. It. Good bottle. Pretty bottle. Chubby pretty munchie bottle!
What are your small but obsessive delights?
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Sweet and low. If I were a lab rat, I’d be all tumor by now but I can’t stop. Its SO sweet (and I assume low in some way). I put 2 in every cup of tea I have, which this time of year is considerable. I cut down from three. My grandmother uses a half in hers and folds the top of the packet over. I want to reach over and TAKE her other half. But I wouldn’t.
Wow. I’ve never known what a hot water bottle was for. Duh. That make all kinds of sense.
I’ve always wanted a hot water bottle of my very own. I’ve been stalking them in fact.
I love my slippers to no end. And my book light that allows me to read late into the night while my husband snores away next to me.
Beads. I just spent my entire budget on this year’s inventory. But I bought a London blue topaz for myself. (now I just have to sell some jewelry to raise the money to put it on a chain so I can wear it)
FYI: London blue topaz is the color the sky becomes in the second week of October. In Cleveland. So, it is like owning a small piece of the sky.
Oh, and chocolate.
Oh, I already love these answers so much. More more more. They are so specific and small and wonderful. I feel all close to you like we are chatting over tea.
Chocolate chip cookies of a certain brand that can only be bought here in the Netherlands with white and pure chocolate chips in them. I eat the whole package and if there is another package, I eat that also and I don’t get sick, I just absolutely and totally love and adore them and must be kept away from them for my own good and the good of my wallet.
I heart a decadent bath…Butterball bath bomb from lush.com
Each of my kids has a hot water bottle because heaven forbid they might have to take turns with one. On really cold nights we fill them (the bottles, not the kids) with hot water and warm the exact spot where their (the kids’, not the bottles’) toes will sleep. One bottle can do very well for a small person. As a supplement, I am required to lie in my daughter’s bed while she brushes her teeth, so it will be warm and toasty for her.
I lived in an unheated attic dorm room in Scotland during my junior year of college–almost 25 years ago!–and my hot water bottle (swaddled in a pink quilted cover no less!) was my all-time favorite thing. I’ve MANY times regretted having left it behind when I packed to come back to the States. Now, I must find one like yours. And then I’ll make my mother figure out how to quilt a cover for it.
(Amazing what posts will bring one of your blog readers out of a years-long lurkdom, isn’t it? Hi! I love your blog!)
chocolate chip cookies hot outa the oven, not quite all the way done but after they cool, they are *smooch* perfection!
also clean flannel sheets make me very very happy.
oh and I want someone to warm them for me while I brush my teeth….
Chocolate chip mint ice cream, any brand (psst, it’s Sophie’s indulgence too) preferably on a cone.
Eating the ice cream while in my plush, very plush, the plushest-ever aqua bathrobe (from a certain daughter) which is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s a great substitute for a hot-water bottle, along with my fuzzy little socks.
Sugar-free vanilla lattes.
Socks. Either a) regular white athletic socks right out of the package brand spankin’ new (can’t have been washed), or b) snuggly fluffy socks. The really good don’t turn to a ball of pill fuzz after washing kind.
Give me new socks, sushi, and Star Trek on the tube, and I’m a happy, happy person. It’s my own personal Bermuda.
Two words: Body Butter.
A few others: great coffee; those wide lines on the carpet after being vacuumed (I can hardly ever get them which is why I am obsessed); a super hot shower every morning–even if I am going nowhere all day; Urban Decay Love Junkie lip gloss; time to read a book of fiction. Sadly, the last one is the most elusive.
Do you know how long I have wanted to own a wonderful real hot water bottle all my own, you are so lucky.
I love my ice packs, couldn’t survive a headache without them…and I have nice fancy ones for just on my eyes now.
Also, tag, you’re it.
For a while I kept a small plush pillow at work that looked like a ladybug and was oh so soft. She was great for back support and neck support and moral support and just general companionship. When no one was around I would rub my cheek against her velvety back and close my eyes and smile and sigh.
At the moment I’m obsessed with my bathrobe. But so far I’ve managed to keep that at home.
It’s retroriffic.
I can’t remember ever owning a hot water bottle. Even in sub-tropical Brisbane I had one! Now, I owe three. One lives at work, one in my bed and one in my ‘home office’ (it’s the coldest room in the house. Even if I don’t *need* the warmth, I find them comforting. And great for period pain.
I’ve also got one of those wheat-filled lavender microwavable bags at work. Yes, I am the comfort queen.
Um, OWN, not owe. Although if there is anyone out there to whom I do indeed OWE a hot water bottle, rest assured I shall come good if you let me know who you are.
Amen to the flannel sheets! Is there anything more snuggly?
I recently started packing oats, a handful of fruit (dried, fresh or frozen), a few walnuts, and a cup of low fat milk in a little pylex bowl and taking it to work in the mornings. I usually can’t eat breakfast when I first wake up, but by the time I get to the office, I’m hungry. It’s so warm and comforting and yummy to nosh on a bowl of oatmeal-y goodness at my desk. Bonus: I don’t fall prey to the box of doughnuts someone will leave by the coffee maker.
Sadly, the only image that comes to mind when I think of a hot water bottle is the one hanging in the shower when I was a kid with a long tube that my mother would fill with vinegar and water and douche with.
I love when I wake my son up in the morning and he puts his arms around my neck and his face right in the crook of my neck, it only lasts for a second but I feel it for hours afterwards.
Oh, the memories!
I have a lovely fuzzy (think old dog) yellow hot water bottle from my semester in England. They really know what they are doing, because they also had, in the dorm, a HOT water tap, which I’ve only seen in high end kitchens since then (really it was for the required cup of tea). I haven’t used it in ages, since I discovered microwavable heating pads, but I’m not getting rid of it! (Ps – microwavable heating pads have the additional benefits of being easier to use – just pop in the microwave for a couple minutes while enjoying a piece or two of delicious dark chocolate and you’re set…plus they can be wrapped around necks or used in strollers/bike trailers for those cold morning walks to preschool. But a hot water bottle just feels more cozy sometimes!)
Now, a bad day brings me to a pot of hot black coffee, some dark chocolate and my puzzles (sudoku, kakuro or a cryptoquip), reading about other peoples lives via blog…hmmm.
When I traveled in Australia right after college, I had to sleep in the back of my car most nights. A hot water bottle was a vital life-saving thing. I had like five, all strategically placed. They would lose heat at about 2 am, and I would get up, schlep over to the campsite faucet, and re-fill. It was glorious misery, and oh wouldn’t I trade my lovely mortgage today for just one more night on the road in the Outback.
My little delight? Tiny potted plants. Never let me loose in a garden center. I also adore my daily breakfast, eaten while I drive – a sandwich made of two toasted whole grain blueberry Eggos, smeared with cream cheese, with two Morningstar Farms soy sausage links in between. Heaven.
My flannel jammies, or any jammies really.
Oh Pam – I had to delurk to say that I had the exact same image! I didn’t even know what it was for back then but I remember seeing it hanging there.
I love a hot bath…with the bathroom door locked.
A cup of good hot tea, in a hand-thrown ceramic mug.
The quilt made by the mother of my mom’s childhood best friend.
Checking old books out of the college library…some of them haven’t been checked out since the 1920s.
Totino’s Party Pizza for dinner on Friday nights. I know, I know, I know… but they remind me of elementary school birthday parties, and they’re hot, but you don’t have to actually cook.
Mine is a fuzzy wool sweater. It’s about a million years old and has holes in both the elbows and I cannot bare to part with it. In the winter I come home from work and imediately strip off my work close and dive into it’s warm, wooly goodness.
Last year, after seeing yet another hole forming along a seam, I decided that it was time to let go. I hovered over the rim of the trashcan for almost 10 minutes fighting with myself over what to do. I swear I was almost in tears. Needless to say, I still have it. I’m convinced I will be burried in it….and I’m fine with that.
Oh I think I love my heart water bottle too much! They are just heaven. I too always wanted one, never remembered to look in the store and one day mentioned it to my sister. Her reply: “You can have mine-you gave it to me one year for Christmas and I never use it.” AHHHHHHHH! I was so excited. Myself, son and the cat all time-share the one bottle. I even knit up a fuzzy cozy for it too. Son gets it first, I pull it for myself hours later and refill, then in the middle of the night I put it up by pillow so the cat will lay on it instead of my head. It all works out quite nicely.
At least I was excited until a few nights ago I woke up in a puddle… Yes ma’m, I done sprung a leak! The trauma…I’ve been bottle-less since and not happy. So now I’ve ordered a couple of German made, hard core, industrial strength bottles for all!
Heaven is a hot water bottle!
The afghan my Nana knit for me (my sister has a matching one) when I was 12 (sister was 10, Nana was 82). It’s hot pink, dark raspberry, white and several shades of green variegated poly yarn. It matches nothing in my house, but I drag it from rocking chair to couch to bed, all around the house all week long every week. In summer, of course, I tuck it into the cedar chest because afghans can kind of turn up the assiness of a humid August night in Ohio.
But winter? Oh, this blanket. How I love it. Throw in my hot water bottle from The Vermont Country Store wrapped in it’s lovely sheepskin cover, a steaming hot cup of tea or a really dry martini, a good book or movie (after a loooooooong hot bath with a Lush bath bomb–Butterball/All The Jasmine combo) and I’m pure happy mush. Mush, I tell you.
But don’t tell my mate. He’ll think he can get one over on me and at that moment? Post bath/drinkydrinky/book or movie/afghan mushiness is for me, me and me alone. Me. Not We. Me.
Excuse me. I feel a fever coming on and I think I need to go home now…get busy with my stuffs.
I have the *exact* same red rubber hot water bottle! I bought it years and years ago for cramp relief. I have never used it on my feet, although I’m going to now. My husband may send you a thank you letter.
My indulgences:
- M&M’s -> I could eat a whole big bag, piece by tiny, crunchable piece.
- Clean flannel sheets
- Grinding my own coffee from organic, free trade beans every morning.
Sitting down at the piano or w/guitar and a BIG, FAT FAKE BOOK and sightreading stuff and alwaysfinding things I love.
As a child and into my early 20′s, I often used a hot water bottle whenever I had tummy ache. Mom would fill it with water that was so hot it nearly burned my flesh. But once I got used to it, the soothing waves of warmth from that little rubber friend worked wonders. Pain gone and me often asleep. Now, I use an electric heating pad or just take some pain reliever if my tummy is upset or I have cramps. Thanks for reminding me that hot water bottles are still around, and that they could be my kid’s new best comfort friend.
Girl Scout Cookies, new linens, mix matched china – I only buy a dish when I find one I really love so every time I eat off that dish or serve a guest it brings me joy;
all white walls with colored trim and curtains;
bathrooms colored in soft grey and white;
the smell of horse barns and sawdust and clean laundry and hyacinths and my boyfriends skin in the morning;
yellow gingham and white eyelet;
a child or infant falling to sleep on my lap or my chest;
old wooden furniture, book ends, the crackling sound of a record player;
a glass of wine with a cigarette and a candle in the back yard on a midsummer night.
my red hot water bottle has a red flannel cover. i literally squealed when i saw it at a shop, & have loved it ever since. heating a rice/lavendar pillow is amazing as well.
my little thing: a little pillow i bought for my son, then upon realizing how cozy it was… promptly stole for myself. i cannot sleep without it!
ooh & hot, creamy coffee.
Ohhh, kat stole my thing! I have a rice and lavendar stole that you put in the microwave and throw around your neck and shoulders and I love it.
But another thing: ear plugs. I heart them and wear them to read, sleep, travel on airplanes, and otherwise block out the world when I can. I get very panicked if I don’t have a pair handy. And my bucky, a padded sleep mask. You can see that if I could I would just crawl right back into the womb.
I do not, sadly, own a water bottle. However, I do have a heated electric mat to put my feet on underneath my desk to keep my feetsies warm in the drafty, cinderblock office where I work. I love that almost more than is decent.
Also, really, really loud white noise, the kind that actually presses down on your entire body (think a industrial furnace or loud, whirring machinery).
Another small pleasure: curling up on the floor in front of the heat vent, letting the warm air toast my back.
Ginger-lemon tea or a green chai latte.
Confetti roses.
Raspberries and cream body butter that makes me smell like a giant chocolate raspberry.
The one that’s looming the most prominent right now, though, is my pillow, because I’m exhausted.
Oh, Hermit, that indulgence used to be my favorite too, many years ago: sitting down at the organ or on accordion with a BIG FAT FAKE BOOK! Maybe it will come into my life again if I let it!
Flannel sheets rock too.
I have a flannel bag of barley that I microwave. It smells a little funny if you nuke it too long but it’s FAB at warming the toes…
My “thing” is hard to explain without seeming like a degenerate. Here goes…. I love when my husband gets up for work and then my dog comes up and lays on his side and we snuggle. Nothing weird, I promise! And, to be clear, I love to snuggle with my husband, as well. But, it feels like a dreamy, wonderful time where we are almost in sync with each other and she cuddles in and lets out a content sigh and I drift back to sleep and feel very very happy. Hope that came across the right way.
I always dreamed of a hot brick wrapped in pink muslin. Or an electric blanket will do. For now…socks.
Funny, JCK, I always dreamed of a hot man wrapped in black leather … better than an electric blanket.
Yes, I’m Jenn’s mother. No, I’ve never been a phone-sex operator.
My whole life is about the small moments, it seems.
This week it’s Cream of Chicken Cup ‘O Soup in a special mug; the sonic wall of “The Dandy Warhols Come Down” CD played painfully loud in my car; and the way my kids have taken to saying, “Yeah! You’re a ROCKSTAR!” instead of “yes.”
Tazo Blake Awake Tea.
Nice and strong with like 38 grains of sugar. Seriously just like the tip of the spoon. It’s placebo sugar effect, I think but who cares? I like it.
I feel like it makes the breastmilk acidic, though, and so *sigh* I am off of it for now. The sacrifices!
Also these cookies from this one restaurant? They are called chocolate bombs. And boy are they evah!
Um. That would be Tazo BLACK tea. Not Blake.
I don’t KNOW ANY BLAKE.
I swear.
A long hot bath. Really hot. Enough to turn me lobster red. Apparently it’s a genetic thing because my mom and sister agree completely.
I just love cotton lacey camisoles and “undershirts”. No matter how busy my day; or how boring my button-down blouse, catching a glimpse of lace makes me feel all womanly and feminine. I feel pretty. Not a small feat after seven children. By the way, I enjoy your blog very much.Thank you. Sunshine
Amen to whoever said the Lush butterball bath bomb, AND flannel sheets. To take a butterball bath in the winter and then crawl into a freshly made, flannel-sheeted bed is amazing.
sorry for the theivery beth. looks like i’m well on my way to a life of crime.
yes! earplugs! we went on a road trip last week, & my 10yo was so chatty. it took all my willpower to not take them from my bag, & put them in.
I am so jealous of all you water bottlers! I definitely know what I want for my birthday! As for the indulgences:
macaroni and cheese (the NY Times has the best recipe ever)
nacho cheese doritos
homemade hot chocolate made with raw milk
french press coffee made from my favorite Fair Trade Organic coffee
flannel sheets
long underwear
old, worn-in, loved-up quilts
Mmmmm.