I love our sibling WhatsApp group. I love slow mornings and evenings. I love reading while sipping on tea, unrushed. I love doing nothing. I love long conversations with friends and family.

I love crispy hot nsenene (grasshoppers). I love to clean my home and then bask in the fresh clean smell. I love the smell of bleach. I love stationery and stationery shops. I love cute journals. I love laughing.

I love how my daughter randomly says “I love you Mummy” as she goes about her business, sometimes not even looking up from what she is doing. I love the sound of a purring cat. I love watching movies alone and uninterrupted. I love taking evening walks. I love rainy days when I don’t have to leave the house. I love the memes my brother shares. I love mocha milkshakes.

I love gatherings and holidays with my big loud family. I love listening to a specially curated playlist while cleaning. I love gifts. I love the smell of freshly popped popcorn. I love sitting in the kitchen, talking and sharing stories while someone else cooks. I love hot, crispy on the outside but soft on the inside deep-fried cassava. I love cassava and beans katogo (mixture), with avocado. I love matooke. I love avocado on bread.

I love airy, well-lit rooms. I love throw pillows and cosy blankets. I love eating out. I love quietly nibbling on spicy snacks as my daughter naps so she does not ask for some. I love taking long, hot (like steaming hot) showers. I love an extremely cold coke. I love that my daughter loves coke too. I love Friday evenings.

I love a good read. I love the Lent season. I love the newborn baby smell. I love supermarkets, specifically the kitchenware aisle. I love cute mugs. I love soft towels and snug bathrobes. I love pajamas. I love Sunday afternoon naps. I love it when I spend my entire weekend indoors with absolutely nothing planned. I love breakfast.

I love having so many leftovers in the fridge that I don’t have to cook for an entire day. I love listening to my daughter sing Kiswahili songs, how she sings them all wrong and makes up words as she goes. I also love when she randomly remembers a Kiswahili word that was mentioned at school and asks me what it means.

I love inside jokes. I love the silly little words coined by my family, known only to us. I love when babies reach out and touch your face as you hold them. I love inboxes with no unread messages. I love to de-clutter. I love jars and storage containers. I love dreaming up home décor ideas. I love it when my daughter has just gone down for a nap and I feel like I have all the time in the world and endless possibilities. I love ending up asleep next to her.

I love it when people get shocked at just how much my daughter looks like me. I love watching and listening to conversations between my dad and daughter. I love it when my daughter asks me questions about my mum and refers to things she has heard me say about her. I love freshly clean bed sheets. I love birthdays. Actually I love celebrations in general.

I love it when I finally get to do something after ages of procrastination. I love the last day of my period, despite the fact that I know full well it will be back in a few weeks. I love being home alone. I love settling into a routine. I love it when a song takes me down memory lane. I love going through family albums. I love letters. I love family traditions. Especially my family’s New Year’s Eve tradition. I love Christmas, putting up the Christmas tree and listening to Christmas carols—the old school kind that remind me of Christmases growing up.

I love that this writing prompt by Ashlee Gadd has me writing again after so long.

*This post was inspired by Ashlee Gadd. You can catch her list here.

Yunia Kazibwe

Yunia Kazibwe is the founder of Adulting Out Loud. She is a wife, and mother to an amazing little girl. When she is not writing for the blog or recording for the podcast, Yunia loves spending lazy days with family, watching movies and catching up on a good series. Though she doesn’t currently have one, she loves cats.

Yunia prefers texting to phone calls, enjoys taking walks, and her favourite snack is popcorn. She often plays pranks on people, and only stops laughing to catch a breath.