So I’m going to try to make this Little Bits of Happiness blog post a monthly thing for you. It’s not always going to be about reading, but that’s really what’s kinda on my mind right now, so deal with it (in the nicest way possible).

Outlander Book 7 & 8: Ok, these are pretty much taking up all of my reading time right now. That is, all reading time that I don’t spend on Twitter or BuzzFeed or the million other things I read online while at work or in the morning trying to boot up. I started reading the Outlander series last year, and it quickly became one of my favorites. There’s everything: time travel, historical fiction, romance, fighting, survivalism, le sigh. I’m finally finishing the series, and just itching for the TV series to move from Starz to Netflix or Amazon so I can binge that over and over again, because that’s just as good.

The Museum of Extraordinary Things Alice Hoffman: I took this book with me to Asia. I read half of it. I left it on a plane–on purpose. I had reasons for this. First, I was enjoying the book, but I was choosing Outlander over Museum pretty much every time, which told me that I should just go ahead and dive into the book I really wanted to read. Hoffman’s book was a paperback, the time travel novel was an e-book I read on my phone, which was also my camera and my newspaper and my Twitter machine, so I got rid of luggage. When you’re travelling for 2 weeks with a backpack, anything you can leave behind will go. Also, there was something exciting about leaving a book unread. Don’t get me wrong, in a different situation, I totally would have finished Museum. It was beautiful. But there were too many things to see and do and eat to read two books at a time.

Spotify: ok, this feels silly because it’s not a “new” thing but none of the things on this list are, so whatevs. This app makes me happy because I am loving discovering new music again. It only costs $9 a month (or $14 for the whole fam if you get a family plan!) and I have been building playlists like I used to make mixtapes and actually discovering new music! I feel like I’m in high school again! Check out Jack Garratt btw, he’s amazing, and NPR-approved (wink). Oh, the best part? If you pay for the monthly subscriptions, you can make your playlists available offline, which saved our butts on those long plane/train/van rides in Asia, and will probably come in handy for workouts.

Anything new in your life making you happy? Share in the comments!