Illustrator Brooke Barker’s dog is not the jumpiest or the lickiest dog around, but, as Brooke says, “the best things don’t have to be the jumpiest or the lickiest.”

The best things don’t have to be the newest or the shiniest or the fastest, either. “I swear there are only about five good ballpoint pens in the world and they’re all old,” Brooke wrote this week in her newsletter, Never Not Nervous. “And my favorite shirt is the shirt I got when I played rec soccer in fourth grade.”

Although the best things don’t always look like the best things, you know them when you see them. My most-cherished novels are old and dog-eared, and when I’m eating alone, I beeline for a bowl of Cheerios.

And one of my favorite things about our house is how our living room windows are covered with children’s handprints.

What not-flashy things do you treasure? The question makes me think of this Kate Baer poem, above. xoxo

P.S. Looking for glimmers, and what’s your pro tip?