Happy thing #30

This is my last promised happy thing. But it definitely isn't my last happy thing post. As I go through my days and weeks, I will be keeping my eyes open for the little things that make my life good, happy, enjoyable. . . .

It's fun to get compliments. And every single time that I wear this necklace I get compliments.
I don't have expensive jewelry. I am more than a little insecure about how I look. I am, and always have been, on the chubby side. I have had severe rosacea since I was 19. I have bad hair.

So, if I want to look good, I pay a lot of attention to my clothes and accessories. On a bad day, wearing this necklace is almost a sure pick me up. I love it, and it must look good, because even strangers comment on it. And I am just shallow enough that that makes me happy.

Happy things #29

My house. It has been, and continues to be a challenge. But I love it. It is more HOME than anyplace that I have ever lived. I love the creaky floors and the wonderful warm Beeswax color of the walls in my living room. I love the butler's pantry, the front porch, the brick, the linen press, and all of the windows. I love my neighborhood.

There is still a lot to do, but we have made so much progress. And even on its worst days, my house makes me happy.

Happy things #28

I love scrapbooking. These are two of my favorite pages that I did this weekend. The first one is an absolutely simple, unadorned page of fantastic photos of some of my favorite people. The second is the opening page of my Patrick book, and I think it's perfect.

I got 40 pages scrapped this weekend. That makes me happy.

Happy things #27

Yes, I missed a day.

But that's because I was busy having a happy birthday.

 Look at that sunrise!

 If you want a clue about what the inside of my head looks like....

 I went for a lovely walk around the camp in the breezy fall weather.

A room full of scrapbookers.

I look forward to this weekend all year long. Knowing that it's coming makes me happy, being here makes me happy, and adding the work that I get done here to my books will make me happy.

Happy things #25

This is my bed. I just climbed out of its warm softness and fired my computer up again so that I could write this blog post. (I knew that if I blew it off, I would hear about it from my sons. They are very good at holding my feet to the fire.)

And, in moments, I am going to climb back in. It is a very comfy bed. It makes me happy.

Happy things #24

This was my walk home from work today. Yes it was drizzling. Yes it was grey. Yes the colors have faded and a few of the trees are bare. But it is still fall, and fall makes me happy.

Happy things #22

Friends.

I tried to find a good picture, but any group picture leaves too many good friends out, so Jacqui gets to symbolize all of them.

And I decided that the incredible friends my kids have are every bit as much a happy thing as my own incredible friends, so it's good that a couple of them are in this picture.

I have been blessed with an abundance of wonderful friends. They live all over, from next door--literally--to the other side of the world. They are all so different, and I love each of them.

Happy things #21

I love a new hat. I wore this one to church today, with a new dress, too.

Happy things #19

 There are two happy things here.

The one that I intended to capture was all of my stuff ready to go for  the first of my two my scrapbooking retreats. Each fall, I attend retreats two weekends in a row. I look forward so much to the time with my friends and the chance to get some work done on my scrapbooks. (And this weekend, the retreat is at a bed & breakfast, and the hubby joins me, too.)

The second happy thing is the cat. She just rejoined the family after spending over a month living in the basement after some fairly traumatic treatment after a fight. (She is still partially bald and has a wound that hasn't completely healed.) She is friendlier than she has been in years, and seems to enjoy being around people again.

And she still climbs on top of whatever is on the floor.

Happy things #16

How awesome is it that there is a place that you can go and bring home stacks of books, and as long as you take  them back on time, you don't have to pay?*

This is my stack from yesterday. It's pretty light reading.I'm interspersing these books with The Brothers Karamazov on my Kindle. I read a chapter of that, and then another book. It keeps me from getting that dark, Russian feeling.

Stacks of library books are one of my life-long happy things.



*(And yes, I know about taxes. I pay them. I know what our library taxes are and it is a deal. I get my money's worth. And I think that libraries are completely within the purview of local government.)

Happy thing #15

I know some of you are going to totally crack up when you see this one. And some of you will not get it.

But that's okay.

For over two years, our house has been, at some level, a construction zone.

Right now there are a few big projects that need to be done, like pretty much gutting the kitchen. There are medium projects that need to be done, like shoring up the basement stairs and pulling through all new wiring. And there are small projects that need to be done. LOTS of them.

One of the small projects was done yesterday.

The people who lived here before us thought that changing the heating system so that the heat on the second floor comes from above was a good idea. (Don't get me started. . . .) So there were openings for heating vents in all of the ceilings from when we redid the ceilings during the Great Mold Eradication of July 2011. Openings. Without vent covers.

As of yesterday, there are vent covers. SO, SO HAPPY!

Sometimes, it really is the little things.

Happy thing #14

Meet Angelique.

My Grandma Beery got my cousin Ann and I matching paper dolls to keep at her house when I was seven years old. Most of my paper dolls--which I loved unreasonably--were lost to paper moths when I was in high school. (I will admit that I cried some bitter tears.) But Angelique was safe in Grandma's attic. (I don't think that any kind of bug would have dared breach Grandma's walls.)

Now Angelique lives on the window sill in my office/scrapbooking room. I change her clothes frequently. She makes me smile every time I look at her, remembering my Grandma, how much I looked up to my cousin--who was 10 1/2 months older than me and thus my ruler--and the hours of fun that I had with paper dolls when I was a kid.

Side note: My dad's younger sisters had an incredible paper doll collection that was at my Grandma Caston's when I was a kid. I always felt so privileged that those sophisticated college students would let me play with their paper dolls.

Happy, happy memories.

Happy things #13

Tonight I need to post a multi-part happy thing. I had a lovely afternoon hanging out with my husband. After some work at church and some storing up of food, we ran a few errands. We stopped by JCP to see Patrick and arranged for him to meet us at J.K. O'Donnell's when he got off work. We did a little shopping and I compared grips on a few possible replacements for my Ruger.

Then we went to JK's.

This is one of my favorite relaxing places to go.  They have a great beer selection and good pub food. I like to sit by the window and watch people downtown.

Happy thing #1, my husband of over 27 years, who I do not get to see nearly enough of.

Happy thing #2: Dragon's Milk. This is one of my favorite beers, but because it is expensive it is a very occasional treat. Tonight's date was one of those occasions.

Happy thing #3: Patchy. Who also does not see enough of his father. I really enjoy watching these two together. (By the way, this wasn't posed. I love it.)

Happy thing #4: My dinner. A Lamb Pasty. I get cravings for this thing.

So lots of happy things all in one happy evening.

Happy thing # 11

This is a peek at our main guest room.

It is a happy room. I love the color, the bed from IKEA, and the happy Jonathan Adler pillow.

It is still a work in progress. I need to figure out window treatments, and there are a few other things that I want to do, but it is an increasingly pleasant room for company.

And that's the other reason this is a happy thing. I love to have company. And part of the reason that the room is so happy today is that EC, the Mad Musician, and Sparkle Kitty arrived this afternoon.

Happy thing #10

This painting greets me every morning when I wake up. I see it when I walk into my room. I have gazed at it in different kinds of light.

It is called Waiting, and I can see that in it. But there is a forward motion in the figure that says to me, waiting, but actively. Moving forward. There's something restrained, but hopeful.

I love this painting.

I love the colors.

I love that it was painted by the very talented, Genie Maples, who I have known for a number of years. I have a few of her paintings. Not as many as I would like, because her talent commands a price that's out of my budget most of the time. (There is one particular work of hers that I still mourn someone else's purchase of.)

This isn't a great photo. It doesn't capture the colors well. It captures the feel, to a certain extent, but not completely. The only remedy is to come visit me, so you can see it.

And that would make me happy, too.

Happy thing #6

You knew this was coming.

You had to.

How could you not.

 

Helen Irene

 

Happy thing #2

This picture almost feels like cheating, because it has so many good things in it.

This is a picture of my sons, walking together to church for dinner on Christmas afternoon. For the purpose of this blog post, it is my church. At the end of my street. I can see it from the sidewalk in front of my house. I can walk there in minutes. I can hear the bells in my room.

I don't leave my house or come home without the reminder that God loves me and has given me a wonderful church home and church family.

Happy thing, indeed!

Happy things #1

My first happy thing is completely frivolous. I know it. But it makes me happy.

Among my many warring personality traits are the facts that I am a total disorganized messy, but I am also highly visual and clutter drives me crazy. So I am constantly looking for ways to tame visual noise, but also to have things organized in a way that works for me. Put away, out-of-sight, doesn't do it. For me, out of sight equals gone.

I also like to be able to see the things that I love.

I love my scarves.

I didn't love them in a drawer. Or falling off of a hanger in my closet.

I do love them on this nifty hanger thingy from IKEA.

 

They are unwrinkled. (Except for my pink pashmina, it was on the floor of the coat closet and needs ironing.) I can see them. They stay put. They hide some of the orange door. 

Being happy

The last few weeks have been challenging.

I woke up one morning a little over three weeks ago with some fogginess in my vision. I went to a local ophthalmologist and got a diagnosis and an appointment to return in five weeks. As the next several day passed, it continued to get worse, so, with some help from my mother, I found a specialist in Indianapolis who is in my insurance plan's network. They got me in the next day.

We discovered that the original diagnosis, while not incorrect, was incomplete, and that the problem is both potentially more serious, but also more treatable. The first line of treatment is a huge Prednisone blast, stepped down over six weeks.

My body didn't like that. I was jittery and agitated. Shaky. Couldn't sleep. Was having night sweats, achy muscles, limb numbness, and horrible mood swings. So we stepped down the amounts over the course of 10 days and now I am on half the original dose. We will continue the planned step down from here. I'm still having some side effects, but not so severe, and I can handle them if it saves the sight in my left eye.

In the midst of feeling like a total wreck, I was in a total wreck. Literally.

A driving lesson gone bad.

 

The Volvo did what it was supposed to do. The frame buckled and we both walked away. My husband went and looked at the site of the wreck and said that he can't believe we made it mostly between the tree and the light pole, hitting one with a glancing blow and bouncing off of the other.

So my car is totaled. My body is shaken and sore. I will miss my stupid car.

But we are not seriously hurt. The insurance company is giving us a fair price for the car. Life will go on.

And my eye seems to have improved a little.

Over the past couple of weeks, the prayers of my friends and family have surrounded me as an almost palpable thing. I have returned over and over again to some Psalms and hymns that are particularly powerful on themes of trust and contentment and the pure unwavering message that I belong to Christ and nothing changes that.

I am basically a happy person. I am blessed not to be prone to depression. I bounce back quickly. It is one positive personality trait that offsets many that I don't like so well. But right now I feel a little bit of a need to focus, specifically, on all of the large and small things in my life that add to my happiness. So, each day for at least a month, I am going to post a picture and blog about one of these things. Some will be totally frivolous and some will be big and obvious. I'm doing this for me, but I hope that you will enjoy it too.

Why should cross and trial grieve me?
Christ is near
With His cheer;
Never will He leave me.
Who can rob me of the heaven
That God's Son
For me won
When His life was given?


 When life's troubles rise to meet me,
Though their weight
May be great,
They will not defeat me.
God, my loving Savior, sends them;
He who knows
All my woes
Knows how best to end them.


God gives me my days of gladness,
And I will
Trust Him still
When He send me sadness.
God is good;
His love attends me
Day by day,
Come what may,
Guides me and defends me.

Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me, vv. 1-3
Paul Gerhardt