Happy List: #270
Hi! Welcome to this week’s Happy List! I’m glad you’re here.
This week on the blog I shared 5 fun facts about Labor Day. I hope you were able to enjoy your Labor Day holiday.
On Wednesday I shared how our landscaping survived a hot, dry summer. I’m happy to inform you it has rained multiple days this week, so our grass is back in business. In other words, it’s green again!
Thank you for your continued support of this blog in all ways, shapes, and forms. Even engaging with us on Instagram or Facebook is important to us. Your support truly helps our family, helps restore this old house we live in, and keeps this blog running.
Now, here’s the Happy List!
DIY CONCRETE TABLE
Regina from Saved From Salvage made this concrete table! I’m so impressed. This would be so expensive if you bought it a store.
You can get the directions here. I love how she tells where she went wrong with the process too so that we can learn alongside her.
(image: Saved From Salvage)
PLASTIC INTO DIAMONDS
Scientists have successfully converted plastic bottles into nano-diamonds. My mind was BLOWN reading about this.
Get the scoop on how they did it in this Science Focus article.
(image: © HZDR/Blaurock via Science Focus)
SOFT PRETZELS
It’s the time of year to make soft pretzels, don’t you think?
Soft pretzels are either terrible or delicious. There’s no in-between, in my experience. I think it depends on where you buy them.
The ones I’ve made at home have always tasted delicious, but I don’t make them very often.
This recipe from Culinary Hill, especially the cheese sauce, looks divine. Soft pretzels count as a meal, right?
(image: Culinary Hill)
BEST FOLIAGE TRIPS
The best thing about fall, besides the food, is the fall foliage! Fodor’s has a list of 20 places to see amazing fall foliage around the U.S. A couple of places on this list surprised me. Who knew?!?
New Jersey did not make the list, by the way. An oversight, I’m sure.
I did read that the fall foliage season on the East Coast might not be as great as usual unless you head to far northern New England where it wasn’t as dry this summer. Fancy a visit to Maine?
NO PAYWALL
I have eclectic reading habits and I’m the person who wants to “go to the source” before I trust information, so the following news made me happy!
The White House issued guidance last week that research results of taxpayer-supported research has to be made immediately available to the American public upon publishing at no cost.
This guidance was issued because scientific journals could keep taxpayer-funded research results behind their paywall and own that information for up to 1 year, which cuts off access to other researchers and to the general public.
This makes sense to me!
Read more about it here.
P.S. I hope you enjoyed this picture of our office. I needed a graphic for this story and this was all I could come up with! If you want to know more about our office desks and how we built them, read this.
THESE ARE CUPCAKES
Alert! Alert! These are cupcakes not cheeseburgers. I fully stared at these for way too long because I was so impressed. Then I became hungry.
Get the recipe and how-to at Hostess With The Mostess.
(image: Hostess With The Mostess)
GARDENS OF ALCATRAZ
Did you know there are gardens at Alcatraz? I found out this week.
The gardens were started by the military in the mid-1800s when they inhabited the island. When Alcatraz became a prison, the inmates took over caring for and expanding the gardens. The gardens were abandoned in 1963 when the prison shut down.
Learn more about the gardens, who maintains them now, and how you can take a garden tour here.
(image: via Alcatraz Gardens)
LOVE WINS
Mikhail Gorbachev died last week. One of the things he is known for is sharing a loving and devoted relationship with his wife Raisa. Raisa died in 1999 of cancer.
In an article about Mikhail Gorbachev’s death in the Associated Press, I found the following two quotes to be very striking.
“He loved a woman more than his work. I think he wouldn’t have been able to embrace her if his hands were stained with blood.” – Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov
“One day we took each other by the hand and went for a walk in the evening. And we walked like that for our whole life.” – Mikhail Gorbachev quoted in Vogue magazine in 2013
Read the full article about their relationship here. There are accompanying pictures, but fair warning they might make you cry.
Thank you for reading today’s Happy List.
Be good to yourself and others this weekend.
I’ll see you back here on Monday.
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