Here’s the Happy List!
MIND THE STAIRS
Our tricky back staircase has nothing on this gloriously wonky set of stairs. The stairs and the paneling are original to this 18th-century home in England. Also, check out the candlestick in the back corner!
You have to see the kitchen. I’d love flooring like that.
(image: Christopher Horwood for House and Garden UK)
DOORKNOB UPCYCLE
Forgive me for jumping ahead in seasons. I just can’t help it when I get excited!
I read an article in House Digest about how to repurpose cabinet pulls and saw that The Vintage Blue turned a glass doorknob into a Christmas tree holder. Did I immediately rush to my collection of doorknobs to see if this was possible? Yes. Yes, I did.
Do not be surprised if you see me do this at Christmas since I already took a picture. Ha!
Now I’m going to be thinking about other cute things I can shove into doorknobs.
DOLMEN DE MENGA
Have you heard of the Dolmen de Menga? It is an approximately 6,000-year-old stone chamber in Spain that predates Stonehenge by roughly 1,000 years.
An article in the journal Nature describes how the Stone Age builders would have had a good grasp of physics, architecture, geometry, and geology to build something like this. The largest block they transported from a kilometer away weighs 150 tons. By comparison, the largest stone at Stonehenge weighs 30 tons.
The skill, hard work, and precision required to make a stone chamber with 32 stones and keep it standing for 6,000 years in a seismically active area boggles my mind.
Read more about how it is presumed they did it here. It’s fascinating.
(image: Pedro Pacheco via Wikimedia)
HOW MANY DO YOU KNOW?
This was fun! I only knew a few of these.
(image: English in General via Instagram)
P.S. Correction to #20 – it is Brannock.
COZY
If you love books, cats, and autumn, this cute sweatshirt is for you!
(image: Dream Lake Studio AU via Etsy)
However, this is the one I’m ordering for a teen girl. I kind of want it for myself.
FALL DECORATING IDEA
Add black duct tape to your shopping list if you want to recreate this idea I had last year for my porch plants.
PARTY BROWNIES
I made Pinch of Yum’s Party Brownies for the first day of school. I usually bake a giant cookie because that’s our tradition, but my oldest requested a giant brownie.
My family asked me to make these AGAIN this week. Two weeks in a row. That’s how much they enjoyed them. The brownies come from a box, per the recipe. The secret is the homemade frosting made with butter, milk, vanilla, and chocolate chips.
I don’t usually care for brownies, but that frosting pushed them over the top. Also, I did make the brownies with an extra egg for a more cake-like texture.
(image: Pinch of Yum)
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
“There are ways in, journeys to the center of life, through time; through air,
matter, dream and thought. The ways are not always mapped or charted, but
sometimes being lost, if there is such a thing, is the sweetest place to be. And
always, in this search, a person might find that she is already there, at the
center of the world. It may be a broken world, but it is glorious nonetheless.” – Linda Hogan
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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