Happy List: #384

Hi! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. It’s so good to have you here.

This week on the blog I shared my dreams to add a hidden door in our house. I had to write that blog post in order to manifest it. Think it will work?

I also announced how we plan to use the remaining, unfinished part of our Carriage House. The good news is that we started work on this space this week. WOOHOO! You can follow along with that on Instagram stories and I’ll post occasional blog updates too.

In case this is your first time here, I purposefully keep the Happy List focused on the lighter side of life in the hopes that this is a soft place for you to land when the news can be overwhelming. I absolutely welcome the opportunity to connect with you and hear what you’re doing and how you’re feeling. If you want to reach out, you can always comment on this blog post or email me here. You can also reach out on Instagram or Facebook.

Enjoy the Happy List!

1783 FARMHOUSE

The details of this 1783 farmhouse in Connecticut enamored me. It has a dreamy, window-filled kitchen and I especially love the covered, arched situation connecting to the house.

See more pictures at Desire to Inspire.

(image: Elizabeth Roberts Architects via Desire to Inspire)

UPCYCLED SUCCESS

Siemens Gamesa, a wind turbine manufacturer, was tasked by the Danish government to repurpose decommissioned wind turbine blades. They used them to make bike shelters! How clever is that?

We’ve been to Denmark (read about it here) and bikes were EVERYWHERE. It felt like there were more bikes on the roads than cars. They had their own lanes to keep them safer, and outside every building were places to park bikes.

Learn more about the shelters at This Is Colossal. If you live in an area with wind turbines, this might be an idea to share with your local government.

(image: Siemens Gamesa via This Is C0lossal)

SMELLS SWEET

I have often wondered about how past times would have smelled and have deduced that, before indoor plumbing, it wouldn’t have always been pleasant.

However, it has been discovered and reported in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology that ancient Greek and Roman statues smelled good. Seriously. They were covered in perfumes, oils, and waxes, including olive oil, rose, and beeswax.

This would have made the experience of seeing a statue a visual and olfactory one. The waxes and oils probably also served to protect the statues from the elements.

You can read more about it here and here.

(image: from The Louvre via Wikimedia Commons)

16TH CENTURY EUPHEMISMS

Speaking of smells, indoor plumbing did not exist during King Henry VIII’s time. In fact, Hampton Court, deemed the pleasure palace, was a very stinky place.

Henry VIII had a “groom of the stool.” This person was assigned to help the king with personal hygiene. He even kept close notes on the king’s…movements. In 1539, the groom noted the king had taken laxatives and experienced a “very fair siege.” You know you’re going to think of that euphemism the next time you prep for a colonoscopy.

To fix the overall palace’s smell problem, Henry VIII constructed a two-tier, 28-seater toilet that he called “The Great Easement.” History is often horrible and funny at the same time.

If you haven’t learned enough, check out this article on Mental Floss. You can also read historian Lucy Worsley’s book, If Walls Could Talk. 

(image: William III’s close-stool, Hampton Court via Wikimedia Commons)

IMPROVED RELATIVE TIME

If you have a hard time connecting with history and the terms BC (Before Christ), AD (Anno Domini), CE (Common Era), or BCE (Before Common Era), you might like a website I discovered called Improved Relative Time.

It lets you date time with events that might be more relevant to your life.

2025 can be referenced as 18AIP (after iPhone), 134AZ (after zipper), 1.4kATP (after toilet paper), or 316AP (after piano), among others.

Check it out here. You’ll have fun with this one! I flat out love that someone said, “Hey, I’m going to make this website” and now we can all enjoy it.

FANCY

I just learned that some clever person invented key fob covers so that you can have a fancy, colorful-looking key fob. I’m linking a Toyota one because that’s what we have, but you can use this link to find your make and model. They come in all different colors.

This would make a great Easter basket gift for a teen (or yourself). They are around $10.

(image: Amazon)

STONE BARN AT SEBAGO LAKE

I have wood doors and stone buildings on my mind because of our Carriage House. More on that to come in a future blog post.

Anyway, that’s why the Stone Barn at Sebago Lake in Maine caught my eye. Drop. Dead. Gorgeous. Building. You can get married here! Learn more here.

(image: Stone Barn at Sebago Lake)

COTTAGE CHEESE PIZZA DOUGH

I’m skeptical, but I’m also in my cottage cheese era, so I think I’m going to try this Cottage Cheese Pizza Dough recipe from Pinch of Yum.

(image: Pinch of Yum)

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

“My daily challenge to myself is to be part of the solution, to be a joyful warrior in the battle to come. My challenge to you is to join that effort. To stand up for our ideals and our values. Let’s not throw up our hands when it’s time to roll up our sleeves. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

Years from now, our children and our grandchildren will look up and lock eyes with us. They will ask us where we were when the stakes were so high. They will ask us what it was like. I don’t want us to just tell them how we felt. I want us to tell them what we did.”

-Kamala Harris, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey

Thank you for reading today’s Happy List.

Be good to yourself and others this week.

I’ll see you back here on Monday.

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