Happy List: #441 – A Pretty Happy Home

Hello! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. What a joy to see you here.

This week on the blog, I shared the next installment of our Reconstructing a Fieldstone Wall series. I also shared all the ways I’ve been customizing visors or hats. Want to take bets on how long it will be before I have to update that post because I’ve come up with more creations?

Housekeeping Note: Handy Husband is building us a new website. (Yes, he’s wildly talented.) He’s been working on it at night for months now. If all goes well, we are hoping to switch from this layout to the new one later this summer. Nothing will change about how you find us, but we’ll finally be able to put all of the Happy Lists in one place. I’m telling you this so you can mentally prepare.

What I hope you don’t ever have to mentally prepare to read is the Happy List. It is curated by yours truly to be happy, curious, and light. It’s my antidote to the negative news that’s thrown my way each week. Connection is also an antidote to negativity. To that end, if you’d like to reach out, and I hope you do, please comment on this blog post or email me here. You can also direct message me on Instagram or Facebook. (P.S. I limit the time I spend on Facebook, so it may take me some time to respond to any DMs there.)

Here’s your weekly dose of the Happy List!

CURVED LATTICE

Imagine me reading a fun blog post about the Cotswolds and Jane Austen’s house. I noticed, in the background of one of the photos from Less Than Perfect Life of Bliss, fence panels with a curved lattice top.

What is this amazingness?

I Googled the panels. Of course, they seem to be only available in the U.K. Should we start a petition to bring them to the U.S.? We can added it to my imaginary petition for U.S. appliance manufacturers to make better looking ranges that don’t rival the cost of a used car.

(image: Less Than Perfect Life of Bliss)

PATCHWORK T-SHIRT

One thing I have not tried yet is making a patchwork t-shirt. I’ve most commonly seen them done with fabric scraps to make flags for the 4th of July like this cute example from DIY Beautify. She also used the same technique on potholders.

If I start now, I could probably make a Halloween or Christmas version. Ha!

(image: DIY Beautify)

DEVIL’S TOWER

Sometimes, when I’m bored or curious, instead of scrolling social media, I’ll look through Atlas Obscura’s list of unique places in the world.

Add this one to your list of unique places to see! Devil’s Tower in Wyoming is the USA’s first national monument. It received that designation in 1906.

There are many theories on why the tower is shaped the way it is. They all have to do with magma and erosion. The columnar jointing on the mountain is not unique, but it may be the largest example of such a formation. You can see close-ups of the columns here.

Learn more about Devil’s Tower via the National Park Service or Atlas Obscura.

(image: National Park Service)

P.S. If this is your first time learning about columnar jointing, you’re welcome. It was mine, too.

FIREWORKS SOLAR LIGHTS

I been looking for ways to add more whimsy to my life. These solar-powered fireworks lights or fairy lights fit that to a tee! They do look like a fireworks sparkler or maybe dandelion fluff.

The lights are on a bunch of tiny wires, so you can shape them however you want. They came in a two-pack. Two isn’t enough. Hahaha! I’m resisting the urge to get more for some unfathomable reason.

P.S. The disc-shaped solar lights by the pool and under the Carriage House window have lasted years now.

UNFINISHED FACADE

I just learned that the facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has remained unfinished since 1901. Most of the building is quite ornate except for four pyramid-shaped blocks near the top of the building. They aren’t supposed to be plain stone blocks. They are carving blocks.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It’s interesting how it came to be and why it was never finished.

Read about it at Untapped Cities. Now I wonder how many other famous unfinished buildings are in the world?

(image: Wikicommons)

HAIR DRYER TIP

Have you tried running a hair dryer over a project you’ve hot glued to get rid of the hot glue strings?

I just learned this tip, and now I can’t wait to try it to see how well it really works.

More crafting hacks and tips can be found at Mod Podge Rocks.

(image: Mod Podge Rocks)

WATCHED AND LISTENED

Book 1 of the Iliad Read in Ancient Greek (YouTube)

Telescope Ranchers (Coolest job, ever.) (YouTube)

This is Your Brain on Hormones (RadioLab)

FAKE HAND EXPERIMENT

Have you heard of the fake hand or third hand experiment? It’s a technique that convinces your brain that a fake hand is your real hand. It is used with people who have prosthetics or nerve damage.

We tried it as a family after watching this video. I filled a glove with rice to make our fake hand.

It’s supposed to take only a minute to work for most people, but our peanut gallery was loudly heckling, so perhaps our brains were receiving mixed signals and we did not experience the effects.

Here are written instructions for the experiment, but watching the video might be more helpful. Let me know if you try it and what happened!

P.S. This is the weirdest picture I’ve ever taken for this website.

WHIPPED FETA DIP

I bought a container of Boar’s Head Feta Dip last week, and I used it as a condiment on Buffalo Chicken Burgers. I also made a BLT on a ciabatta roll last night for dinner, and instead of mayo, I used the feta dip on one side and basil pesto on the other. That was DIVINE. Still haven’t used it as actual dip, though. Ha!

Here’s a recipe to make your own feta dip from The Mediterranean Dish.