Happy List: #442

Hello! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. I’m stoked to see you here, and I hope you’ve had a fantastic week.

This week on the blog, I shared how the trash cabinet we built is holding up. For the amateur stone masons in the crowd, I also wrote a post about how to reuse old lime mortar. We’re down for trying almost anything once, and then sharing how it goes.

The Happy List 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!

MURAL BACKSPLASH

This picture caught my eye mainly because I don’t know anyone who has used a mural as a backsplash, but I’m open to the idea if it were a wipeable mural/wallpaper.

I don’t know about building codes, but to make it renter-friendly or non-permanent, you could always install the mural on sheet metal or thin, 1/4-inch sheets of plywood and Command Strip it over an existing backsplash.

This idea could also be fun above a washer and dryer.

(image: Lime Lace via Domino)

BANDANA TOTE BAG

This seems too advanced for me, especially since I do not own a sewing machine, but someone HAS to make one of these bandana bags. I prefer them without the name personalization (hint, hint), but either way, CUTE!

Leslie from My 100 Year Old Home shares how she did it here.

(image: My 100-Year-Old Home)

SUMMER CAMP FOR ARCHITECTS AND MAKERS

This sounds fun! Studio in the Woods hosts a workshop for individuals of varied backgrounds and skills to build things out of wood. “Conceived as a counterpoint to traditional architectural pedagogy, the program fosters a collaborative, hands-on exploration of design through the act of making at a 1:1 scale.”

That sounds like a fancy way of encouraging people to think out of the box and get creative.

See the pictures of the bridge that was being built using scarf joints and branches at Core77.

(image: via Core77 | Studio in the Woods)

DORM ROOM RESOURCE

I recently discovered the Dorm Guide account on Instagram, which has a ton of great ideas for setting up a dorm room for your college kid. The big caveat is that, especially for freshmen, you never know what the dorm room is going to look like. Some of the storage solutions we had planned on for my daughter’s first dorm room did not work because her room was so whack-a-doodle.

But guess what? It all turned out fine.

I’m ordering another set of THE college packing staple these days – the blue bags. These things are amazing. It’s just unclear why we came home with fewer bags at the end of the year. Kids!

P.S. The blue bags are also great for attic storage and house moves, so don’t discount them if you’re above the age of 22.

SUMMER BUCKET LIST FOR ADULTS

I loved this Summer Bucket List from Camille Styles because it was very adult-oriented, as opposed to my teens’ bucket list, which includes going to a theme park.

Here are a few from her list so that you get a taste of it:

4. Try the thing on the menu you’ve been curious about but always talked yourself out of. This is how I discovered that oysters are actually my favorite food.

16. Write a letter to someone you love and actually send it. Not a voice memo, not a text—a letter, with a stamp. Trust me, they’ll love opening it.

25. Wear the nice thing. The dress you’re saving, the perfume you’re rationing, the earrings that feel like too much for a Tuesday. Tuesday is exactly when you should wear them.

P.S. More info about this watercolor card can be found here.

INSECT STING PAIN INDEX

Something not on my bucket list is getting stung by an insect.

However, you MUST, if you want to laugh while being partially horrified, go read the creative descriptions of how various insect stings feel as written by entomologist Justin Schmidt, who was stung over 1,000 times in his career. WHY?!?!?

He describes the sting of an Artistic Wasp as “Pure, then messy, then corrosive. Love and marriage followed by divorce.” See the full Sting Pain Index here.

(image: Atlas Obscura)

BANANA CAR

Steve Braithwaite thinks he is the most pulled-over man in America because he drives a 23-foot banana car that he made himself. He’s been pulled over hundreds of times.

His car is street legal, but cops find a reason to pull him over just to chat and take a picture.

According to Cowboy State Daily, “His goal is to drive the Big Banana Car through Central America; somehow get it shipped across oceans and eventually circle the globe.”

“I just want to keep going,” he said.

He’s calling the adventure “The World Needs More Whimsy Grand Tour.”

“The world is dangerously low on whimsy,” he says.

(image: via Cowboy State Daily)

BASIL VINAIGRETTE

If your garden has blessed you with an abundance of basil, and you can’t make any more pesto, try a Basil Vinaigrette!

I’ll be trying this just as soon as my basil regrows a little. It looks a little like pesto minus the nuts and cheese.

(image: What’s Gaby Cooking)

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

“The distance between deciding and doing is the single most reliable predictor of whether your life will be extraordinary or ordinary. Not talent, not circumstances, not even the quality of your decisions-but how quickly you collapse the space between intention and reality. Think of this gap as a kind of friction coefficient on your existence: the smaller it is, the more of your internal force actually translates into external motion. When you can move from “I should do this” to physically doing it within hours instead of weeks, you’re not just accomplishing more-you’re operating in a fundamentally different mode of being where your thoughts have immediate consequences in the world, where your inner life and outer life are in a constant, tight, conversation.” – Derek Silvers

Thank you for reading this week’s Happy List.

Be good to yourself and others this weekend.

I’ll see you back here on Monday.

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