Happy List: #399 – A Pretty Happy Home

Hi! At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s August already. I’m going to need summer to slow the heck down. My kids start school this month, and one of them is leaving for college for the first time! Big changes ahead for us.

A smaller change that happened is we built new outdoor stairs. I shared that reveal on Monday. I hope you had a chance to check them out. I also shared my recent media diet with you, including the books I’ve read, the websites I frequent, and my favorite podcasts.

As always, thank you for being here. I hope the Happy List is a bright spot in your day and leaves you feeling inspired and encouraged! I absolutely enjoy connecting with you. Truly. If you want to reach out, please comment on this blog post or email me here. You can also reach out on Instagram or Facebook.

Now, here’s is the Happy List!

MIX IT UP

One thing I love learning from Brooke at Nesting With Grace is how to mix patterns. This bedding is a great example of mixing more serious prints with playful ones. The result is something so fun and interesting!

See more pictures of this bedroom makeover here.

(image: Nesting With Grace)

HIKE INSTEAD OF DETENTION

There is a school in Maine that offers students the option of hiking instead of sitting in a room for detention. The teacher who leads the hikes flat out says she doesn’t know yet if this program will be successful for behavior modification, but anecdotally, it seems like it has promise.

There’s no question nature and exercise are great for humans to manage their mental, emotional, and physical health. What I loved about this story is that a school is trying to think out-of-the-box with their approach to teaching and discipline. Maybe more schools should try this and see what happens?

Read more about it at Maine Public Radio.

HOW FRENCH DRAINS WORK

First, I was today-years-old when I learned French drains aren’t named for France. While French drains have been used for eons, they are named in these more modern times after the American farmer who wrote a book about them. His last name was French.

Second, it’s fascinating how French drains work and why they fail. They are most crucial in dam construction because if they fail, the dam can fail.

If the video below doesn’t load, watch it here on YouTube.

P.S. This Practical Engineering YouTube channel is my new favorite. I also watched Why Beach Holes are Deadly and How Floating Bridges Work. If you’ve been to Seattle, you’ve probably driven over a floating bridge. They are a little weird and are being held up by concrete pontoons. Yes, concrete can float.

FREE NOTECARD PRINTABLES

The Cottage Market has a free download of monogram chinoiserie (that word is hard to spell) notecards!

All the letters are available, so you can pick which one to print when you download the file.

This is so fun. Bloggers, myself included, used to do a lot more of this back in the old days.

(image: The Cottage Market)

CERTAIN CURTAINS

This image caught my eye because you don’t often see curtains framing a doorway. What a neat way to make whatever this little room is feel special.

I’d like to imagine it as a tv viewing area, and you could close the curtains to make it a dark and cozy place. I’ve also seen some large bedrooms built with a weird little sitting area, and curtains framing that area would make it look more intentional.

(image: Helen Cathcart via Desire to Inspire)

MOVING BAGS

If you watched my Instagram stories recently, you’ll know I bought moving bags to help transport all the things my kiddo needs to college. These bags are AMAZING and I had many of you message me to say they helped with your own moves and attic storage.

(image: Amazon)

LEARNING OPPORTUNITY

Have you seen the images and stories circulating this summer about the 55,000 tennis balls from Wimbledon being used to make homes for field mice? I did. I even told Handy Husband about it because the number of balls was mind-boggling to me.

Guess what? According to Snopes on July 19, 2025, that story is not wrong per se. But it is outdated by about 20 years, and if you look at all the source material for this story, the pictures are all old. Wimbledon hasn’t worked with these conservation groups in years, and Snopes confirmed it with a couple of phone calls.

This story wasn’t necessarily harmful, but I thought it was a great example of how we all (myself included) have to be increasingly vigilant about information we read and share. Just the act of pausing to do a quick Google search can stop the spread of misinformation and disinformation and make us all better informed.

(image: PA via The Telegraph circa 2010)

STOP DOOR STICKING

Have you ever tried Blaster Dry Lube to stop a painted door from sticking on the doorframe? If you have, let me know how it worked. I just learned this was a thing from Blesser House, and now I’m so curious. She tried different methods of getting doors to not stick, and this was her favorite. You can read about the results here.

The paint always gets mucked up on the edge of our doors and doorframes, and I thought it was just an old house thing. But maybe I can stop that from happening?

(image: Blesser House)

GINGER LIME DRESSING

Fruit is my favorite food group. Full stop. In fact, it’s probably 80% of my diet.

However, I don’t recall ever making a ginger lime dressing for fruit salad, and that’s saying something because I always have a tube of ginger in the fridge. Sharing this dressing from Gimme Some Oven here so I don’t forget it. It’s just ginger, lime, and honey.

(image: Gimme Some Oven)

P.S. Her potsticker soup is one of my family’s favorite soups. They prefer this broth over a typical chicken noodle soup broth probably because it has ginger in it! The kids like it when I substitute ramen noodles for the potstickers.

POETRY MOMENT

How to Be Hopeful by Barbara Kingsolver

Look, you might as well know,
this device is going to take endless repair:
rubber cement, rubber bands, tapioca,
the square of the hypotenuse,
nineteenth-century novels, sunrise-
any of these could be useful. Also feathers.
The ignition is tricky. Sometimes
you have to stand on an incline
where things look possible. Or a line
you drew yourself. Or the grocery line,
making faces at a toddler, secretly,
over his mother’s shoulder.
You may have to pop the clutch
and run past the evidence. Past everyone
who is praying for you. Passing
all previous records is ok, or passing
strange. Just not passing it up.
Or park it and fly by the seat of your pants.
With nothing in the bank, you will
still want to take the express. Tiptoe
past the dogs of the apocalypse
asleep in the shade of your future.
Pay at the window. You’ll be surprised:
you can pass off hope like a bad check.
You still have time, that’s the thing.
To make it good.