Happy List: #447 – A Pretty Happy Home

Hi! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. You sure are a sight for sore eyes. I’m glad you are here.

This week on the blog, I shared the dice bag charm that I made using wooden dice. If you watched my Instagram stories this week (It’s always a good time there!), you’ll know that the bag charm lasted approximately five minutes before I put it to use as a key chain for our tiny barn key. Reality, you know?

I also shared, like the proud plant mama I am, the geraniums on our front porch and what I plan to do with them the rest of the year.

The Happy List is meant to be a good time for all and is filled with things that inspired me or piqued my curiosity this week. As always, 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 the Happy List!

FRAME THE VIEW

Most of us don’t have a retreat in the French countryside. Not to make it awkward, but if you do, can we be friends?

That aside, I was inspired by this French retreat that purposefully uses architecture to frame the view.

I’ve been thinking about that this week. Are there ways I can better use architecture or window dressings to frame the view outside my home? Is there something I really enjoy looking at that would multiply my pleasure (i.e., improve the view) if I moved it slightly so I could see it from a window?

See more outdoor space ideas here.

(image: Francesco Lagnese via Frederic Magazine)

WORLD SNAIL RACING CHAMPIONSHIPS

I’m really glad we live in a world with something as whimsical and silly as the World Snail Racing Championships.

This year’s winner was Snailor Swift with a jaw-dropping 3-minute, 13-second time to slither 13.5 inches (34 cm).

If you’d like to plan a trip to the U.K for next year’s event, check out this BBC article.

(image: BBC)

EMPTY SEATS

If you like to have the entire movie theater to yourself, this site is for you. Please note it only works for AMC Theatres.

(image: Screenshot)

BASIL FESTIVAL IN BETERA

Every year, on August 15, there is a Basil Festival in Betera, Spain. The highlight of Fiesta de la Alfàbega is 6-foot-tall basil plants that are carried by men in procession through the town.

I didn’t know you could grow basil that tall. New goal unlocked?

Read more about the festival and what they do with the basil here.

(image: Lipsticks and Backpacks)

SECRET DOOR

What caught my eye in this bathroom was the tiny door by the floor. I’m guessing it is an access door for plumbing, but I would like confirmation. Ha!

I don’t see a lock on it. The things my kids would have stashed inside that door…

More photos of this beautiful home can be seen here.

(image: Shade Degges | design: Amber Interiors | via: Lark and Linen)

PUNK

Proving that he can still surprise me, Handy Husband said to me the other day, “I found a shirt you will love!” The man cares 0% about clothes, so call me skeptical of what he had found.

Turns out, he was right! I did love it, and I’m wearing it as I type this. It comes in different colors and as a t-shirt.

(image: Amazon)

ZUCCHINI PASTA

Do you have an abundance of zucchini? This zucchini pasta recipe from What’s Gaby Cooking uses a ton of caramelized zucchini blended up with other delicious ingredients to make a pasta sauce.

I also learned a bunch from the recipe notes, and I’m going to use her tip of salting the zucchini before sauteing it to bring out excess moisture. We eat quite a lot of zucchini year-round, and no one in my family minds it as long as it stays crisp-tender when I add it to stir-fry-type meals.

(image: What’s Gaby Cooking)

POETRY MOMENT

A Surprising Wholeness by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Cool rain is falling through sunshine today
and the canyon’s red walls are radiant
with the contradiction. The world
smells of dry earth mixing with sky,
a rich and generative perfume
that weaves into all that grows.
Witnessing the beauty of this day,
equal parts clear and stormy,
this is how a person might come to trust
the acute aliveness we feel
when we dance with both sorrow
and gladness at the same time,
one partner asking us to crawl, to bow,
the other bidding us raise our arms
to twirl in joyful abandon. In the distance,
thunder. In the foreground, the swallows
are ceaseless in their swirling.
They do not try to avoid the raindrops
nor do they shun the sun.
On the inside, a feeling loops and dives,
swoops and circles back. It says,
This life is not easy. What a gift to be alive.