Welcome to the Happy List!
How has your week been? I hope it has been fantastic.
This week on the blog I shared some organizing tricks that work for our household. I share stuff like that purely to spread ideas. For every organized space in our home, I have another space that could use some organizational love.
I also shared the best constructive criticism I’ve ever received. If you missed that post, the constructive criticism did not come from my kids on how to better cook chicken nuggets. Hahaha!
Once again, here is my shameless plug for you to join me on Instagram or Facebook. I love to connect with you here and there. Please keep in mind that I’m not on Facebook much, but I am all over those Instagram messages.
Here’s the Happy List!
COPPER TOP
I just read a tutorial on how to lay your own copper counter or tabletop. Do you know how bad I want to do this? I can’t get it out of my head.
This is DeVol kitchen and I love everything they create. I’ve been squirreling away ideas for my own kitchen. That bench is delightful.
(image: DeVol Kitchens)
NOT JUST A SPORTS STORY
When I heard NPR start a golfing story the other morning, I was about ready to check out. However, I kept listening and by the end I had a lump in my throat and was cheering on Kamaiu Johnson.
This story is certainly about a young man working his way out of a tough situation. However, it’s also about an adult seeing potential in a troubled kid. Instead of running him off, she gave him an opportunity.
(image: Jan Auger and Kamaiu Johnson, courtesy of Kamaiu Johnson)
You can read and listen to the story here. It will warm your heart.
DRIVE AND LISTEN
This will be the best website you visit all day (besides mine, of course).
Drive and Listen lets you “drive” to work in a ton of places around the world while listening to their local radio stations. My kids and I have be ENTHRALLED with this website.
I’m not sure if we enjoyed the scenery more or the surprise in what they were listening to. It’s eye-opening when a rock song you know comes on the radio in a country that doesn’t speak English. It’s a great reminder about the reach of cultural influence.
The below commute is a screenshot from Nice, France.
PASSIVE HOUSE
This is a really great, quick explanation of the passive house concept.
If you are a visual learner this will be super helpful.
I sure would like to use 90% less energy to heat and cool my house. The amount of oil we are burning right now to heat our house makes me cringe.
If the video doesn’t load, here is the direct link.
MOJITO MOCKTAIL
This Mojito Mocktail recipe by Culinary Hill makes me miss our mint plant that we had growing all last summer.
Culinary Hill also has a regular Mojito Cocktail recipe if you like rum.
(image: Culinary Hill)
I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU
This was beautiful.
In a world of autotune, it is refreshing when artists sound amazing when being recorded on a cell phone singing outdoors. That’s true vocal talent.
If the video doesn’t load, here is the direct link.
WOOD HOOK
This hook caught my eye because I can see how it would be handy to have.
But I also thought maybe I should try making something sort of like this using my leftover leather belts. (If that sentence doesn’t make sense to you, read this post.)
I’ll have to think on it for awhile.
(image: Cloudnola hook via Design Milk Shop)
POETRY MOMENT
The House Was Quiet and The World Was Calm
Wallace Stevens – (1879-1955)
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
Thank you for reading today’s Happy List! I hope at least one thing on this list made you smile.
Take care. Have a rejuvenating weekend.
I’ll be back on Monday with a new post for you!
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