Welcome to the Happy List! For most of us in the U.S., we get to move the clocks ahead this weekend. That means more daylight in the evening and I am here for it!
This week I shared my Board Game Coasters and my hack for adding brass leg tips to furniture! If you missed those posts, I’ll wait right here while you catch up.
If you aren’t following along with us on Instagram or Facebook, that’s where all the spontaneous projects occur! Last weekend a boring wallpaper removal project quickly spiraled into us finding out that we have a brick exterior wall…or at least a partial brick exterior wall.
Now, here is the Happy List!
MIRROR, MIRROR
I have stared at the picture of this mirror with hearts in my eyes for several minutes. I’m still not sure how it is constructed, but I’ve never seen anything quite like it. No one bust my bubble and tell me it was from HomeGoods.
(image: Brian Woodcock for Country Living)
FLAMINGOS
Scientists think they know why flamingos stand on one leg. It is an energy-saving measure. Standing on two legs requires constant balance. On one leg they can lock their tendons into place.
Humans do this too. Think about the last time you had to stand for a long period of time. While you probably didn’t channel your inner flamingo, you most likely shifted your weight to one leg.
Read more about it in this article in the BBC’s Science Focus.
(image: By Deepak Sundar – via Wikimedia)
DRESSER MAKEOVER
I’m not sure if this is an IKEA hack, but you’ll be shocked at how basic this dresser looked before Jenni from I Spy DIY got her hands on it. Also, congrats to her for being on the Drew Barrymore Show! Woohoo!
See the full details of this dresser makeover including how she did the legs here.
(image: I Spy DIY)
LETTERLOCKING
Have you heard of letterlocking? It was a 17th-century technique used to authenticate written correspondence and to make sure letters were not tampered with.
Unfortunately, unlocking old letters can damage the letter, but scientists have figured out how to digitally unlock these letters by x-raying them. Cool, right?
Here’s an example of how letterlocking works via Kottke.
(image: Via Kottke.org)
NEW PILLOWS
Last month I bought two new bed pillows. We loved them so much, I ordered a second set.
They have almost 90,000 reviews on Amazon with a 4.5-star rating. That’s a lot of people who love these pillows.
The odd thing that I love, besides the comfort, is that the pillow tag is on the side of the pillow, not the end. That means the tag won’t ever stick out of your pillowcase if you put it on the wrong way. Yes, you can cut the tag off, but it is a nice gesture to keep the tag on the side, don’t you think?
(image: Beckham Hotel Pillow – Amazon)
BAILEYS CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE TRIFLE
St. Patrick’s Day is a good excuse to make Life, Love and Sugar‘s Baileys Chocolate Cheesecake Trifle, right?
On a scale of mouthwatering to get in my belly now, how tasty does this look?
(image: Life, Love and Sugar)
WORLD’S LARGEST SNOW MAZE
I would totally do this.
The world’s largest snow maze is in Canada and all I want to know is how did they build it?
(image: A Maze in Corn via To Do Canada)
HUH
I read the most thought-provoking essay by Craig Mod titled “Looking Closely is Everything.” It is about his journey of slowing down and looking closely at the world around him during the pandemic. It is well worth five minutes of your time to read his essay. Here’s an excerpt:
“The point being: Looking closely is valuable at every scale. From looking closely at a sentence, a photograph, a building, a government. It scales and it cascades — one cognizant detail begets another and then another. Suddenly you’ve traveled very far from that first little: Huh.
I’d say that that huh is the foundational block of curiosity. To get good at the huh is to get good at both paying attention and nurturing compassion; if you don’t notice, you can’t give a shit. But the huh is only half the equation. You gotta go huh, alright — the “alright,” the follow-up, the openness to what comes next is where the cascade lives. It’s the sometimes-sardonic, sometimes-optimistic engine driving the next huh and so on and so forth.”
Thank you, thank you for reading today’s Happy List! I hope you enjoyed it.
Be good to yourself and others this weekend.
I’ll see you back here on Monday!
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