Here’s what you came for – the Happy List!
HAVE A SEAT
The seating area in this home in Sweden absolutely charmed me. I’d love to sit there with my morning cup of coffee.
If you like this image, you’ll really like the home’s original cookstove that they saved during the home’s renovation.
(image: via The Nordroom)
FLOORED
I cannot stop thinking about this floor at Narborough Hall in Norfolk, England. I could make something like this look amazing in my kitchen.
However, I’d have to give up my dream of repurposing the boards in our barn hayloft for a floor.
Choices, choices. It’s fun to dream!
(image: via Desire to Inspire)
P.S. This home (mega estate, really) is for sale for £4,500,000.
P.P.S. That old sink was probably hand chiseled a long time ago. Can you imagine how long that would take?
I JUST LEARNED
I just learned from this article in Real Simple that helpful enzymes like myrosinase begin to fall apart when we roast vegetables or cook them at high heats. But apparently, you can restore myrosinase by tossing your cooked vegetables with ground mustard seed. How much is explained in the article.
If I understand this correctly, myrosinase aids in liver function and immune protection. I’m not a doctor though, so go do your own research.
(image: Amazon)
P.S. Handy Husband likes raw broccoli and cauliflower but downright detests it when cooked. It changes the flavor profile for him. I wonder if that’s due in part to the enzymes breaking down.
CAN RELATE
Any Richard Scarry fans in the house?
(image: Tom Gauld for New Scientist)
P.S. See more of Gauld’s cartoons here.
DRIED WHEAT
Just a reminder that if you don’t know a wheat farmer, you can buy dried wheat for all of your fall crafty and decorating needs.
I bought two bunches of wheat stems (100 stems per bunch) in 2021 and I’ve been reusing them ever since. I store them flat in a really large plastic bag when I’m not decorating with them and, so far, they’ve survived intact.
I think the wheat looks lovely in a vase all on its own.
No craftiness required.
P.S. Wreath tutorial can be found here.
MADE ME CHUCKLE
This bear is all of us trying to get into and out of a hammock.
If the video doesn’t load, watch it here on YouTube. For the back story of where and when this happened, read this story on Good News Network.
CRISPY MISO LIME TOFU
I was super curious to see if this recipe lives up to the hype of tasting like meat. Curious enough that I made it for the family this week. My pickiest eater would not eat it wrapped in lettuce, but devoured it over rice. Didn’t even question if it was meat or not.
I have not made a bad recipe from Alexandra Cooks yet!
(image: Alexandra Cooks)
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
I’ve excerpted a few paragraphs from an old interview with Steve Silberman that I found particularly interesting and thought provoking. You can read the entire interview here. The bold highlighting is mine.
“Sometimes the word “neurodiversity” is framed as if it’s merely a political stance or a political conviction. It’s not. It’s a living fact, like biodiversity in rain forests. We clearly have people with many different kinds of minds. There are people with dyslexia, there are people with ADHD, there are people with autism, there are people at all points of the spectrum. And all of these labels are the names of “disorders,” but if you look at them another way, they’re just different kinds of human operating systems.
We have to get beyond the fact that these conditions were discovered by people looking for forms of illness, basically, and recognize that they’re just there. They’re part of the human fabric. They always have been. People with these conditions have been making contributions to the evolution of science, art and technology for centuries—invisibly, mostly. You know, most of the labels were invented in the 20th century. We have to start looking at those labels, instead of the checklist of modern disorders, as human resources that we have not learned to tap fully because we’ve been so busy treating those people like carriers of disorder.
I think one of the most underestimated statements of the 20th century was Lorna Wing’s statement that “the spectrum shades imperceptibly into eccentric normality.” That is a profoundly subversive statement. Because what it suggests is that there is really no such thing as normality. There’s no “healthy ideal state of cognition.” What there is is a patchwork of different kinds of minds in society, trying to work together, and it has always been like that.”
Thank you for reading today’s Happy List.
Be good to yourself and others this week.
I’ll see you back here on Monday.
*affiliate links in this blog post*