Happy List: #373

Hello and welcome to the first Happy List of 2025! I can see you’re starting the year off right by reading blogs and I, for one, would like to encourage this behavior. Not that I’m biased or anything.

This week on the blog I discussed transitioning holiday wreaths to winter wreaths. It’s currently snowing and I’m already craving color, so don’t be surprised if I ditch the winter decor soon for tulips. I also shared how to make a magnetic bulletin board and why we had to make one in the first place. Be glad there are no pictures of the gross before.

As always, thank you for being here. I enjoy sharing what creatively inspires me and I love connecting with you. Seriously! I love hearing from you. If you want to reach out (don’t make me beg, you know I will), you can always comment on this blog post or email me here. You can also reach out on Instagram or Facebook.

Here’s the Happy List!

1860s GREEK REVIVAL FARMHOUSE

I spent a lot of time looking at the photos of this New York home remodeled by design studio FIG and JAM Architecture and featured in Domino.

I love the contrast between the patterned floor and the clean, simple lines of the rest of room in this photo.

(image: Kristen Flanagan via Domino)

EMBROIDERY JOURNAL

Sophie O’Neill journals by embroidering one icon a day. She’s done this for five years. Can you imagine the dedication?

Each icon takes her five to ten minutes to stitch, but I’d imagine the hard part would be coming up with an icon to represent the normal, uneventful days. I have a lot of those!

Learn more about it in this BBC article.

(image: Sophie O’Neill via BBC)

PUBLIC DOMAIN DAY

January 1 was Public Domain Day in the United States. Thousands of copyrighted works from 1929 entered the public domain, along with sound recordings from 1924.

That means you can now freely remix, remake, build on, and share famous works like Singin’ in the Rain, Rhapsody in Blue, Popeye, and John Steinbeck’s Cup of Gold.

For more items recently on released into the public domain, check out this list from Duke Law.

(image: via Duke Law)

INTRIGUED

I am so intrigued by the plant growing up the pipe in this photo of Natalie Cécile Coquand‘s kitchen, which was featured on My Scandinavian Home. I have half a dozen vertical pipes in my house and this was something I never considered doing.

In addition, those doors to the outside with the transom window above them are to die for. See more photos of this home here.

(image: Natalie Cécile Coquand via My Scandinavian Home)

P.S. Right now I’m deciding if a wall of cabinets in my kitchen should be all one color like this or if I should stain the lower cabinets and paint the upper cabinets. Decisions, decisions!

TREAT YOURSELF

If you need a little color in your life, let me suggest this beaded necklace. I know I mentioned it last year, but I did receive it for Christmas and have been wearing it on repeat! It matches so many things.

It comes in 3 color variations and they are all happy. My color seems to go in and out of stock, so check back if you like that version best.

SO TRUE

This “Features of Adulthood” graph really resonated. I feel seen!

I’m *almost* disappointed that quicksand has never come up in my adult life because as I kid I thought it was going to be a REAL problem. Anyone else?

(image: XKCD)

SHEET PAN CHILI GINGER ORANGE CHICKEN

This recipe had me at sheet pan.

I’m making this Sheet Pan Chili Ginger Orange Chicken recipe from Half Baked Harvest tonight and I can’t wait.

(image: Half Baked Harvest)

POETRY MOMENT

Regret Nothing by January Gill O’Neil

If at 4 a.m. you find yourself awake and alone,
curled up in your half-empty bed under a flashlight’s

white light reading a poem, little moon
casting its aura across the page, regret nothing:

not the clothes piled in the corner, not the drawers
closed like caskets, the unpacked lunches,

the bedtime story trapped in its book, the child’s glove
under the couch missing the body it protects-

all that must be swept, bundled, and carried off
to somewhere else, only to return to the source of your

unmaking. Regret nothing. Even as a glimmer
of yourself catches you in the mirror like a stranger,

walk into the day with your whole heart intact. Walk into
the center of everything. Leave nothing in your wake.

-from the book Glitter Road

Thank you for reading today’s Happy List.

Be good to yourself and others this weekend.

I’ll see you back here on Monday.

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