Application of Some Happy

I realize not everyone is as smitten with Apple products as I am, but can I just share two new-to-me applications that make my day a little happier? 

1.  Garage Band.  So entertaining for children and adults alike--even those of us who lost whatever musical talent they had somewhere along the road of life. 

Did I ever tell you about the time I moved across the country to a new school in the 5th grade and was required during my very first week to compose a song and perform it for my music teacher and my class of no friends (who-had-all-been-playing-musical-instruments-since-birth)?  Here's the short version.  I had no idea how to read music, play music, compose music, or even appreciate good music for that matter.  But I was stubborn and shy.  I went into the basement of our house, took a seat in my grandfather's old manual wheelchair (for some strange reason we used to use it for obstacle courses around the concrete basement, doing figure 8s around the metal poles), hit some keys on the ancient portable organ that was down there for some reason too, and then scratched some notes, willy nilly, on the music paper that had been provided. 

Armed with my sheet music (and a good dose of horror), I arrived in music class the next day.  I listened to student after student perform musical pieces of their own creation on pianos, flutes, violins, clarinets, and cellos.  I bit my lip and bided my time.  When it was my turn, I handed the sheet of marks-that-would-be-music to my teacher.  Because I couldn't play (anything), she sat at the piano and attempted to play what I had created.  Let's just say, it was like Frankenstein's Bride.  I'm cringing to this day, but also laughing too.  To her credit, she made it through and didn't say anything permanently scarring.

2.  Flipboard.  Maybe you already know about this, but I just made the discovery.  This little free application allows you to browse the blogs you follow in beautiful, turn the page magazine style.  You can also add facebook, twitter, instagram, etc.  iPad = love.     

Nifty Items I Was Eyeing and Couldn't Stop Myself from Buying

{Because I lack the restraint to eye and never buy, 

here is my periodic post of items that are making me happy.}  

This faux rust cymbidium from Diane James Home.  I ogled over the arrangements on the Diane James Home website for almost a year before I jumped on the opportunity to buy a couple of items with a generous discount code.  Her flowers and plants are pricey, but shouldn't there be a cost-per-loving-look measure (like price-per-wear for shoes and clothes)?  Just looking at this plant makes me happy, and that's really worth something.  

Prints from the Nebulous Kingdom on etsy -- Girl at Poppies and Princess Mardarine.

Happy Links

A couple of things that made me smile this week.

This clip from Portlandia (discovered via The Man Repeller)



These very creative and funny photos of office wear made of office supplies (discovered via Jane Has a Job and Jeanie Jeanie).  I like this outfit, although I'd need to wear a cami underneath the top :)  The skirt strikes me as completely office appropriate.

Mailing envelope skirt paired with pencil eraser blouse
(creative work of New York photographer Ted Sabarese)

Nifty Items I Was Eyeing and Couldn't Stop Myself from Buying

Because I don't possess the self-restraint to eye and not buy, I thought it might be fun to give a glimpse of some of the nifty items I was eyeing and couldn't stop myself from buying.  To start out, here are a few items that have made me very happy:

Rug tiles from Flor.  I pretty much want to put Flor in every room of my house, but this is my only purchase thus far.  Very pleased.  I haven't even used the Flor dots (adhesive circles) to attach the tiles together yet because I keep deciding to rearrange the patterns.  Thankfully, this isn't a high traffic area of my house, and the tiles have a grippy back that keeps them in place.

Yellow ruffle pillows from Sferra.  I never get tired of the color, texture and luxury of these pillows.  On more than one occasion, I've just stopped one of my kids in the nick of time from taking one outside for use in some fort or other with the plea "not the yellow pillows!  Those are special to me."

Urchin bowl from elements clay studio.  I'm using this one to hold earrings and hair clips, but I could see many uses.  Soap dish in the bathroom?  Paper clip holder in the office?  Love the texture and look.

Eating by the Color

With color on my mind of late, I thought my kids would enjoy colored meals.  I was right.  They're all over it.  Last night was our "yellow dinner" and tonight we tackled the "green dinner."  Neither of these meals has involved anything gourmet (or meat, because we're vegetarian).  I do very much want my kids to eat the food, and plus I'm too time-strapped to get ambitious.

The yellow dinner consisted of corn on the cob, pineapple, bananas, pasta shells and pineapple-ginger smoothies.  My kids also had some veggie corndogs although they weren't strictly with the yellow theme.  The green dinner menu offered pesto pasta, green apples, kiwi fruit, cucumbers, green olives, avocados, broccoli, green snack peas, green jello, pistachio pudding, and green machine smoothies (love that this smoothie sneaks in SPINACH among other very good things).  Good stuff, and we had a blast with it.

What's up for the rest of the week?  Orange, pink, purple, and red.  Makes me remember an old song we used to sing in school:  "red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue.  I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too."

Well, here's to getting your kids (and yourself) to eat fruits and vegetables!

Chewing on Happiness

I recently discovered these Inside Out Carrot Cake Cookies at Trader Joe's, and they are bliss you can hold in your hand.  Like a moon pie, but with cream cheese frosting on the inside and super moist carrot cake on the outside.  Yes, they take me to a happy place.  I think if someone hooked electrodes up to my brain while I am eating one of those cookies, my brain happiness indicators would be lit up like a Christmas tree.   

Of course, the logical part of my brain knows that cookie ≠ happiness. But it helps.  At least temporarily.  The same goes for retail therapy, which (based on my own scientific studies) is even more effective than a cookie.  Neither habit, of course, is any good for you.  But I suppose you could do much worse than baked goods and UPS packages as far as vices go, right?        

Speaking of happiness, isn't this a lovely idea?   


Post Script:  Here's a very similar idea from Martha Stewart for zucchini nut bread cookie sandwiches.

100 Things

Well, it's that time of year again.  The day that time-strapped, weary procrastinators like myself stay up into the wee hours creating some item of apparel with 100 items of some sort or another affixed.

Yes, it's the 100th day of school tomorrow.

My kindergartener is supposed to attach 100 items to a painters hat (provided).  I haven't heard word one about what my 2nd grader is supposed to be fabricating, and to tell you the truth, I can't bear to know at this late hour.  She has assured me that she doesn't need 100 beads sewn to a shirt or 100 barrettes in her hair or any such thing.  I'll just be holding my breath at parent pick up tomorrow in case I'm relying on bad information.  You know it will be all my fault.

It's been quite the day.  I've flown 4,000 miles (not kidding -- don't ask), and no, I did not abandon the practice of law for a flight attendant spot.  At least the night is still relatively young.  And I decided to glue and not sew this year.  (WHAT was I thinking last year?)

On a completely different topic, doesn't this sound like a lovely idea?  There's just something about receiving a package that brightens the day, you know?  I arrived home road (air?) weary to find an anthropologie box on my doorstep tonight.  That helped :)

A Closer-to-Perfect Day

For my birthday this past Saturday, I decided to start a new family tradition:  Project Perfect Day.  Here's how it works.  On the Saturday closest to your birthday, you get to come up with an agenda for the day.  Want to stay in bed?  You can.  Want to eat cake for breakfast?  You can.  Want to have the rest of the family wait on you hand and foot?  Well, you can't if you're the mom.  Anyway, here's my agenda for this year's birthday.  It wasn't quite "perfect," but it was the best day I've had in quite some time.

Something Crafty This Way Comes

Here's something simple that made me happy this week.  And it was my 10-year-old neighbor who taught me.  Here's how you can use color Duck Tape to make a cute hair clip for your little girls (if you have any).    I already had these simple supplies in various drawers (that need to be organized) in my house.

Here's what you need:

1.  Color Duck Tape.  Have you noticed all the colors and patterns these days?  There's so much more than metallic silver to choose from.  I found mine at a craft store (Michael's).  I also used some Japanese masking tape for contrast (I bought mine from Happy Tape -- who knew tape could make you happy?  It can!), but you could also just cut and use thin strips of Duck Tape.

2.  Bobby pins.

Here's how you do it:

Here are the supplies

Pull about 6 inches of tape (depending on how wide you want the bow clip to be) from the roll and stretch it out without cutting it.  Fold in half carefully, making sure not to create wrinkles.  

Now cut so you have a two sided piece of colored Duck tape.

Next fold your piece of Duck Tape fan style along the wide edge of the tape.

Grip it in the center.

Using a few inches of a contrasting piece of tape (again, I used Japanese masking tape, which I love for all sorts of projects), wrap it around and around the center of your bow.

It should look something like this.

Now take a bobby pin and insert it in the back of the bow, with the shorter part of the pin going underneath the tape strip in the center of the bow.

And here you have it.  It takes all of 2 minutes.  Childs' play. 

 (And my 7-year-old took all of these photos except the last one.)

Nifty Items I'm Eyeing and Would Like to Be Buying

I attended a class on budgeting this week, so I shouldn't be eyeing or buying anything, I suppose!  Well, I can look, right?

1.  Ceramic dishes from Le Souk Ceramique in Tunisia (this one available from Cambria Cove).  I'm dreaming of my visit there . . . .

2.  This happy flowers necklace from Stella & Dot makes me happy (it would make me happier if I actually owned it, of course :)

3.  Living Gaudi: The Architect's Complete Vision.  In preparing to visit Barcelona, I've developed something of a fascination for Gaudi.  The account I have read tells that he lived out the last years of his life in the crypt of the Sagrada Familia church he was building (and which is still not completed to this day), only to go out for a walk, get hit by a streetcar unrecognized because he was wearing shabby clothing, and end up dying in a paupers' hospital a few days later.  We'll be in Barcelona for the anniversary of his death.  I'm excited to see what I can learn while we're there.

Have a great weekend!

Happy Things

Here's another Angela Kohler spot (in the same style of her piece for Alison Sudol's Lost Things that I posted last weekend). This time for Amazon Kindle.  So great.

Happy Things

A few things that made me smile this week.

Lost Things by A Fine Frenzy

Another version of the great This Too Shall Pass by OK Go

This photo and this photo and this photo from Flickr

Hope you're having a great weekend!