a little pile of happy

Busy children and full days don't leave a lot of space for writing and deep reflecting. But there's space for happy: yes, there is space for happy. This what our recent happy has looked like:





About a week ago it was dark and rainy and gloomy for several days. Ugh. Our apartment, not being terribly sunny to begin with was dark enough to need lights on during the day, but even so it was looking a little glum in the living room where we were spending our rainy day time. So I made a lamp. I'm calling it shabby shabby, rather than shabby chic because, frankly, it's pretty shabby. Even so, I like it. It gives a nice glow over the end of the couch and has a springy, summery quality with the thin white fabric and bits of chartreuse chiffon and lace. The torn strips of fabric are knotted onto a rectangular frame I made out of the stretcher for a very big Ikea paper lantern which had been torn and discarded. In the picture you can see how I rigged up a hanger for it. Living in a highrise has some drawbacks, not least of which is the inability to screw anything into the ceiling because it's simply painted concrete. A bit of wood anchored beneath a pile of high school yearbooks seems to work, though.






Peas. My daughter eats peas. She asks for peas. She gets upset when I tell her she's had enough peas for one day. My Peanut, my fearful eater, my noneater for the longest time...now she eats peas. Frozen, straight out of the bag, in a bowl with some peanut butter. It's a little weird, maybe, but it works. She willingly eats something naturally green. Hallelujah! She's not alone, either. Bubby's in on the frozen peas action, too, and loving it.









Perpetual produce. I've been seeing lots of pins about this on Pinterest (do you pin? I pin. You can follow my pins by clicking over there on the left. And then I can follow your pins. And we can never get anything productive done again, ever.) and thought it was a neat idea. Then my sister mentioned that she'd done it with green onions and that it really, really worked. So I had to try it. And you know what? It's totally working. I don't even have the things in dirt, just wedged in some rocks in a small Bernardin. It's freaking awesome. I'm going to try it with celery, next.





We skipped spring in Ottawa this year. We went from -25C two weeks ago to 30C with the humidex today*. No, I'm not kidding. It's weird. And sure, it probably means that the whole planet is burning up and we're all goners within a few generations. Since I can't personally solve the entire planet's global warming issues single-handedly, I'm choosing to just enjoy it. Bubby certainly is.

So that's our current happy. There's more stuff, deep stuff, meditative stuff, darker stuff, of course but it'll keep. More on all that soon.

Stay blessed, my friends.