Color Me Happy

~ Jenny

I’m SLOWLY getting the house turned out, and while I’m doing that, things are turning up, including some bright quilts and a lot of bright yarn. So happy making. Makes me want to paint the whole house bright yellow. Well, it is yellow on the outside, and of course the bedroom would stay pale blue because that’s so restful, although my bedroom is pink, but since it’s mostly windows and a lot of white woodwork . . .

Color is happy-making, is what I’m saying.

Also, dogs.

What made you happy this week?

47 thoughts on “Color Me Happy”

  1. I bought a massive new cutting board Friday. Huge, heavy butcher block. I’m in love with it. Tons of room and the thing is steady as a rock. It’s now one of my top ten kitchen faves, along with the herb stripper (cheap and fun) and my little plastic lemon juicer (cheap and fun) and the spiky sponge dish cloth (cheap and fun). Happy all the time. Well, I have yet to find a lemon zester that fills my heart, but I’m not giving up. The new cutting board cost the earth, but it’s gonna outlast me, so at cost-per-use assessment, it is also cheap and fun. And USEFUL. Unfortunately not brightly colored but you can’t have everything.

    1. I’ll take a hunk of hardwood over bright colors any day! It lasts forever, doesn’t screw up your knives and doesn’t slip when you become energetic in your prep. When I go to my sister’s house and have to use the small plexiglass boards that come in colors, it is an exercise in frustration. They slip all over, they’re too small, and they don’t really inhibit bacterial growth any better.

  2. After all of the reorganization, my sewing room makes me happy. I’ve been actually able to sew this afternoon!

  3. I have several pocket ID protectors. I put my insurance stuff in one, driver’s licence in another, retired military Id in a third (that’s DD Form 2, Retired, if anyone cares.) AARP Card, Food Lion MVP card, Credit and Debit cards. They are all clipped together, and they are less bulky than the wallet I was using. I folded the other contents of my wallet ($44.00) in half and used a bulldog clip. I no longer need a wallet, everything is visible for selection – organized.

    I’ll hate it by Christmas, but it makes me happy today.

  4. I have a similar feeling of loving my lemon juicer, but mine is one of those heavy duty holey metal hemisphere-meets-lemon-nestling-other hemisphere type. Saves so much fiddling and does maximum juicing, and it’s easy to clean. It was like ten dollars, which felt pricey at the time, but it’s repaid the investment time and time again.

  5. This week I finished three crocheting projects which were almost done.

    I am dome with my summer diet, got close to where I hoped to, and am enjoying eating fun things.

    New Kerry Greenwood book!!!! I hope to save it for my vacations, but may not be able to hold out!

  6. Dogs = happy in my world. On the plus side, the puppy is FINALLY telling me when she needs to go out. On the negative side, having discovered her power to make me jump up and take her out, she is testing how often she can get her stupid human to do her bidding. 7 pounds of tyrant.

  7. For a citrus zester I use a fine grater. Mine is a fine grater and is not the kind where the metal is folded back to make a channel on the back side (hard to get bits of zest out of) and had a comfortable handle. I also use it to grate garlic instead of chop garlic and I use it to very finely grate hard cheeses – it is probably to fine for this. It makes this gigantic pile of cheese that as it melts down turns out to be about a 1/2 tablespoon of cheese. That and my flat whisk are my two favorite utensils. And I have several different sizes of Epicurean cutting boards that are perfect for washing in the dishwasher and when I want to freeze a ziplock bag of food to be able to stack flat, I put it in my freezer on the cutting board. When things are frozen, I then stack them in a corner of my freezer and they take up very little room. And since they are thin and flat, they thaw really fast.

    1. Wow. This is largely incoherent. Just cooked breakfast for six adults and my brain is frazzled. Great company and a fun breakfast though.

      1. Oh! My Sunday Dinner with the Dotter having been postponed a day, I cooked breakfast for one adult, no frazzling. In my toaster oven, I broiled a package of eight sausage links. Then I switched to bake, and baked three grade A extra large sunny side up eggs. In a regular, non-oven toaster, I toasted two Texas Toasts. Seasoned it all with a few shakes of black pepper, though it was garlic toast. No whisking, either. My cutting board was for transferring hot things around.

  8. I’m happy that when someone asked for a certain language book with a blue cover, I knew I had it. I checked my different bookshelves. And found it within a minute.

    This would not have been the outcome 4 years ago. Turns out battling demons takes time and repeated effort. And when you win, it’s very satisfying.

  9. Cooler temperatures arrived with Labour Day and the trees are starting to turn colour. I can see glimpses of orange and red between the tree canopy from my back window. An unexpected to phone call from my youngest brother this morning – we live on opposites sides of the continent so always good to catch up with him. Coffee with a friend – good way to start the weekend.

  11. I went grocery shopping with my pastel muslin bags the other day for the first time. Looking at the heap of colours in my shopping basket made me very happy. And I made a dairy-free lasagne last night that was seriously to-die-for.

    I’m still on the hunt for the perfect garlic press. It has to be pretty and practical. I’m still looking.

    1. I have a bunch of very nice garlic presses, but mostly I use a heavy metal meat mallet. It makes a very satisfying thunk (some days it is practically therapy) and smashes the garlic to pieces. Some of which usually go flying, but you can’t have everything.

      1. Try putting the peeled clove under the blade of your chef’s knife and giving it a good slam with the heel of your hand. The garlic will be mashed and will take no time at all to dice up. I have a great garlic press, but this is just as fast and much easier to clean.

        1. After I’ve bashed the piece of garlic with the flat of a blade I sprinkle a little salt on the crushed garlic and smoosh it with the side of the blade, then scoop it up with the flat side of the blade to put it in the pan. It’s a very professional technique if any one is observing your cooking preparations. Otherwise if I’m preparing a dish just for myself (like a single serving pizza) I’ll use the garlic in a jar.

  12. I, too, am searching for the perfect lemon zester. I hope it’s not my techique.
    And, of course, dog. And color. I ever was able to get into the black clothing phase of 10 or so years agao. I thought it would never end.

    1. Nigella said something about using cling film or parchment paper and unwaxed lemons.

      Though she uses a microplane in her programme, which is fancy.

  13. My daughter gave me Mercedes Lackey’s The Sleeping Beauty and we had fun talking about it after I read it. It tickled me to hear her be as excited about characters and tricking the Tradition as I am when I discuss my favorite books. I liked the book better because of our conversation.

    I suggested that she try Tom Holt’s Expecting Someone Taller.

    Thinking about it, I’m amused by the fact that in our family everyone knows the Ring Cycle. There must be fun facts shared by families — like Sophy, Amy, and Davy’s knowledge of Dusty Springfield songs.

    1. Have you read the rest of the 500 Kingdoms books? The first is THE FAIRY GODMOTHER, and my next favorite is BEAUTY AND THE WEREWOLF, but there are several others.

      1. Ann, my daughter has given me — and I’ve read — The Fairy Godmother and One Good Knight, as well as several books in another Lackey series. I asked her about Beauty and the Werewolf. Her only quibble about suggesting it for me is that it isn’t a comedy like The Sleeping Beauty.

        Instead of going on to another Lackey, however, I’ve returned to Maybe This Time by one of my favorite authors.

  14. I’ve been using this simple lemon zester for years and I love it. It’s cheap, too. https://www.amazon.com/HIC-Harold-Co-Stripper-Stainless/dp/B000J0XH24/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?keywords=hi+lemon+zester&qid=1568596034&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmr0

    I love the picture of the dogs and the colorful and beautiful quilt.

    My happy right now is a cleaner-than-usual house (my parents are visiting next weekend for the first time in many years…only for a couple of hours, but that definitely merits taking my usual cleaning to a different level).

    And *finally* getting foster kitten Diana to eat solid food. They were all sick, but she was the first and the sickest, to the point where a little over a week ago I had to bring her back to the shelter for special nursing, and we weren’t sure she was going to make it. When I brought her home on Monday, she still had to be fed a slurry of wet food and water with a large syringe, and as of this morning she still wasn’t eating on her own, even though she is now healthy and ramming around like a crazy thing. She and her brothers are seven weeks plus, and everyone else is weaned, although mama still lets them nurse a little. We had quite a struggle of it over the last couple of days, with me trying to push wet food into her mouth and her clamping her teeth shut, and she couldn’t quite seem to figure out the bowl. But we had a breakthrough tonight and I think she’s getting it. So yay!

  15. I had an enormous happy this week. My friend (and auxiliary niece) Becky safely delivered her twin girls on 9/9. With the first 2 boys, they chose very short names because they have a very long last name, but with the twins, they chose Natalie Jean and Georgia Ann. I am so relieved because Becky is very small boned and I couldn’t imagine where she could put twins, but they are all safe and well.

  16. I auditioned for my ninth show this year. It went okay. I don’t think I am likely to get into it because it turns out the adult parts are limited and the only one around my age is a French lady who plays piano and I certainly don’t think I’m suited for the part, but I give myself bonus points for trying a French accent at least. If I don’t get in, I will live. I also then did a storytelling performance this weekend about auditioning for shows that people really liked. And I am going to a concert by my favorite musician on Tuesday and then leaving on vacation on Wednesday for a week.

    I will not be seeing you-know-who for quite some time due to going on vacation, sigh. Though last week (I didn’t get to adding it last Sunday) we all went to an escape room and actually finished the room in 31 minutes with no hints, which was the record for the month so far. Also, we dressed up as our favorite PI’s to go to the room and it turns out he is a fan of my favorite detective show and the characters, which totally gobsmacked me because the show is literally older than he is and it’s not a popular show these days and how has he even heard of it?! (Ended up giving him my extra DVD of the show I had somehow.) So he was very cute about hugging me in pictures in costume, but other than that, haven’t seen him much since then and that shall be all for now. I am being a Good Girl and not contacting him until I return. Hopefully. That’s the goal, anyway. We’ll see if he misses me or not.

    Meanwhile I have been having crazy-ass synchronicities going on all over the place for the last few weeks, which is Very Interesting. Hearts showing up all over, one of my Sirius radio stations changed its own channel to the Love channel… I think at some point it’s going to happen, whenever he gets over being freaked out. Whenever that is. My guess/divination attempts say circa November/December after the cold weather hits, but I guess we’ll see.

  17. I have two happies this week.

    The first is that the day job has _finally_ calmed down so that I can keep up to date here. Yay.

    The second is that the focus on making (and keeping) good habits is paying off and I’m getting all sorts of things done as a result. Who knew that enforcing the first habit to kick this off – get out of bed when the alarm goes off – would mean that I’m cleaning up after myself as I go rather than leaving it for some other time! Without it being one of the ‘good habits’ I’m focusing on.

  18. I moved to a new house this weekend. I moved the very last box of stuff and got ‘home’ at 9:30 pm. Hot and sweaty and headachy. The worst is over. Just have to unpack now.

  19. The quilt is gorgous. The dogs are cute. Lemons are the best,sour and bright. Winter is coming, white and grey for 6 months, but today is colorful. Thank you.

  20. Colour and dogs are very happy making. Yesterday was a big ball of happy. We visited friends and went to a museum for a special exhibit on Vikings. I got some better-than-what-I-had acrylics so I can keep painting and learning and they were cheap. The ownership of our favourite boarding kennel has changed and this was the first day care for the dogs with the new owner. After a bumpy start-we got there after she was supposed to be open but her gate was still locked-it was a roaring success. She only had 7 dogs so she took them all for a walk and a swim and our boys went swimming and our fairly timid female went in up to her belly! She hates water so that was a big win for her. She was so excited and proud of herself when we picked them up.

    We made 30 lbs of sausage on Saturday which went really well and Costco had huge chunks of meat on sale which we cut into steaks and vacuum sealed last night. That makes a full freezer.

  21. Happy is planning a “Girls” Weekend with two friends and our 70+ year old mothers. 🙂

    And while the dogs and the colours are very good to look at, my eye was immediately drawn to the dancing rabbits figurine on the shelf behind them. I love it!

  23. Love the colors and the doggies.

    We had happy family time this weekend – and I got what I need to launch me into a challenging work week: a video of our daughter’s chihuahua racing into a park and doing barrel rolls.

  24. I completed my goal to run 60 miles total this summer by the end of September. With the colder weather coming, I’m happy to have it done because I am a fair weather runner.

  26. I’m looking for round drink coaster with a lip, raised edge. A friend had a set and I realized that they are so useful for containing not just drinks, but also all the little things… pins, change, etc.

    Of course, her set was metal and from Paris. Purchased sometime in the late 1950s by her parents. Classy, elegant, and full of character.

    But still, there must be some modern set out there with character.

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