Happiness is a Binge Watch

~ Jenny

Somebody here mentioned The Chelsea Detective which only has four episodes, so I binge watched three of them the other night while I crocheted granny squares to use up a tangled skein of yarn. The whole thing was mindlessly enjoyable–I can crochet granny squares in my sleep and the program while well done didn’t really require much attention–and I felt relaxed for the first time in a long time. I didn’t even feel the need to critique the narrative which as anybody who’s been here for awhile knows is not usual. Some days you have have to let go of everything else and let your mind be peaceful. That made me happy.

How did you feel happy this week?

104 thoughts on “Happiness is a Binge Watch”

  1. Happy was spending time with different friends at two different events. Difficult part was a car accident resulting in injuries to two off my passengers. We all walked away but some injuries revealed themselves later.

    Grateful to be alive.

    1. Oops. Forgot to add. Because I was watching as released, couldn’t binge but thoroughly enjoying K-comedy Business Proposal on Netflix. The acting is incredibly good with what could have been formulaic material.

    5. yikes! that’s scary! glad to hear you all walked away, hope the later-discovered injuries are minor and quickly healed. <3

    6. I’m wishing you your passengers quick and complete recoveries. And that includes being able to get back in the car without replaying the incident in your mind.

    7. Arriving late as usual, but I’m so glad you’re all okay Sure Thing! The trauma doesn’t always present itself right away, so be extra kind to yourself in the coming weeks.

  2. That’s awful Sure Thing. Sending you a virtual hug. Take care of yourself.

      2. Your story triggered the memory of the accident that put me into my new(est) car. I was alone and uninjured and grateful for both. You have ALL my sympathies. Be well.

  3. It is census day in Ireland and this year a time capsule has been added to the form, a page you can write a message to your descendants 100 years from now. We know two things that we want to talk about that are important to our family, but we are really struggling with what else to say. How do you capture the complexities of life and family on one page or why would you want to. Family, friends and neighbours have suggested putting down the names of books we are reading, food that we have eaten today, what the weather was like and how we spent the day. But if those books no longer exist, what will they learn about us and do they really want a weather report? Any suggestions argh? I love this idea but it is more challenging than I first thought.

    1. How about putting down your thoughts on:
      – the invasion of Ukraine;
      – isolating during the pandemic;
      – Irish politics.

    2. This is very Good Omens, maybe put down the thing your family are most proud of, or what you want your descendants to remember about you now. the Family motto, your secret family recipe, mention any particular family talents or places that are special to your family, any fun family traditions…

      1. I for one (if I were a descendant looking up this record in 2322) would be happy to find information about what you know or have heard about the most distant family members from the past that you know about. Sometimes these things are so ephemeral that they aren’t passed down, or at least not to those who then go on to be progenitors of later generations. Things like when or from where the family is said to have moved from to live in your present location. Or who your grandfather is said to have been named after, and why. For whom or where your family members have worked in the past. Family traits that you’ve noticed across multiple family members, such as musical talent, a way with numbers or horses, or mechanical skills. As the child of youngest children, whose older siblings and their families grew up far away, I haven’t had that type of multigenerational awareness or information, and have often wished that I had.

        1. This is a very good point. My sister recently forwarded some information to me and at first glance I didn’t even know which side of the family this person was on. Anything that provides some context or sense of how this person helped establish the family traits or travels makes the past more relatable.

    3. Even if the books aren’t around, what you were reading counts. A hundred years is a long time, especially given how fast things have speeded up. You’re basically writing history before it’s history.

      1. I hope there will at least a few secondhand bookshops around. My family’s book store had many inexpensive copies of 100 year old books.

    4. Ireland is beautiful. Maybe include places that are meaningful to your family now that your descendants can visit and touch and connect?

      1. Thank you all for replying. It gave me a lot to think about.

        Because we are still going through Covid, I didn’t think about mentioning how the lockdowns have impacted our life. It has reminded me that whilst this is a personal message to future generations, it will be an historical document too.

        I can’t believe I was not going to mention why I made Galway my home, and the story my dad told me about his grandfather which made Galway my home even before I visited the place. Jinx, you telling me what you would hope to find, really helped.

        1. In Hamilton, in the song Burn, Eliza sings “I’m erasing myself from the narrative, let future historians wonder how Eliza reacted”.

          It’s a nod to the fact that we don’t have her letters, historians are left wondering. Point: don’t erase yourself. I think thoughts, feelings, what is important to you, what does a perfect day look like, what are your biggest hopes and concerns and dreams for the future, your own, for your family/town/country/humanity/Earth. These are things I’d like to have insight into from my Great Nana at my age. Who was she? Could I understand her life? Would we be friends?

    5. As a genealogist, I would most like to have asked my Irish great-great-grandmother for EXACT information about the names, dates, and information about her parents, siblings, and grandparents. Family stories also very welcome! Parish church name; where are their baptismal and marriage records?

      All the books on Researching Your Irish Ancestors assume that they didn’t emigrate until the 1890’s at the earliest, but mine was a Potato Famine emigrant to Canada.

      1. Mine too, but the most bloody-minded of the children in that family left Ontario to tell Brigham Young exactly what he thought about his converting good Catholic boys from the True Faith, and ended up the progenitor of a family of pious LDS folk raising sheep near a small mountain town in Utah. No idea what happened to the sisters in that family. Youngest kid information again. Sketchy as all get out.

        2. The Ontario family should be findable. Canadian censuses were 1841, 1851, 1861, and so on. Do you know where they were in Canada?

          1. Nope. The whole You Dirty Rascal attempt apparently happened when our rascal was working in logging camps in Michigan/Minnesota during one of the many religious proselyting waves of frontier America, so I’m imagining somewhere in southern Ontario, but really, no firm idea. And the surname is a pretty common one, with various spellings.

            The funny thing about genealogy, too, is that each member of my family has strong mental attachments to different branches of the family tree. My youngest sister is enamored of Ireland and things Irish, while my memories of the Troubles, and all that bombing of innocents on the streets of London etc. has given me a distaste for it. I vote for the Welsh branch, who were poor-ish folks with the surname of Jones. Hard to really trace very far, but my own affection for that branch is pretty strong. That’s the group I’m interested in, as well as Welsh music, language and so on. Do you find yourself a partisan of one branch or another in that way?

      2. As were my two great great grandparents: Robt Wm Clark and Marietta Alicia Edwards who kept a neighborhood grocer’s shop and managed the family. Significant to me is Old R. W’s math fluency. He managed a mining office in Cable Illinois. Their kids tell the story of his adding up the numbers of boxcars when the buggy was paused at train crossings – in his head. Historically, the women of the family doubted that, but several boy cousins . My son’s algebra teacher doubted his lightening handling of mental math, too. The teacher insisted he write proofs. The kid was so disappointed. Now my grandson experiences the same fluency and disappointment. “Grandma, it’s like making me use my fingers when a screwdriver would work better.” Well said.

  4. My shed floor was refinished and now a washing machine goes in there tomorrow. Happy!
    Had some fun with visiting family. Happy!
    Still liking the overnights on my new shift at work. Getting much more sleep this way. Happy!
    My new laptop came. Now I need to unbox it and set it up. Happy!
    And grateful to Ann who sent a link that is more condemning evidence against former president DT. Thank you Ann!

  5. Happiness was many different Zoom chats, trying to get my writing ducks in a row.

    Started with a chat with Elisabeth Alba, the illustrator who did the Everyday Witch tarot and oracle decks with me. We’re working on a new “Witch’s Familiar” oracle deck together and spent a happy hour deciding on which animals we were going to use. Extra bonus points for her holding her sleeping brand new baby the entire time.

    Next up with a lovely chat with my agent, Elaine Spencer, to try and figure out where to go next with my fiction career. The subject wasn’t all that happiness-producing (the upshot of the conversation was something like, “We’re not giving up, but it would take a miracle,” but it was great to talk to her anyway.

    Much more cheerful was the chat on Friday with my beloved Llewellyn editor, Elysia, where we agreed on four possibilities for new projects for them, so at least I’m pretty sure that part of my career will be fine.

    In general, I’m still struggling to find happiness, or even contentment, but it was nice to talk to some of my favorite people.

  6. Happiness this week is definitely a walk along the river with my eldest son. He lives in Prague with his girlfriend but has come back to the UK for his delayed graduation.
    He is the only one who likes to go for walks with his parents, unlike his younger siblings.

  7. A few weeks ago, someone here mentioned the Skandi series “The Beforeigners” that intrigued me. Researching I found out that it was co-produced by a German channel and thus shown on tv but that I had missed it for good. Today, however, I got an e-mail notifying me that The Beforeigners can be streamed again: hooray!! Talk about bingeing. That’s what I will do for probably the rest of today although I *should* do something else (like catching up with work or nudging the daughter to do her homework ans such exhilarating things, argh).

  8. We’ve been binge watching only because when our (my) favorites are on hiatus I’m at loose ends. So this past week or two I picked House of Cards on Netflix. I know I know. Never saw it before, never even crossed my mind and more despicable characters you can shake a stick at. Last night we started season four with only two more to go and got me to thinking how does this compare to the British version and that goes back thirty years. The library has it but so does Amazon Prime so I put it the wait list for the next hiatus.

    My happiness this week ranges in the high and low category. Monday taxes were done and filed. Tuesday I had a CT scan, Wednesday and Thursday it was a package came in the mail and did not have what I ordered so back it went to the store. It had toddler items compared to my granny size. A case of mislabeling. I don’t know what happened to my package but they reimbursed me. Friday was mammogram. I thought they stopped those at seventy. Then at 10:30 PM a reverse call came over the telephone to shelter in place. Theories were everywhere but it seems a boy was targeted by bullies and one called the police which sent town and state police and police from other towns to the family’s home. I hope they will be able to track down through the phone number and charge him with making a false complaint. I looked for it in the news but it was not on any story list. Bullies/jerks!

  9. I was happy this week because the lump was just dense breast tissue, and also that I had a sonogram so they didn’t have to squeeze my boobies at all. Something off the back of my mind!
    I’m happy because my community chorus has our spring concert this weekend, and we sound really good. I got to sing the soprano in the trio for “The Heavens Are Telling the Glory of God” from Haydn’s Creation, which I have wanted to do for maybe 50 years. And it was so fun! Also we sang two *amazing* pieces by Ola Gjeilo (Norwegian). Look up “Dark Night of the Soul” It sweeps me away.
    And then I can relax a bit and take care of other business, which is also nice.

    2. I was just another alto in the chorus for “The Heavens Are Telling” when my choir sang it years ago, but I found the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on YouTube just now . . . .

    3. I’m so glad your lump turned out to be nothing to worry about. I have my mammogram coming up on Friday and have my fingers crossed that everything is still okay.

  10. While still struggling with a whole of depression and stress issues (too long to go into here), I did get myself picked up sufficiently to graft (Kitchener stitch for the knitters) about 200 stitches up the back of an Icelandic cardigan that I had actually finished knitting months ago. It’s an unusual pattern, you knit one half in the round, the cast-on row of which is the spine/front opening, then steek (cut) through for the bottom hem, graft up the side hem and finish the sleeve to the cuff, then repeat again for the second half. So you are left with neck to hem stitches which need to be grafted. Now that I have grafted up the back and washed and blocked the sweater, I only have to do the crochet edging (typical Icelandic) and decide if I am going to make a V opening for the neck (which involves more steeking) or if I am going to leave the neckline as it is to give a “kimono” effect.

    For those who are interested, here’s a link to the pattern on Ravelry (I ended up doing the blue/rust/black colorway, which is actually a tad darker than it appears on the photos)

    https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/vegir-liggja-til-allra-atta

  11. Had some good chats, especially at the artists’ group monthly get-together. Saw my first bluebells – insanely early. Enjoying every bit of sunshine, spring and gardening I can, including an abundance of intensely flavoured salad leaves (Greek, land & watercress, plus rocket, lamb’s lettuce & herbs). Tidying and cleaning the house yesterday cheered me up, too.

  12. Good tip on the show. Will check it out:)

    I also found a new show to binge–if you can call 3 episodes a binge. It’s the new series about Julia Child called Julia. Just loving it. The focus is on the creation of her French Chef cooking show on PBS. I imagine they’re taking liberties with the actual events, but it’s still super fun and the acting is excellent. I am now happily awaiting the next episode.

    1. I’m enjoying Julia as well! It picks up on her story where Julie and Julia left off.

      Sarah Lancashire is doing a lovely job of portraying Julia which is outstanding considering that she’s following the Academy nominated performance by Meryl Streep.

      I’m not as enamored with David Hyde Pierce’s portrayal of Paul Child, though. I’ve read many books about Julia and Paul, letters, etc., and the closeness of their relationship is less palpable in this show. Apparently, I seem to be blaming it on DHP, which is probably terribly unfair.

      But overall, I’m enjoying this series tremendously.

      1. So agree about Sarah Lancashire. She’s great!

        So far, I really like everybody and actually tuned in for DHP but stayed for the rest:) Bebe is fab as Avis and love the producer woman who champions the show at the station.

        Even though I know they’re taking liberties as I said before, I find this story really draws me in. While Julie and Julia definitely had a stellar cast and I do have that movie on DVD, I wasn’t as taken with the format structure and found it pulled me out a lot.

        This show has great fashion and sets, too, so that’s a big draw for me as well. So fun.

    2. When we were graduate students in Boston in the 80s, my husband and I would occasionally run into Julia at a small specialty grocers. She was lovely (and awe-inspiring), as she chatted away with the butcher and other shopkeepers.

  13. Glad to be back home even though we had a dusting of SNOW in April, which I have specifically forbidden.

    Was planning to get a large fancy cake for my birthday next week, but have not been inspired by my researches. Might just trust there will be a good one in the case at my local upscale market. I released attachment, so all good.

    Have I mentioned glad to be home with DH, kitties, and my own bed? Even looking forward to going to work.

  14. Happiness is clearing the top of one’s computer desk so one can run a cloth and Windex over it. So nice to see it again. Also, it’s glass, so the light above the desk shines on my feet and knees again. 🙂

    Happiness is looking at the Red Sails Lettuce bush (that thing is huge) and thinking, “lunch!” With croutons and home made dressing and bacon bits. Soon. 🙂

    Happiness is looking past the lettuce and seeing a plethora (well, maybe a third of a plethora) of little green balls on my tomato plants. I had nearly despaired of having tomatoes, and now I’m counting on them for future salads. Murphy wants to remind me about chickens and unhatched eggs, but I’ve got the (little green) balls to stand up to him. 🙂

    If cleaning off my desk made me happy, imagine what cleaning off my kitchen counters has done. I combined two lazy Susans into one three-tier lazy Sue with all my spices and sweeteners and room for more. I cleaned and stowed my hot plate and frying pan – they’d been out and in use for a month, making chili and stir-fry and stuff. 🙂

    Happiness is also opening an old friend of a book and finding it still delights. Callahan’s Lady by Spider Robinson. In my misspent youth, one of the books I read was his Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, which excited my love of puns no end. Lady Sally is Callahan’s Lady, his wife, and she runs a brothel – a house of good repute – in which there are no whores and johns, just artists and clients. 🙂

    Happiness is also an adequate cup of coffee, even if it is instant coffee. It’s the chocolate stevia and mini-moos, y’see. And the straw. 🙂

    Happiness is getting a call from the doctor’s office because the insurance company did not require pre-approval of my Echocardiogram, and they wondered at that. Good insurance. 🙂

    Happiness is enjoying retirement. I am. Very much. I should have done this twenty-five years ago. 🙂

      1. Have you read Callahan’s Lady? It is a delight, and the main character, Maureen, hates puns – but because of Callahan, her husband, they are tolerated in Lady Sally’s. And despite her avowed hatred, Moe is quite good at them. They are even important to the plots (there are four stories in the book.) Or how about Lady Sling the Booze, in which the protagonist is a Private Investigator who helps Lady Sally Save The World? Also quite punderful.

        1. “…because of [Mike] Callahan [of Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon], her [Lady Sally’s] husband…”

          I thought some clarification was in order.

  15. Happiness is the riot of flowers in my front yard, and the baby morning glories popping their first leaves up out of the dirt in back. We had a full day of rain last Monday, which softened up our baked-hard dirt in back, which meant I could sink the feet of my trellises much deeper and they should now stand up properly all year (even under what I hope will be an onslaught of flowering vines).

    Satisfaction is getting my one contribution to our joint tax return ready to hand over. The health savings account is my job, and I leave it till April because the banks tend not to have the tax forms ready to download till then. Also my DH doesn’t start this process until after he finishes doing his mother’s tax return, so there was no rush.

    Relief is that my parents have bought a lot near my sister on which to build the Last House; they have bought a house near my sister in which to live while the Last House is built; and they have sold the house they’re living in now, to friends who don’t need to take possession until after my folks are, in their own good time, moved out. It’s still a low-key concern because my folks are in their early 80s and all kinds of sh*t can happen, but if they can get up to NC this year in good order, then DH and I can visit the whole family in one place and my sister can keep an eye on them going forward. Having them two states away from her and a continent away from me has been worrisome of late.

  16. Rehearsals are going well. I saw a cool production of Hunchback of Notre Dame last night. The weather is lovely here. I sort of have most of today off so I’m going to go watch the Lost City movie.

  18. Happiness has been figuring out where and how I want to use the gift certificate my niece and her husband are giving me for my birthday. This resulted in an exchange of emails that brightened up my life for several weeks. An added bonus has been that the research provided me with a short list of suggestions I can give my foodie friend in Minneapolis when he visits this summer. He always asks me where to go when he comes to town and I never have any answers. Perhaps this year when he comes to town, I can treat Him! It would be a nice reversal of roles.

    During the exchange of emails with Mr Foodie, I found out that he and his partner are buying a house together. This also made me happy because had I not forwarded the list of restaurants to him, I wouldn’t have heard about this for the better part of a year. I am trying to reopen communications with all the people I’ve neglected for the last 2 years and this seems like a good way to start. Now if I can just keep it going for another few weeks, I might just remember how to be a friend. In the meantime I am getting suggestions on Chicago dining from people in Milwaukee to send to somebody in Minneapolis. It feels good to have some connections again, even if they aren’t very direct.

  19. I sent out a note to all sorts of family and friends with the website for a gofundme project that my son and daughter-in-law volunteer for. The project was created by a Canadian woman living in Warsaw, Poland. She, with others, arranges — whenever she can — a bus to drive to Lviv or a train to run to Kyiv. Volunteers show up in the middle of the night when vans arrive with all sorts of donations for Ukrainians. The bus or the train car (they’re all passenger cars) is filled to the gills with boxes. Then the bus or train rolls off. They return filled with Ukrainian refugees.

    Anyway, I didn’t know how to phrase my email and worked on it a lot. I hate asking people for money. But I’ve heard from a bunch of people I sent the email to — they “got” what I was trying to say. And the gofundme is receiving some donations.

    That made me happy.

  20. I finally made it back to Washington state for vacation, after 4 years, and am so delighted! The weather was gorgeous in Seattle yesterday, I visited the MOHIA for the first time (and I am beyond impressed) AND my suitcase (which missed getting on the plane after a super tight connection in Phoenix) was delivered to the hotel fairly early in the evening. Yea!

  21. Happiness was having lunch with my dear, dear friend before she has surgery next week (esophageal cancer) and my spiritual daughter. They call themselves the widows as in “come have lunch with the widows.” We had a glorious time. Dear friend’s hair has grown back. I finally was able to give her presents to her. A soft hat and cozy socks.

    Happiness was hearing my first born son’s surgery on lower lip removed the squamous cancer spot. So thankful and happy.

  22. At Thursday night’s choir rehearsal, the soloist for today’s piece was missing. The director invited anyone to sing it for rehearsal. When it started, no one took her up on it, so I did. Luckily it wasn’t too hard, since I was sight reading! But it was so fun to sing and have the choir as my backup singers. I felt that joy for hours afterwards. At the end of it, the director told me I was the designated understudy for that piece.

    Saturday night, she told me that the original soloist was sick – did I want to sing it for Sunday services. I went for it. I was nervous, but determined not to mess it up. (It helped that it was well into the service, so I could relax a little.) I got lots of nice compliments afterwards.

  23. Happy that the hostas I planted last fall are coming back up! I had pretty much given up on them. Also happy; watching Yuri on Ice because awwwwwww.

    1. When we were in Ireland in May 2018 there was a huge discussion on a gardening group I belong to on Facebook about hostas and whether or not they were alive or dead in peoples’ gardens. When we were at Blarney Castle (they have a huge shade garden), I took a picture of two hostas side by side. One had about 3 tiny eyes poking out of the ground and it’s bedmate was already fully leafed out and about 18″ tall. Hostas come up in their own sweet time.

        1. So true. I do have an organic spray made I think of rotten eggs and garlic that smells terrible to humans for 24 hours and keeps deer away for weeks (you use it weekly for three weeks abs then tri-weekly after that.) It works well for deer and bunnies .

  24. Pretty successful at turning off my brain this week even though the county has to run a special election this week and the primary comes in May so the work is overlapping. The stte has an outdated voter registration system which is not helping. And redistricting.

    Finished a simple shell afghan in violet with an off-white pin stripe. I’m happy with it.

    I need to start cleaning the ‘flower’ beds. Looking forward to work that doesn’t involve snow removal.

  25. Lots of happy this week. A friend and I booked our tickets to Costa Rica at the end of April. Another friend’s daughter needed a hair model for her hair dressing course – she used a curling iron to transform my straight shoulder length hair into fancy curls. Visit with a close friend who told me she’s getting a divorce and moving to a new province – her news didn’t make me happy but it was lovely to see her. First spring flowers in my garden- a harbinger of spring.

  26. We spent a day at an Air show. I alternated between thinking the pilots were amazing and totally nuts.
    We had perfect weather but I unfortunately got some sunburn.

  27. Justice breadcrumbs have made me happy: Opening Arguments described Alex Jones’ difficulties with the Connecticut judge. Parents of the children killed in the Sandy Hook shooting sued Jones for lies told on his Infowars show. When the time came for discovery, Jones refused to supply any material, so he’s now in contempt of court for not doing so. He is now in the throes of being required to sit for a two-day deposition to determine the damages — a deposition he really doesn’t want to do. On the day, he told the attorneys he was taken suddenly ill and unable to depose, but not too ill to do his show, which I understand involves hours of screaming. The judge found him in contempt again and set a schedule of fines which means he’ll have to come up with about half a million dollars for the court (which may return part or all if/when Jones purges the contempt) — $25,000 for April 1, $50,000 for April 4, $75,000 for April 5, and so on. Will report on again . . . .

    The Not Your Grandmother’s Book Club Podcast took a break from its usual fare of right-wing non-fiction to review LADIES FIRST, The MAGA hat Romance Novel Part 1. l This is the first chapters, and they plan to do the second half in a week or two. If you want to break down in whoops and roll around on the floor, this may be for you, since nothing like this book has been seen since that cult favorite, THE EYE OF ARGON. No one has ever seen so many fiction writing rules abandoned in such quick succession, including the real basic rule: fiction has to be plausible. Here’s the link:

    https://nygbc.podbean.com/e/nygbc-ladies-first-the-maga-hat-romance-novel-part-1-with-morgan-stringer/
    “We take a walk on the wild side, stray from the beaten path, and disappoint our ancestors by taking a dive into our first ever fiction book, LADIES FIRST, book one of the MAGA hat romance series by “Liberty Adams.” We are joined in our suffering this week by Morgan Stringer . . . .” I particularly enjoyed the biographical information on the author’s son, who has a local shrimp business in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona.

    Do you remember Kipling’s writing rules: Who, Where, When, What, Why, and How? This work doesn’t connect many of them, if any. Language and general idiocy may make the podcast NSFW.

    And very happy that on April 1, NARA released the 1950 Census. I found myself (first appearance) and my parents on Staten Island, NY,
    New York, Richmond, 43-205, page 39, lines 1-3. Now hunting grandparents, aunts and uncles, and others! If you’d like to do the same, go to:
    https://1950census.archives.gov/search/

    The trickiest part may be getting the correct enumeration district. If you can, Ancestry has a great overlay of the enumeration maps over Google maps, and you can tweak Tools/Opacity — lighten the opacity — to see the Google map. If you don’t find your street address in the enumeration group pages where it seems to belong, check the neighboring group; lots of borders go down the middle of a street.

      1. I know we want freedom of the press but it should not be so difficult to prosecute those who abuse it.

      1. You email me at axsc sbcglobal.net and we’ll work out a plan.

        I’m assuming that you’re reasonably sure your relatives were resident in the United States in 1950 (there’s only so much we can ask of a US census).

        1. Yes. They were either in NYs or Minnesota I think. Sending an email tonight. Thanks!

  28. I have no specifics and so many. Excellent baking, sharing a block of good chocolate with my bestie, laughing in the car with my daughter, dance competitions, I’ve nearly finished a scarf I’m weaving and I’m happy with it, playing with the dog, my other kid getting taller literally every morning I swear, Harry Styles new song, BBCs Sherlock (family watch, 2 a week), it’s nearly feijoa season…there is a lot to make me happy.

    And if I adjust my focus on this, blur the background, there’s a lot of happiness there.

  29. The biggest happy this week has been that Fred has accepted Hannah and they now play together like fiends. They run, they chase, they chew on each other’s faces. She got a lesson today in playing fair – if the big dog has a toy, she is not allowed to just take it from them. Cute only gets you so far. There is no lack of toys but she seems to (of course, in the way of pesky little sisters everywhere) want the one Fred has. He has been surprisingly firm with her about it.

    We found some lumber that will work for baseboards and door casing (and maybe window casing in the future) and it is really inexpensive. We will have to pick our way through piles of lumber at Home Depot to find the best boards but that’s okay.

    That could be a big day for Hannah as she is going to be with just us humans. She goes to the vet for her last puppy shot and they we are off to the city for lumber but we have to take the work truck and make a pit stop at the local Ford dealer and since Paul doesn’t want to take all his tools and stuff out, there will not be room for all 3. I’m sure Jasmine will like the day off.

  32. Last night we attended The Princess Bride in concert with the Oregon Symphony. The place was packed: little kids, bigger kids, adults of all ages. What a fun movie. Neither my husband nor I had seen it before and he had his doubts. He thought it bore a strong resemblance to Monty Python. And the Symphony was fantastic.

    Then we went out to dinner after. And I finished replanting my containers on the front balcony – a huge job. It took me 3 days. All in all, a great happiness Sunday.

  33. I don’t know if this is a happy or not. I kept a referral to the Urologist this morning. My PSA is elevated. I’ll get it retested in six weeks, and if it isn’t down, there’ll be a biopsy. It won’t be my first. The last one was negative (in 2015). Better safe.

    A definite happy is that there are New York Strips in the fridge, calling my name. “Hey, Fatso! Eat me!” I find I must oblige them. Maybe a side of brown rice. 🙂

    1. Gary, My husband just got to the other side of a high PSA scare. He’d had an elevated PSA test result a decad ago, took antibiotics for a month, and scared fine. This time he ended up taking super-powerful antibiotics for 3 months (complications with the side effects of different antibiotics) and the PSA has gone down enough. I think seeing a Urologist is in order although not a rush.

      You have the right attitude about it.

      1. My DH had an elevated PSA and surgery a few years ago for non cancer related reasons. He felt a lot better afterwards. Abs apparently the surgery was relatively new. So even if the PSA stays elevated and needs treatment it could be for a nonscary reason. ( or rather a reason that so long as you get treatment isn’t scary )

        1. Thanks, Elizabeth and Debbie. There’s no problem until there’s a problem. I tend to ask, “What’s the worst that can happen?” Of course, there’s that whiney little voice in the back of my mind that whispers, “Painful death, you dope!” I’ve spent 70 or so years ignoring little voices in my head… or something like that.

  34. I got the tattoo I’ve been wanting for a long time.
    A cup of coffee surrounded by books, the handle a semi-colon, the steam rising up and hidden within is “capable, strong, loved”.
    On the coffee mug – “stop pretending you’re normal”
    On the cover of one of the books? ALICE!

    It is amazing and it makes me so very happy.

    1. It’s keeping Working Wednesday company? Let’s give Jenny some space until we hear, one way or another. I hope she’s okay.

  36. I’m kind of happy that it’s not fully Good Book Thursday, because I’ve been backsliding. I have two good books from the library that are full of pages that in turn are full of thoughts, but I end up too tired at night to really concentrate on them. So right now I’m reading two Mary Balogh novels from the Survivor and Westcott series that have gotten sort of vague in my mind. It’s a good thing, because the re-read has brought them into better focus, and of course, since it’s Mary Balogh, I feel better about the world after I’ve finished them. Not thrilled enough to make all of you look at the titles and think “would I like those books?” but enough to register on the happiness scale. So, happy?

    1. Jinx, I wanted to reply to a comment you made to Ann in an above post about ancestry with members of families aligning themselves with one group. For instance my sister is all about the Irish side while I tend to associate with the Scottish side. Although there is a German side that no one talks about since I believe from WWl until the eighties when we discovered it was German and not Dutch as we had been taught. Anyway I thought I was the only one who felt that way.

      I have a book that I just started with a theme I have read before, Hold You Close by Melanie Harlow, about two antagonistic people who are left raising the children of his sister and her best friend and husband. And time is of the essence as I didn’t realize I had so many books taken out from the library and limited time to enjoy them all.

      1. And also let’s hope it is just a glitch with Jenny and not something more serious.

      2. Thanks, Mary! I wondered if that question was not relevant to anybody. My ancestry boils down to Irish & Swedish on one side of the family, and English/Welsh and (New Amsterdam) Dutch on the other side. Each of my nuclear family members has always had sort of a pet corner of the ancestry that interests them and that they feel spiritually akin to in some way. And the genealogy itself is kind of a mixed bag, since the Swedish side has been endlessly documented by the LDS side of the family, based on careful Svedish recordkeeping habits and the need to baptize them into LDS heaven posthumously. And it’s a giant listing of names & offspring names, plus not that much else. Per Jansson son of Jan Svenson, son of Sven Ivarsson, etc. etc.

        The Dutch side, coming to North America in the 1600s, was similarly documented by my deceased middle sister. And they all came from farm families in New Jersey with 10-15 kids apiece, many of whom married siblings of the folks their own siblings had also married. So again, names & dates and not much else. I wanted to know more about the interesting rebel Brits & Welsh, who left service jobs on estates in the area around Norwich or Swansea, became Baptists instead of C of England, and went to America steerage class, in the 1860s & 1870s. I just felt a sense of kinship with them that I can’t explain.

        Thanks again for responding! This blog rocks!

        1. Jinx, my family is similar. Croatian and Scots on my mother’s side, while my dad is Anglo-Irish. My sisters and I all relate very strongly to our Croatian heritage, but have each chosen a separate second ancestry. I feel more Irish, my younger sister more Scottish, and my older sister more English. Go figure.

          1. The American midwestern farm veldt and light industry belt, crewed by highly skilled crafts people, in the pattern of isolated far travelers world over, brought shining spiritual beauty with it, applying skill to deeply culturally derived, thrumming strength. The Croation Catholic diocese (I am not an expert – I only remember stumbling on a delicate work of intense intense spirituality, glowing and golden … in MilwaukeeWI. More precisely, West Allis WI. It made me rethink the necessity of skill to art, of spirit to cultural survival. I think there’s a Polish diocese in south Chicago, a Greek cathedral in a similar neighborhood, where art, craft, skill, cultural survival, combined with who knows what finances and reason for funding that so often sponsor power distribution and ego display. I can’t help that Socialist swerve to my architectural analysis – I’m a red diaper baby. Someone told three sisters in NYC, during the Depression, that the political party meetings had free food. A fine tradition which continues. In fact, Jo McCarthy, that fine son of the midwest soil, borrowed the notion. He always included lavish drink and reporters.

        2. Ha! Someone else with Swedish Mormon heritage. My maternal grandfather was Welsh on his father’s side and had a Swedish mom, both LDS. My grandfather’s grandfather (so my great-great) was the last polygamist in that line. My rather buttoned-down Irish/German Lutheran husband thinks that’s hilarious. His family barely has any divorces, mine is just full of scandal.

        3. Svedish recordkeeping is terrific! I especially love the Pastor’s Visit records (the pastor had to visit every home in the parish to determine that the children could all recite the Catechism, and he’d list everyone in the household with notations about additions and losses; great help in a patronymic society). My cousin has Swedish ancestry and I helped her with microfilm research. DNA put her in touch with actual DNA cousins in Sweden, so I haven’t had to do anything but look at their enlargement of the family tree.

  37. Reading Dick Francis’s Break In. Nice change of pace from ‘star thrillers, romance and WW2 spy novel (Ciji Ware).

  38. I haven’t read much as I’ve been otherwise busy — I had to get a newsletter out ASAP and am now working on an agenda for a Saturday morning meeting (nearly done) — and do the heavy shopping for litter and kibble, etc. So I reread Georgette Heyer’s DUPLICATE DEATH, possibly my favorite of her mysteries. Need to consult with my brother about Easter menu. Need to finish tax return!

    However, I did find time this morning to listed to the Not Your Grandmother’s Book Club podcast on the second half of LADIES FIRST, the MAGA romance. Reviewers concluded that the hero is stalking the heroine and that she should flee for the hills, especially as he never asks what her opinions are, he just takes one look at her in the first chapter, concludes she’s a Liberal, and thereafter doesn’t bother to ask her anything much, just tells her why what he believes she thinks is All Wrong. In fact, the whole thing is a Far Right fantasy about Setting a Leftie Straight, so it has about as much plot structure as a Trump speech.

    The last scene in this work is set at a tattoo parlor — the heroine has always dreamed of a rose tattoo — named — I kid you not — The Covington Group.

  39. Just a couple of minutes left in Official Weigh-In Day 51. 253.2 pounds. I read books this week, mostly Ring of Fire series, and Variations on a Theme chapters as they came out. I blogged about gardening and stuff. I had my echocardiogram today, now we wait for the doctor to interpret the tea leav… um, video.

    I asked the technician if I could get a copy. The dotter had copies of her ultrasounds, after all. I guess nobody ever asked, they’re not set up for it. I’d have posted stills on my blog. 🙂

    Be well, Jenny. Sending vibes and virtual hugs just in case.

    1. “Not set up for it.” Bullwackie. Having had medical facilities lose the only copy of critical medical records, I have been getting electronic records of pics & text since the Flood. “Mo-om, I can’t clean the basement floor, it makes me sneeze.”
      Consult Dotter. Maybe only women ask? Keeper of school records. Checker of invoices v. insurance reords v. kids vac records. I grow large, I contain multitudes.

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