The Happy List v.2- The GLAD GAME Edition

Well, friends, this was one of those weeks when my word of the year felt a wee bit cumbersome. Like an ill-fitting coat with a collar that's too high, and sleeves too long, and puffiness that's just too darn puffy... Happy was hard this week. 

Now when talking about the majors and minors of life, this week's frowny faces have all been the result of minor inconveniences, disappointments and stressors. Believe me, I know major. I am HAPPY to say that nothing this week qualified as major. 

But still...there were some bumps.

Here is where I am learning to be glad for my word of the year though. Like Pollyanna, it's becoming an intentional daily exercise for me to try and take the rough patches, smooth them out and put a little shine on them. 

Remember The Glad Game? If you don't then it probably means you didn't have a childhood and someone failed to introduce you to the Wonderful World of Hayley Mills. I'm so sorry about that. I hope this youtube clip will restore just a smidge of your childlike wonder.

(Please follow this up with an immediate viewing of the original Parent Trap and then look for In Search of the Castaways. Then try to stop singing "Let's get together, ya, ya, ya...")

Oh, Pollyanna...you happy little scamp. Count me in for The Glad Game!

Here we go...let's turn that frown upside down!!

1. Winter is....COZY!

I'm a little over winter. At least the freezing-temperature-ice-and-snow-everywhere winter. But who has two thumbs and really enjoys any excuse to stay indoors under piles of blankets reading and/or watching TV?! This gal right here, that's who! (I'm pointing at myself with my two thumbs- FYI).

It's cold but our house is cozy and time spent with my favorite pups and people is always a good thing. Plus, it's pretty.

But just so we're clear... Spring, you are totally welcome to arrive early. Just sayin'.

2. Reading is Fun!

Sigh...thank heaven that when all else fails, there are always books. 

I'm reading a great one right now and I SO wanted to be finished with it before I put it on The Happy List but it's too good to leave it off. I'm 80% finished so I feel confident I'm going to like it all the way to the end, but I don't know the end yet, so I'm taking a leap of faith here.

It's unusual how long it is taking me to read this book. It's fairly big but I've been known to read entire books in a day so the fact that I've been working on this one for a week says something. Sometimes that would say something bad, like I'm bored with it and having a hard time sticking with it. But in this case, it's a good thing. I'm savoring it and letting the story unfold slowly which is something I almost never let a story do. I'm known for racing headlong through a book with nary a thought toward words like savoring and slow.

The title is The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob.

It's culturally interesting centering on an Indian family, with the storyline traveling from 1970's India to the 1980's in New Mexico and Seattle. In some ways it's an immigrant story, but also just a story of a family with all of their quirks, past mistakes, and struggles to love one another. I'm enthralled.

3. Comfort food is GOOD!

I made this on Monday night and it continued to make me HAPPY for two more days. 

Make this when you want something warm, and familiar, and comforting but also want to convince yourself you are still making good choices. Broccoli is also one of the vegetables Annie actually likes and asks for, so any dish with broccoli in it is going to make it into my rotation.

Not gonna lie...you still need to watch your portion size with this. But if you keep it under control you can enjoy this cheesy indulgence guilt free. 

Skinnytaste Baked Broccoli Macaroni and Cheese

Soooooooo.....good.

I'm actually mad right now the leftovers are gone. But that puts a damper on The Glad Game so I'll move on.

4. Music is a GIFT!

If I'm not sleeping, reading, or watching TV (which I really don't very often) then I'm listening to music. 

Music is one of my guaranteed, go-to mood boosters and this album by Ben Rector is currently one of my favorites. It's not new and the song Brand New has gotten quite a lot of airtime so you may be familiar with it. But honestly, I don't think that is the best song on the album by a long shot. 

Here is my favorite that has become sort of an anthem for me: 

I used to think I needed all the answers

I used to need to know that I was right

I used to be afraid of things I couldn't cover up in black and white

But I just wanna look more like love

I just wanna look more like love

This whole world is spinning crazy

And I can't quite keep up

It's the one thing around here

That we don't have quite enough of

So I just wanna look a little more...

like love.

I hear a lot about love these days and how it "wins" and conquers all and is the answer. And I don't disagree. But sometimes it feels as though those phrases are still being wielded like a weapon. That the love that wins is really only reserved for the chosen ones who belong to the right crowd. 

Our crowd.

I'm challenging myself to practice a more radical love that includes those who I disagree with and who disagree with me. People who don't like me or my ideas and, if I'm honest, people I'm not so crazy about either. 

Is it really hard to love people who already agree with everything you think and do? Is that much of a stretch?

I can only speak for myself and I know that I need to work on loving and listening beyond my own intellectual, emotional and spiritual walls.

I just wanna look more like love. 

To everyone.

That would make me HAPPY! 😍

5. Because sometimes we just want pretty eyelashes

So, I was given this as a sample at Sephora and my first thought was:

Seriously? Eyelash Primer? Now that is a gimmick if I've ever heard one. The cosmetic industry will do anything to steal our money!

And my second thought was:

Give it to me. 

I never said I wasn't a sucker for a good makeup gimmick.

But I have since eaten my words twenty times over! This stuff works!! 

I have been blessed with dark eyelashes but they are incredibly thick and straight. I mostly use mascara to give them a little more oomph, definition, and shape. But no matter what I used I found I always ended up with either flaking, or smudging under the eye over the course of the day or evening. 

NO MORE!!

First of all whatever is in this magical tube of white goodness (yes, it's white) it helps to give my lashes more natural curl than any mascara ever has. I'm almost worried it's Elmer's glue, but if it is do not tell me. I don't want to know. Leave me to my innocence.

Once I put this on and let it set then it's off to the races with my usual mascara. Right now I'm just using a Neutrogena mascara and it seems to be working dandy with my heavenly eyelash primer of goodness. (Too much? I really do like it.) 

I don't even wear mascara everyday but when I do...this is now my secret weapon.

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So, there you go- this week's Happy List! Proof positive that even on a bad week there are still things you can find to make you smile.

Pollyanna is so proud of me.

Come on, play along! The Glad Game is just good clean fun for everyone.

Be HAPPY, friends!

The Happy List v.1

It's cold here.

Really, really cold.

That means I'm spending a lot of time indoors which gives me too much lots of time to think, surf the internet, read, shop online, and apparently, blog about it all.

Some of the blogs I read do a regular "Friday Favorites" feature which I always enjoy. I'm a fan of reading a hodgepodge of mostly useless but sometimes helpful ideas, products, and activities from people I don't know in real life but kinda like to think I do. Sitting here this morning, after having braved a freezing cold trip to Trader Joes and deciding I was never leaving my house again, I thought to myself, "Self, why don't you just have a little fun (remember, I'm having FUN these days) and write your own little list of what is making you HAPPY this week." I thought Self had a good idea, so here we go- for better or for worse.

Just so we are clear, I'm not promising this is a new regular feature. I'd loooove to say it would be, but there's that whole issue of mine with sustaining new ideas...sometimes yes, sometimes no. It's really hit or miss and there's no way of predicting the outcome at this early juncture. Stay tuned. 

1. Trader Joe's Ultra Moisturizing Hand Cream

I'm starting with this because 1) It's right in front of me, and 2) I don't want to set the bar too high and have your interest pique right at the outset, but I also don't want to kick this off with a total loser. Hand cream seemed a safe bet.

I actually literally picked this up this morning and the nice TJ checkout gal and I had an extended conversation about it. She was really curious to know what I thought of it and I promised I'd report back. This is what people living in freezing temperatures talk about. 

Here's what I think after one use thus far: I like it. Helpful? No? Okay, I like how it goes on feeling really thick and moisturizing but it soaks in quickly and before you know it you are typing away on a keyboard with no greasy, slippery feeling in your fingertips (slippery is not a benefit when typing). For you smell-sensitive people, there is definitely a scent, but I find it a pleasant one. Not floral-y. I do not do floral scents. Shudder. But it's not a citrus-y scent either. I will do citrus scents. I am smelling my hands right now and I can't put my finger on how to describe it. Maybe a combination of baby powder and coconut? (Somewhere there is a perfume chemist fainting dead on the floor at my inability to describe a scent accurately). 

Anywhoooo.... For the one hour I have been using this hand cream, I am downright pleased. I will be keeping it in my desk drawer so I can have nicely moisturized but not slippery hands on these dry, bitterly cold days. (Have I mentioned it's cold?)

2. Plan To Eat

Okay, so I wasn't going to put this out there until I had been using it a little longer because of my very public struggles with meal planning and sticking with any plan relating to meal planning...but....this really is one of my favorite finds of the past couple weeks.

Here is what I can tell you, in the past 10 days I have only gone to the grocery store 3 times (That is record setting for me. I have been known to go to the grocery store 3 times in a single day.) I have had an advance plan for dinner every night aaaand- here's the kicker- have gone into the dinner hour knowing not only that I had a plan but that I had the ingredients on hand!

Whoop! Whoop!!

Here's where this site is making a difference for me. I don't necessarily hate to cook. I have many recipes I like and that my family likes. In fact, what I don't like are any meal planning services that tell me what to prepare. I KNOW WHAT WE LIKE, and I like finding new recipes for myself. What I HATE (yes, all caps) is making a grocery list for multiple meals, from multiple recipes, spread across several days. All the flipping back and forth to lists, the writing down, the cross-checking of ingredients...bleccch. Just put me back to bed. 

Enter....PLAN TO EAT!!

I get to import all of my favorite recipes (and it's super easy to do), drag and drop them into a calendar, and voila!! They produce my shopping list!! I can easily edit the shopping list based on ingredients I already know I have on hand, or items I want to add, or substitutions etc... and the list will be right there on my phone when I'm ready to hit the dang store. (Sorry for the colorful language.) 

I cannot over-emphasize all of the versatility of this site. I'm only still learning it all myself. It will adjust recipes based on quantity for you, you can create separate store lists if you shop different places for different things, you can add friends and then you have access to your friend's recipes as well (hello, Sister!!), you can easily shuffle meals around on your plan....I'm just agog, AGOG, I tell you, how user friendly and adaptable this site is! I. Am. Loving. It.

It is also very affordable. You can do a 30 day free trial and if you decide you want to stick with it you can either pay $4.95 a month, or $39 a year. 

I mean, come on! How much is your time worth? I'm quite sure I saved nearly one billion dollars in quality of life currency over the past 10 days by not going to the grocery store, pushing my cart through snowy, icy parking lots, every. single. day. (Which would normally be what I would have done.)

Plan To Eat. Friday Fave for sure.

3. The Secret Wife by Gill Paul

So, one of my "happy goals" of 2017 is to read more fiction. I always enjoy fiction but when I'm in a more introspective, ponderish, broody place I start reading more non-fiction in the areas of theology, spirtuality, self-helpish sort of stuff. The former Psychology/Religious Studies major in me eats it up, and it does me good in a way that fiction doesn't. However, reading fiction and escaping into other places, time periods, and imaginary people's lives also does me good in a way that all of the deep-dive intellectual stuff can't. 

I started one book at the beginning of the month but I wasn't liking it. I used to never abandon books. I can count on one hand the number of books that I've started and not finished in my lifetime. But using my One Word as my guide, I decided that to continue reading a book that wasn't making me "happy" was silly. I moved on.

Luckily, my second try was a winner. This is not great literature (please look to someone else's recommendations if that's what you are looking for), but for me this book did what I wanted it to do. It sucked me right in and kept me turning pages and interested right until the very end. 

Now, I can't tell you how much I dislike the cover art for this book. If you read the book you get where this image ties into the story, but it really gives the wrong impression for the overall nature of the book. The book is historical fiction but it jumps back and forth between past and present, ultimately tying the two together. I'm a fan of that literary technique (or whatever you want to call it). The historical part centers on the Royal Romanovs of Russia just before they are overthrown by the Bolsheviks, and then following their not so friendly removal from power. It was entertaining and interesting and is one of those that finds you going to Google to remind yourself of all that history that you once learned but have since forgotten.

4. Nordstrom Caslon Long Sleeve Tee

Okay- just a long sleeve tee... I know. But, I have been shouting from the rooftops for months now, "MY KINGDOM FOR A NOT BOXY, NOT TUNIC LENGTH, NOT SLUB FABRIC, SLIGHTLY FITTED LONG-SLEEVE TEE!!!"

The neighbors are so thrilled I have finally found one.

I think Nordstrom has probably had this basic for an eternity but I was always happy with my long sleeve GAP tees so that is what I went with for years. UNTIL THEY CHANGED THEM. (She crumbles into a heap unable to function for days.)

And now I've been on a long-sleeve tee quest and it has been harder than it should be because it seems we are never going to leave this fashion cycle of everything fitting big, and "slouchy" (which is just a new euphemism for tent-like), and tunic-y, and otherwise TOTALLY WRONG for someone who is only 5'1" with curves. 

All you tall, willowy people look positively lovely in your flowing fabrics and ponchos. I promise you do and I even envy you. But that is the wrong direction to go when you are short with curves. Without at least a semi-defined waistline, you are headed straight to Oompa-LoompaVille. You can take that to the bank and cross-stitch it on a pillow, my friends.

So, this tee is saving me from that fate. 

FYI: In case you are looking to purchase one yourself and not sure about sizing: Based on reviews and the sizing recommendation that says it runs a little small, I went with a Petite Medium. (That was my other excitement with this tee. It comes in Petites sizing!). The PM was right for me. It's still fitted enough to be great as a layering piece but loose enough to be worn out its own. (If you know me in real life, that might help you with sizing. If you don't then that will be zero help at all. You're welcome.)

Thanks, Nordys. I've found my will to live again.

5. Un-Fancy

I enjoy following a few real bloggers out there. (I say 'real bloggers' as in people who are clearly trying to cultivate a following and make some money out of their hobby- and actually blog on a regular basis- unlike, ahem, fake bloggers like myself.)

Anywhoooo... I had a handful I followed and kept up to date with but hadn't added anyone new in awhile. I don't like getting too many on my list because then it starts to feel like it's just something that clogs up my email and reading all of them becomes another 'to do'.

However, somehow this week, and I honestly can't remember where or how, I stumbled on this gal and after reading through a few of her posts I decided to subscribe. I'm really drawn to her more minimalist, capsule wardrobe approach but she does it in a way that still looks fun and not like you are just wearing a "uniform" all the time. (Although truth be told, I'm a big fan of a uniform. I lean toward finding combos I like and sticking with it. Like a good long-sleeve, semi-fitted tee! Just sayin'.)

Now this gal is young, and tall, and willowy, and no kids, so we pretty much have everything in the world in common but I like her anyway. I also like her emphasis on responsible shopping and hunting down ethically made products.

She's doing a 10 x 10 day challenge right now with her friend and fellow blogger, Style Bee, so now I'm getting hooked on her too. My blog list may have just increased by two...

Check her out! She's fun!

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Hope you enjoyed this first-ever-possibly-not-last-I'm-not-making-any-promises Friday Finds, Fun and Favorites!

Have a great Friday, a restful weekend, and don't forget to BE HAPPY!!

XO