Monday, February 21, 2011

Exercise in the Happies

I've been in a bad mood lately. I'm sure that's fairly clear from my blog.  Okay, bad mood isn't really quite right. At the risk of sounding emo, I've been in a soul-ache. So much bad stuff, so much uprising, so much violence and wrong-doing and smug people acting like they know so much more than everyone else is just draining me.

I'm tied of feeling drained though, so tonight's blog is going to be about happy things.  And not in some abstract way either. Just things right around me that make my life a great place to be.

The newest thing that makes me just giddy as all hell is a plastic toy wand I got as a party favor at my niece's birthday. It's pinkishpurpish and has a star shape at the top of it.  It is completely silly and will probably be broken within a week or so. In the meantime, I'm using it to "cast spells" on the cats. They think it's an exotic brush.

Then we have my Valentine's Day flowers. Both bouquets are still blooming and it's so beautiful to see them.  Having the flowers in the house has been such a delight. I loved getting them and find the vases both came in to be quite adorable.  They will be keepers.

Next to the flowers are two antique glass lamps. I love them for two reasons.  First of all, they belonged to my grandparents. When my uncle saw them, he said he remembered them from when he was a kid.  So there is a connection between them and the last two generations of my family.  The other reason I love them is because I rewired them myself.  My roommate found them in the barn and brought them inside.  We cleaned them up and bought some lamp kits for them. I did the wiring, even learned how to do an underwriter's knot. So when I look at them, I know there was a collective effort between my roommate and I to make them possible.

Speaking of my roomie, he's another reason I am happy in this space. He hung the curtains, sconces, and art.  None of this was easy, the walls are ancient and I suspect made of dried toothpaste and tend to break very easily. There was a lot of cussing involved, but he pushed through it. Now things look put together and decorated.  My roommate has this real gift for color and pattern.  Sometimes he will show me patterns and I will think he is insane. Then he puts them with everything else and it looks amazing. Love that.

OH! My roommate did this other great thing too. My grandmother had this old gaudy mirror on the mantle. Since we moved here, it sat horizontally, looking wide and old and kinda tacky. My roommate got this brilliant idea to turn it on its side.  Same mirror on the vertical? Awesome. Deeply awesome.  Every time I look at it, I am reminded of how sometimes just switching something around can make all the difference.

With that last idea in mind, I find that I'm in a far better mood now.  I know it sounds hokey, but honestly, if you feel down and rather horrible, looking at the stuff around you that makes you smile and remembering why it does can really alter your mood. Try it some time. Believe me, it's far better to be the vertical cool mirror than the horizontal tacky one.

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