Happy Noticings

I’ve started a “Happy Noticings” section to my daily planner to keep me on the alert for things that please me during this season of drek.

Shoes.

I’ve been especially appreciating my shoes lately. Especially these Gore-tex trail runners from Brooks I got in the fall. They keep my feet warm and dry out on the trails with Stella. I wear them every day unless there’s deep snow. (They’re the pair on the right in the picture above.) I’ve splashed through muck and water and slush in them and my feet stay completely dry.

Love them

https://www.brooksrunning.com/en_us/brooks-running-shoes-ghost-11-gtx-womens/120276.html

I also love the pair on the left, but sadly, I don’t think Adidas makes them anymore. They’re insulated boots that keep my feet super warm in snow. I don’t wear them in deep snow, and they don’t have terrific traction, but even still, I do love them and they look stylin’ to boot.. Bonus.

On dry days, for going out, or to-and-fro from the studio, I love my Allbirds. I have them in charcoal, black, and red. They’re made of wool and I can wear them with or without socks. They are coziest shoes I’ve ever owned. Stella chewed the laces on my new black ones the other day and I was NOT PLEASED. A few months ago a woman in the Verizon store asked me about them and I took them off in the middle of my iPhone transaction and let her try them on. I can get a little too excited about stuff I love.

https://www.allbirds.com/

Blogs

Actually, just one blog. This one:

https://fromthepencup.wordpress.com/

This is pen porn. And paper porn. And planner porn. When I first found it, I lost 2 hours in her archives on a day when I did not have 2 hours to lose.

If you love pens and stationary stores and notebooks and planners and pencils and ink, ohmygod.

I now follow her, but part of me is afraid to go into my Reader each day for fear she will have posted something new and I will be sucked down the rabbit hole again. Nobody should get this excited about pens.

Not a blog, but this article in the NYTimes made me so happy. It was so funny and so true and so wonderfully written I immediately went on Amazon to see if I could pre-order her next book, How to Raise A Reader, and did. Then while I was there, I also ordered her memoir, My Life With Bob. She’s the editor of the New York Times Book Review and this piece about boredom, and her advocacy for it, is terrific.

And it’s going to pair so well with the next book my book group is reading, At my suggestion we’re going with Cal Newport’s latest, Digital Minimalism. I haven’t started it yet, but I was a part of his Digital Declutter experiment last year. I blogged about it and gave a my weekly Recap HERE.

So those are a few things that have been making me happy this month. What has been lighting up your life? Please share! I so appreciate finding wonderful things, especially now, when winter seems like it will never end.