Making Me Happy This Week–2/18/2018

Although lots of things happened this week that were obviously not happy, or rather sad and frustrating, I choose to still make this list.  Because even amongst sad things in the news and frustrating things in our lives, it’s still worth remembering all the little things that give us joy.  I’ve been making this weekly list for a couple of years now, in my paper notebook.  This year I’ve decided to share my list on the blog.  I hope that it inspires you to make your own happy lists.

Here’s what’s making me happy this week:

• My “tower of pens” on the shelf on my desk (photo above).  I cleaned up my home office and my desk, and rearranged some stuff on my desk for workflow and process improvement, and now I can see my pens on the shelf.  The clear organizers are these from Amazon.  They come with clamps so you can clamp them together and they don’t fall over. 
• Kristin Ess hair products from Target.  They smell great and work really well.  I have the shampoo, conditioner, dry texture spray, and the rose gold spray color.
• Queer Eye reboot on Netflix.  I watched the original Fab 5, and I love the new Fab 5.  The episodes make me cry, because they don’t just makeover the man’s outsides.  They really care about the person and make the men feel worthy and worthy to be loved.  It’s actually quite emotional.  And apparently I am not the only one who cries while watching.
• Matty M blazers from Costco for $19.99!  I found these blazers online at Costco.com and they are exact dupes of the Caslon knit blazers that I got from Nordstrom for 3x the price!  I loooooove wearing them to work, because they look sharp like blazers, but they actually feel like sweatshirts, they are so comfy!  I usually wear M on top, but got a size S in both the Nordstrom and the Costco blazers.  They run big.  The black and gray ones are Matty M, while the olive and the navy ones are Caslon.
• Finishing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire book (#4).  Wow, Harry & his friends are maturing into young adults!  This book had a ton of character development and dealt with a little more mature themes than in the previous books.  I enjoyed it a lot!  We watched the movie last night and I really enjoyed all the boys’ moppy long hair.  I can’t remember if that’s how teenage boys had their hair back in 2005?? 
• Noodle snuggling on Todd.
• Todd going to Taqueria Revolucion in San Ysidro.  Todd applied for Global Entry and had his interview scheduled this past Wednesday.  He had to drive all the way to their office at the last US exit before the Mexico border.  I told him he should Yelp and find a good Mexican place down there to eat lunch, so he decided on Taqueria Revolucion.  He also got some churros from Churros El Tigre!
• Jazz concert the library.  Todd was very excited to see this band that we saw at the San Diego Jazz Festival a few years ago.  We got there a couple of minutes late and it was completely PACKED!  We had to stand in the back, there were no seats left.  And as you can also see, we were the youngest people there, even though we are NOT young!  Todd’s musical taste has us being the youngest at concerts still, ha ha.
• Todd finally meeting up with his friend Ryan, after not seeing him for years.  They kept making plans but it just hadn’t worked out.
• Noodle lying in the sun, sunning his belly.
• Chinese New Year lunch with work and ex-work friends at the Chinese buffet.  I haven’t seen some of these people in a couple of years.  So good to catch up!  Some of them have retired and I got to hear their retired life and be inspired.  Not that I need any more inspiration!  I got a taste of it during my 10 week leave of absence last year and I cannot wait to retire!
• Valentines gifts from my girl friends at work.  They made me feel special.  I am so fortunate to have friends at work!
• Todd finishing his birthday puzzle, with some “help” from Noodle.  I got Todd two puzzles for his birthday, but it turns out he already has one of them.  So he played the other one this week.  He LOVES puzzles.
• Taco salad at Mendocino Farms.  We had this yesterday and we BOTH thought it was SO good!  The funny thing is, we didn’t even know it was vegan until I found the link to it this morning for the blog post.  I thought it was real meat.  Even the dressing was vegan, and it was delicious.
• This guy draws new heads to put on people he sees on his commute.  It’s hilarious!