7 Quick Takes on things that are bringing me JOY

I don't even know if anyone still does 7 Quick Takes anymore, but I was in the mood for an old-school blog post, so here goes.

1. The Nester on Instagram. Her stories taking her followers shopping are DELIGHTFUL. She goes to antique malls or home goods stores and explains why you want feather throw pillows, not poly. Or why you want accent items that are at least as big as pineapple (any smaller, these items will begin to feel like clutter). It's really tremendously helpful and she's just so sweet and uplifting!

{Do you not use this app? Never fear. Even without an Instagram account, you can open the website on your computer browser, and because her profile is set to public, you can access her photos and stories.}

The Nester is just really calming, wise and has such great home decor advice. While we have quite different style, I devour her insights to apply to our own home.

2. Nature journalling with the kids. 

Oh my, I always thought this was like, some lofty thing that only "real" artists or "real" naturalists do, and I just couldn't stand the idea of starting a new hobby that I wouldn't be instantly good at. 

But recently I got inspired to try it, so I watched a simple youtube video (which alas! I can not find now!) and it didn't seem nearly so daunting. I gave it a try, and my children absolutely love it. It's such a wonderfully appealing activity to the various age ranges in our home, and bonus, I enjoy doing it, too. 

How do I make it work? I DON'T try and lug our art supplies to the great outdoors. I simply bring Ziploc baggies and let the kids choose things that appeal to them to bring home and draw. I DO, however, bring a simple Ontario field guide (I found it for dirt-cheap at my local Home Hardware) so we can identify trees in the wild. I also don't bother (yet) with trying to incorporate watercoloring. That would just add another layer of setup and clean up for me, therefore making it less likely for us to actually do it.

Here's the stunningly simple approach we do:

After we come home for a walk, we put the kettle on, get out our very inexpensive spiral bound notebooks and coloured pencils and draw whatever we find in our baggies of nature treasure. The younger kids don't necessarily want to draw what we found, so I just tell them, as long as it's found in nature, you can draw it. So what if they choose to draw dolphins when all we did was take a twenty-minute romp in a land-locked deciduous forest?

The older kids get really into labelling their plants and finding the Latin names (not by my insistence or expectation, merely by my example). They also enjoy sharing interesting tidbits they find in our field guides as we draw. Accompanied by a cup of hot tea, it's really quite delightful, relaxing and educational in a fairly sneaky way. But most importantly, DOABLE.

When the weather gets colder, I intend to put out a few bird feeders to attract some critters to our home so even if we are indoors more often, we might find an interesting bird to sketch (or the occasional thieving squirrel).

3. Ridiculously early bedtimes (for myself).

I pretty much go to bed when my big kids go to bed (that is, 8pm). Worse, my oldest boys usually have a lamp on to read or play Lego for about 20 minutes after they are sent to bed. I, however, am already asleep well before that. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation of late (yes, probably that) or my thyroid problems flaring up (oh yes, that too) or perhaps the all-day every-day stimulation of so much conversation and activity swirling around me (definitely that as well), but I have just realized how DONE I am by nightfall. Is this good for social life or ability to have free time with Patrick? Nope. I'll clearly need to reassess soon. But this is what's working for me at the moment. Sleep, sleep, glorious sleep.

4. Stablio's "Happiness and Disaster"

I loved the song "Flawed Design" when I first heard it in the early Aughts, and I had the pleasure of seeing this band live in the summer of 2007 with my friend, Theresa. I bought the album soon after the concert and listened to it constantly, obsessively, in my typical angsty fashion. 

Eventually, though, I moved on, and I had forgotten about it until recently, until one of the songs popped into my head out of nowhere, prompting me to go look up this album on Spotify. Now that I have returned to it, I can't get over perennially good it is. (Favourite songs: the title track, "Coffee Spills" and of course, "Flawed Design").

{As a related note, I have come to realize that probably my favourite kind of music is "sad."

I mean, I love a whole variety of musical genres, so it's hard to pigeon hole me in that regard, but somehow music that is kind of wistful or sad is the most appealing to me. 

Psychoanalyze that if you want.}

5. Learning more about my Myers-Briggs personality type

I have done the Myers-Briggs test several times and even tried to tweak the results but I still come out with INFP. I've talked about this with my sister at various times, and she recently suggested I look at the website personalityhacker.com for a more thorough understanding of what this personality type means. 

The insights I have found there have been so helpful for me! For instance, I discovered INFP people do really well with exploring their creativity while embracing their novelty-seeking side. 

It explains perfectly why I am really enjoying nature journalling these days, and really, why I tend to take on a new project wholeheartedly but only for a short time. 

6. Pop Corners

This isn't at all deep but MAN, they are so delicious. 

Found at Costco, naturally.

7.  The premiere of "This Is Us"

You either love it or you hate it, but I am in the former category. 

It's funny, I am so emotionally invested in the characters that I get mad at them like real people in my life and then need to call my sister or my mom (fellow TIU enthusiasts) to process my BIG FEELINGS after each episode. I get that the characters can be so annoying and lacking in self-awareness, but somehow that makes me like it more, because it makes them seem believable?

Anyway, the new season premieres on October 27th. I'm SO excited to be emotionally exhausted by FICTIONAL people's lives again. Sweet, sweet catharsis.