It makes me happy to write about things that make me happy.

So that's what I'm doing today.

This is not by any means an exhaustive list. These are the few at the top of my mind this morning.

1.  These colors.

Autumn is pretty, and spring is pretty, and winter is pretty when I'm looking at pristine snow on the other side of a window, with my hands cradling a steaming mug and a snapping fire behind me. (Rare in Seattle. Winters here are just gray and soggy.)  But I am a summer person.  I like ripe. I like full. I like a cold drink in hot sun and a breeze off the water. I like juice running down my chin. I like the way lush green growth and azure skies replenish my soul.

The forecast says this should be the last nice weekend for many moons. Today's to-do list: plant my butt in a deck chair with a book.

2.  Dream Girl.

Possibly the only time I will arrive at a coffee house before she does.

My daughter has been Dream Girl since she was 4 and said, as I was tucking her in one night, "Sometimes I wonder if I'm really real, or if someone is just dreaming me."  Co-creation as a bedtime story. ~boggle~ She is an enigma, a walking bundle of contradictions, a child genius, a smartass, a snugglebunny, a giver of unconditional love to those who know how to accept her, a more amazing conglomeration of DNA than I could have imagined if I had dreamed her up. I learn way more from her than I teach her. I have paid more than one price to have this astounding being in my life, and I would pay them all again and again to keep her.

3.  Petunias.

The house of my childhood, in Aurora, Colorado, had a large back patio surrounded by a brick planter that my dad filled with a color riot of petunias every spring. Even if I only have space for a small pot, I always have petunias now. It keeps Dad with me a little bit. Bonus: hummingbirds like petunias, too.

4. Other people's old sticks.

Creative Commons.

When I was in second grade I carted home another kid's show-and-tell contribution, a small tree branch with a cocoon on it. It had been sitting in the classroom not doing anything, long past the time when it should have opened. Its contributor was bored with it and the teacher said it had to go. It sat on my bookshelf, looking steadily drier and more crinkled, stubbornly refusing to do anything else cocoon-y, finally fading into the backdrop of comforting things that composed My Room. Weeks later I went to my room after dinner and saw this stunning creature sitting in the middle of my bed. The whole family crowded into the doorway, staring in wonder. Finally my dad carefully gathered it up and set it free outside. My mother checked the encyclopedia (I had the conscientious sort of parents who bought encyclopedias) and we all learned it was a Cecropia moth. My room was never the same; it had been dusted with magic.

The lesson is not to give up on things. Transformation happens in its own time.

5.  Brownies.

I had to use this photo from Wikimedia Commons because I have no brownies in the house. As drama mirrors life, tragedy
makes its appearance in the midst of this piece on happiness.

Not necessary to expand upon this, except to say that now I want some. For breakfast. Brownies for breakfast makes me especially happy.