Happiness or Bust

In another tip of the hat to a podcast that I really enjoy -- NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, which is truly outstanding and which also has a Facebook page that features the single best cross-stitch that I have ever seen anywhere ever as its profile picture -- I've decided to close out this week with a short list of Things That Are Making Me Happy Right Now.

• My gig over at Prime Parents Club. It is nice to be in the company of other talented writers who are equally awesomely flawed as people and parents. And yes, I actually do mean that as a compliment.

• These trees in the courtyard at work. No idea what they are, and I need to take a Zyrtec whenever I am anywhere near them because flowering trees = pollen = allergies = unhappiness, but as long as I take my pills, I am fine. And I love them.
• Related: weeping cherry trees. I love cherry trees in general, and weeping cherry trees in particular, and just this morning I saw one that was so pretty that my breath actually caught in my chest. I would have pulled over to take a picture but it was the middle of morning rush.
• My garden is also making me happy right now, even though the pictures you are about to see are terrible (cell phone + Instagram to cover some of the awful cell-phone-ness) and also my weeds need to be done and whatever. Still, I love the earliest spring flowers, when everything is super-saturated color and vibrance.

Those forget-me-nots are SO TINY, you guys. In just a few weeks they'll be tall and bushy and gorgeous and I love that color so very much.

• Not pictured: my peony shoots (still too hard to see in the weeds back there), the lilac buds (because I never trimmed the lilac bush or the butterfly bush back last year, and so it's hard to tell the new growth from the old scraggly stuff), the columbines (not old enough yet to tell the actual columbines from the random weeds).

So this is what's making me happy right now: writing, bad photography, and flowers. As the PCHH gang says: let me know what's making YOU happy in the comments.

Our Statistician Is Marge Innovera

I had to go get Shae some new clothes yesterday, because she's growing like a weed and none of her pants fit any more. (Yes, I know this is boring.) This has been an ongoing problem for us, this "new clothes every six months" thing, because she's kind of a tomboy (or perhaps Mommy is projecting?) and nothing seems quite "right" because everything seems to be violently pink and overtly sexual, even for the toddlers.

I mean, really: in what particular circumstances, honestly, would a bare midriff and low-rise pants be appropriate on a two-year-old in October? Or ever, for that matter? (Guess who hates low-rise pants because OH MY GOD the sciatica? And also OH MY GOD the love handles?)

Anyway, we're lucky to have a designer outlet mall near us, and in one of the shops there, I saw this dress --

I really kind of dig it, but I opted not to get it. Now I think I might be regretting changing my mind, but I just don't know. (Go figure.) I was going to get a pair of gray stockings for Shae to wear under it (and I already have a pair of purple leggings from the same store which would also match), and she has this adorable pair of sparkly purple sneakers that she could wear with it.

But I think my husband will hate it (and he definitely won't know what to do with her hair). Since I won the pick-'em football pool this week, I am thinking about going back and picking it up with the cash.

(Incidentally, I think I could rock the shit out of this, because it's totally my cup of Earl Grey ... if they made it in my size, which of course they do NOT, because why should a woman with real hips and actual breasts be allowed to wear anything cute? FASCISTS.)

So ... ?