Serenity Sunday #4

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I present to you the most divalicious calf in the history of livestock.

I think she's a Jersey cow, and she lives at the farm where the pumpkin patch is. She gives excellent side-eye, doesn't she? She wanted absolutely nothing to do with the cups of corn feed that they sold at the petting zoo, but she was eating grass and weeds by the handful. Also, she has attitude to spare. She's probably called "Elsie Borden" or somesuch, but I think she deserves a fawncier name, so I shall call her "Little Miss Lady Elsinor Louise 'Buttercup' Bordenton-Smythe."

Needless to say, she makes me want to have a cow in the backyard. We've got plenty of grass.

PS - Why won't my kid look at the camera like that?

Serenity Sunday #3

Two quick pictures of things that are making me happy right now to do my part to ensure that you have a happy Sunday.

Babies are AWESOME.

And my kid is a ROCK STAR. Rawr!

(H/T to NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour)

Serenity Sunday #2

With a continuing hat tip to NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, here are the things that are making me happy right now.

Birthday flowers. No idea what they are -- lavender roses and some kind of dark purple things that might be delphiniums, maybe, and these big stalky things that kind of look like miniature hollyhocks -- but they're super-pretty and they smell divine and they came in a purple vase because my husband knows what makes me happy.

Also: my brand new birthday computer, which is all sleek and shiny and space-age and AMAZING and it smells like money and the future and all kinds of awesome. No pictures yet, because I still want to keep it to myself a little bit, but BOY HOWDY. I should have a birthday every year or something.

This kid and her goofy faces, which never cease to entertain and amuse me. (Even though I am secretly jealous that she looks better in my new glasses than I do.) It is sure to be a great Mother's Day (or, as she called it just a few minutes ago, "Muffin's Day") with her around to crack me up.

Serenity Sunday #1

A new feature I am starting, which is a callback to an earlier post, wherein I discuss the Things That Are Making Me Happy Right Now, with a continuing hat tip to NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. (Oh, and you know how some NPR shows have that "This is NPR" tagline at the end? This one definitely should, because even if you hate NPR for whatever reason, I believe that most people will find this particular podcast thoroughly entertaining. And their Facebook page is a hoot. Seriously, go check it out.)

Anyway: once again the things that are making me happy this week are garden-related. Because it's spring, and there are many things about spring that do NOT make me happy (ahem, allergies), but my garden ain't one of them.

This tulip is not from my garden -- it grows in the courtyard of the building where I work. Or at least it did until we had heavy rains and high winds earlier this week. Most of the time, the landscapers put in assorted annuals to fill in the "empty" spaces around the trees, but every year, there is one or two random bulbs that manage to sprout. I love the color of this tulip. It's so happy.

I love this flowering tree, also in the work courtyard. No idea what it is -- a crape myrtle, maybe? -- but it is lovely. I am not generally a fan of pink, but I love pink-flowering trees. I continue to adore weeping cherry trees, even though they're pretty much done at this point.

My lilac bush. I think I might have missed the "best" of the blooming, but I managed to get out there at least once to sniff the flowers. I wish that my allergies weren't so bad; I'd love to be able to snip some bunches and put them in every room of my house.

So that's what making me happy right now. What about you?