Things To Make Me Smile

It’s rather a grey Monday here, with rain and more rain. I’m back at work after a long weekend, when the biggest decisions I had to make were how many batches of cookies to bake, if the foot of my sock was long enough to start the toe and whether I should take a nap now or later. This whole "working for a living" thing really cuts into my sitting around time, and I’m trying hard not to resent it.

To cheer myself up, I went poking through my photos for things to make me smile… and I thought if they made me smile they might make you smile too.



These are tulips along my front porch, taken a couple of springs ago. The bed has been dug out as part of my front-yard redesign, and the bulbs redistributed. It reminds me that spring generally comes after winter, and that I have them to look forward to in a few months.

Speaking of flowers, here are some tiny black violas a couple of days after they’d been planted last spring. The blossoms are about as big as a US quarter.



I’ve been in love with violas and pansies since I was a little girl, and I’ve probably planted thousands of them. Some of them come back the next year and some of them don’t. I hope these come back; they’ve got such pretty faces.

I call this one The Thinker:



This is my husband, contemplating how best to get a week worth of clothes and camping gear into the saddlebags on his Harley. He was headed down to California to see a MotoGP race, hooking up with his father and some friends on the road. If I recall correctly, finding a way to take the hat with him was one of the trickier parts.

This picture makes me smile and tear up at the same time.



It’s one of a pair of Dashing which my dear friend EssJay made for my mother. When I told some of my forum friends that my mother was going through yet another cancer battle, EssJay decided to reach out to her. We talked about color choices (I said pink, of course) and fiber allergies (no wool right next to her skin) and this is what came of it. This picture reminds me that there are some truly compassionate people out there, and that help comes in many forms.

And then there’s this little dude, who I met at the Black Sheep Gathering last June.



If an alpaca can’t bring a smile to your face, I just don’t know what else I can do for you.



My brother, his baby girl, and a hand-knit sweater. Another smile-and-sniffle one. She’s got him wrapped around her chubby little finger, and he couldn’t be happier.

The successfully grafted toes of my first pair of wearable socks.



It must have taken me two hours, and I just don’t think my husband appreciated it as much as I did.

I live in a valley right at the edge of a temperate rain forest. A friend of mine once commented that we have 97 kinds of rain here. Today it’s making me a little bit glum, but the rain and the rivers give me sights like this



This is the Lower South Falls at Silver Falls State Park. You can take a seven mile hike along Silver Creek to see ten waterfalls, and although I’ve walked it many times it never gets old. All the shades of green in the world seem to live along the trail, and the falls are a wonder.

And finally, the thing guaranteed to make any knitter smile… yarn:



Or, more accurately, thread. Blue Moon Fiber Arts Silk Thread in Valkyrie, 2500 glorious yards of it. I’m still searching for the perfect pattern for it, and in the meantime I like to take it out and pet it now and then.

Hey, what do you know? I’m smiling!