My friend Bonnie decided on her birthday this year that she would take a picture every day of something that made her happy, to remind herself in the midst of a difficult time to Find the Happy. She decided to create a Flickr group so her friends could share the happy too.

Finding a bit of Happy each day.

The rules:

1. Find some Happy and photograph it each day. You could choose to do it less often if that works better for your life but my theory is that the more often you look for the Happy, the more the Happy helps.
2. Do it for a year. Or less. Or more. Or as needed.
3. No Unhappy allowed. That also includes self-abuse if you miss a day or lots of days. Hippie voice: Go with the flow, man. Everything is as it should be.
4. Rules are for breaking. Except Number 3, it’s best not to upset Hippie Voice.

My heart has been heavy lately, thinking about Samantha. So I’m reminding myself of some happy things.

I don’t know about you, but homemade black-and-white cookies make me very happy.

So does the cool way the sun was reflecting off this dotty coffee mug. Like little bubbles of sunlight!

I happened to glance at Annalie’s calendar a day or two before Troy’s birthday and was tickled to realize that she had drawn a miniature portrait of our family on that date, complete with him in a party hat.

I love it when I get a teeny painting of a harried-looking coffee-drinking cat in the mail. Thanks, Brenda!

French toast with powdered sugar on a sunshiny dottery plate.

Keeping a baby alive and homeschooling a 7-year-old are both time-consuming pursuits (duh), but while I barely have time to shower and I don’t seem to have time for housework, I manage to cook dinner almost every night and write emails and blog posts (sort of) and I’ve been crocheting a lot. So I guess it’s true that you do make time for what you love. And crocheting makes me happy.

I’m sure that in a year or so I’ll be hearing many cries of “Mo-ooom, make her stop touching my stuff!” So I try extra hard to enjoy the sweet moments like this, when it’s clear how much Annalie loves her little sister.

On one of Troy’s Navy deployments years ago, he happened to go to a wine festival in Cyprus, and he brought back two of these little glasses. They’re the perfect size for a shot of juice or taking a packet of Emergen-C, and it makes me smile each time I use one. It’s such a random thing to have in my cupboard, small wineglasses from a Cypriot wine festival, yet there they are.

I went to high school and college with Rainbow Rowell. (I know, awesome name!) She wasn’t someone I hung out with, but we knew each other. We had mutual friends, and when we went to the same university we occasionally ate lunch together. I’ve been reading Rainbow’s writing for two decades now, mostly in newspaper-column or blog-post form, but now I’ve read something way more exciting: Rainbow’s very first novel, a romantic comedy called Attachments. The night I started reading it, I actually got out of bed at 3:30am, feeling compelled to send Rainbow a message to let her know I was loving her book and was genuninely happy for and proud of her. (I’ll be interviewing Rainbow soon and doing a giveaway of her book in a blog post, so stay tuned for that!)

The sun was shining into Annalie’s room just right one afternoon so that her bright fuchsia sheets were reflecting a pink glow onto everything else in the room. A few days later, Annalie picked this bouquet of wildflowers, leaves of grass, and a wild strawberry from our yard for me and arranged them in an old vanilla bottle.

The first Saturday that Sonja was here, Karyl & her girls came up to spend the day with us, which was super fun. We started with brunch—aebleskiver and home-fried potatoes and bacon and fruit—which made me very happy because I love brunch. Also, I made the aebleskiver with almond milk and coconut oil and maple syrup (in place of cow’s milk and butter and granulated sugar) so Sonja could eat them, and they were totally as delicious as usual. It was a Very Happy Thing indeed: brunch everyone could eat!

Sonja-safe brownies, made with coconut oil instead of butter and honey instead of sugar. And they tasted good! Yay! I had fun meeting the challenge of cooking without ingredients I usually rely on while Sonja was here.

I love it when naps end like this, with Elliora waking up in the Ergo and smiling when she sees me.

If I have to put up with hot and humid summer weather, at least I get to eat perfectly summery meals like this: grilled mini burgers, strawberries, and marinated cucumber salad. Yum.

After seeing Lauren’s Doctor Who necklace on Flickr, I stalked this Etsy shop until she listed more so I could buy one for myself. I like how the high-top sneaker is a reference to the Chucks habitually worn by both the Tenth Doctor and Chuck Bartowski.

We often make popcorn with the very air-popper that I used when I was a kid, and eat it out of the exact stainless-steel bowl I used to eat popcorn from. (My mom was getting rid of the air popper and asked if I wanted it; I basically swiped the bowl because I loved it so much. Both these things are 30+ years old.)

Trader Joe’s dark chocolate bar with caramel bar and black sea salt. Enough said.

We live near a good bakery and stop there on a regular basis for treats. Every time, Annalie carefully surveys the variety of lovely, fancy cookies and pastries…and then requests a plain butter cookie. I love that.

I believe we’ve mentioned before that our neighbors across the street actually own a bounce house? They put it up for birthdays and parties and random weekends just for fun. And they are happy to share it with the neighborhood kids.

Rain always makes me happy.

Neon aquamarine polish, and bare feet outside, and green grass, and bits of sidewalk chalk. Basically, summer’s here!

A while back, Jenny asked me if I could paint a colorful, mostly-not-blue, dottery teacup and saucer for her collection. I told her I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to do that, since the studio where I usually paint doesn’t often have teacups and saucers on its shelves, but that I would look into it.

The next time I went to paint, I asked about special-ordering a teacup and saucer…and was told, “You know, I think we have one in the back! Follow me.” It turned out, the studio had been commissioned to paint a bunch of teacups and saucers for an order, and there had been a couple leftover that they had not used. Serendipitous for me and for them and for Jenny!

I had a lot of fun with this custom order, partly because Jenny didn’t give me super-specific instructions. She just told me to make them dotty and happy. I think my favorite part is the saucer’s dottery center. It’s hidden until you lift the cup to drink, and then it’s a nice little surprise.

Thanks for asking me to paint this for you, Jenny! They’re in my Etsy shop whenever you’re ready to purchase them.

Wow, I have not done a pottery post for a while! I can’t believe I haven’t blogged some of these yet. I have a lot of catching up to do, so let’s get right to it…

I’ll start with my favorite thing I’ve painted recently. Before we went to California, Madge told me that her husband Fish was a wee bit jealous of the dottery mug I’d painted for her birthday last year. He was wondering if I could paint him a mug too, maybe with a Battlestar Galactica reference on it? As a BSG fan myself, I jumped all over that one. Madge and Fish and I batted around a few ideas, and eventually settled on “Oh my gods…this is FRAKKIN’ good coffee!” I added “So say we all!” on the inside as a surprise. Troy liked this mug so much that he asked me to paint another one for him, which is fine with me. It was super fun to paint.

Now I’ll go in chronological order, more or less, starting with this mug I painted for Kristen (better known in 7 Days circles as sarkasmo) way back in March, but neglected to post photos of till now. Not sure how that happened.

This was inspired by a photo she posted of herself drinking cocoa out of a “got coffee?” mug. Kristen doesn’t drink coffee, so it seemed like she needed a “got cocoa?” mug. When she had surgery last spring, it seemed like this mug would be the perfect get-well gift. The “enhancement optional” is because she spent much of the December 2009 7 Days run making extra-hilarious comments while drinking hot cocoa “enhanced” with an adult beverage of some kind, and it’s become sort of a 7 Days in-joke.

Also, on the bottom, along with my name and the date, I wrote, “It’s a FACT: Kristen is funny.” Because she IS funny, and because we’re both Kids in the Hall fans. (Semi-explanatory KitH It’s A Fact Girl skit.)

When I asked Erin what she wanted for her birthday this year, she said something like, “I must be getting old because I can’t think of anything I want. Maybe Annalie could make me something? I’d love that.” I asked Annalie if she would like to make anything for Auntie Erin, and Annalie immediately said she would like to paint her a volcano plate, because Erin loves volcanoes. Annalie designed and painted the plate entirely by herself. I especially like the ash plume, and the river flowing in the foreground.

You might recall the I-knit-so-I-don’t-kill-people mug that Brenda and I painted for Lauren early this year. A blog reader saw it, loved it, and wanted to buy it for a friend’s birthday. Brenda graciously allowed me to copy her design onto a second mug. I added the little ball of yarn with the needles stuck through it on the inside bottom of the mug.

Here’s a cereal bowl I painted for no other reason than that the colors made me happy.

Erin from two more seconds asked me to paint these little sake cups for her, so she could turn them into pincushions for a swap. She gave me some photos and a blog banner for inspiration, and it was fun to do something a little different than my usual mugs and plates.

I liked the colors I was using for Erin’s little cups, so I painted a little bowl for myself.

I happened to be painting these all at the little pottery studio that’s about ten minutes from my house. It’s a nice little studio and it’s much closer to me than my regular studio, but I don’t like that they charge a $6 studio fee per person. I also don’t like that their fired pieces often seem to have these black marks on them. Marks from the kiln? I don’t know.

I painted these red and orange dotty ‘be happy’ mugs at Mike‘s request, as he was thinking ahead to Christmas. They’re in my Etsy shop whenever you’re ready to buy them, Mike!

A lil’ happy jack-o-lantern dish Annalie painted while we were in California. I think she did a great job with it! She’s getting so much more precise with her painting.

Brenda painted this for Troy when we were in California, kind of as a joke. Note the empty, unpacked box in the bottom of the mug reminding Troy while he likes it when she and Bug visit us. Luckily, he thought it was pretty funny. And Brenda and Bug ARE coming back to visit us in November, yay!

I painted this square funky dish for no one in particular, just for fun. Anyone out there want it? Gimme a shout, I’ll put it in my Etsy shop for ya.

My mom asked me to paint a bowl for their remote controls, so they’re not forever searching for them. I added my own little touch inside.

I hope this bowl is big enough. Mom, do you want me to send this to you, or hang onto it and give it to you when you’re here in a couple of weeks?

I painted a Halloween plate a couple of years ago, but I was never 100% happy with it. And recently I felt compelled to send it to Bex for some reason. Maybe God whispered in my ear that she needed a little care package of happy because He knew she was going to have kind of a rough September, I don’t know. In any case, I painted a new Halloween plate for myself…and I’m not 100% happy with it either! The orange paint I used was much less orange once fired than I expected it to be. But oh well.

I do like what I wrote on it. I think I might stick this in my Etsy shop. Anyone out there want it? Let me know, I can reserve it for you if you do.

Whew. You still with me? We’re almost done, I promise!

This mug is the second one I’ve painted with one of my favorite Shakespeare quotes, from Much Ado About Nothing, Act IV, Scene I: “I do love nothing in the world so well as you: Is not that strange?”

Someone saw the first one in my Etsy shop but didn’t buy it fast enough, so she asked me to paint another. Anna, it’s in my shop whenever you’re ready to buy it.