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Things I've Done Recently

Once upon a time, a very thorough career/personality test told me many things about myself. Scary accurate, rather helpful, occasionally annoying. One of the suggestions it made, which I have been slow to adopt on account of how it makes me feel "needy," is that I would benefit from keeping a list of "recent successes" to encourage me in "emotionally difficult times." (I am inserting those quotes as remembered phrases, being far too lazy to walk upstairs and find the report and quote it accurately).

This week has been an unexpectedly "emotionally difficult time" for no particular reason, apart from being unemployed and impoverished. So I am sharing some phone photos of "recent successes" (things I did/made) in the hopes that it will remind me that I'm mostly awesome. And so you can also get excited and maybe do some of these things, if you're into doing things.


I bought this satchel for $2 at a garage sale. Dumped out the birdseed inside, gave it a good washing, treated it with leather conditioner, and VOILA, my new fave bag.


I did this. I stripped the varnish, painted, and changed the knobs. (It does have knobs now, I swear.) I am proud of my furniture-update endeavour, and will probably never do it again. But it was worth it. And now it reminds me of Kirsten, who sat and read and chatted in my garage while I made a mess.

Hey look, I weeded! Felt good. I might tackle the backyard next week. I don't think of myself as a gardener, but then again, I've never had a garden before. Oh wait, that's a lie. Vancouver-home had all kinds of garden space. I never once weeded or mowed. Maybe I'm growing up.


I made this art for my room. Because I love this phrase and I love this photo (Sacre Coeur in Paris) and it adds a nice pop that matches the dresser. It makes me happy to wake up and roll over and see this.


I bake. Last weekend it was banana bread and rhubarb hand pies (although I used pre-made puff pastry instead of her recipe) and then I had leftover filling, so I used the crust from this rhubarb bars recipe and made some more deliciousness. Today it will be chocolate chip cookies.

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