As a follow-up to my previous thoughts about things that make me happy, I thought I would add some new ideas that are making my life simpler. These small facets of life are especially useful now that the semester is in full swing, and I am experiencing the effects of many stressful and time consuming (albeit fulfilling and interesting) activities like teaching a field course, grading essays from the same course (which happens to be writing intensive), mentoring a new undergrad and a new grad student in the lab, and writing a gazillion papers and grants (OK, maybe just several papers and one grant, but still...).
- Metal lined travel coffee mugs. Do NOT be distracted by mugs that are metal on the outside but plastic on the inside! My favorites keep coffee hot for HOURS. I'm trying to make sure I don't regularly drink a latte for breakfast (even if it's made with real milk, it's still not a meal), but I still have the mug...just replace with tea.
- Over the door hooks. Mine are basically these, but I bought them at the grocery on clearance. We have been without a clothes dryer for several months now, and I don't really care to obtain a functional one. That being said, summer is rough here in MO because the humidity is too high for clothes to dry efficiently in the basement, and then they smell all...basement-y. To remedy this, I have started hanging select items of clothing (read: Bill's clothes that are heavy and full of cloth like boy clothes) upstairs so they can dry quicker. These hooks have made it possible to dry almost an entire load of clothes upstairs without being too inconvenient. When I'm motivated and organized, clothes go outside. But until I manage that with regularity, this will help.
These are things that make me happy, and remind me to let up on the gas pedal of my mind and soul and cruise a little bit through life. Well, maybe this is a little stupid and I'm waxing a little poetic, but what do you expect? That crap has to be dumped out of my brain somehow, and it sure isn't going to happen while I'm writing about phylogenetics and genome size evolution.
