It’s Read Around the Rainbow time!!! The last Friday of every month, we’re a group of authors who blog on the same topic. This month, we decided to focus on positivity, so the topic is: Three Things That Make Me Happy.

I’m gonna be completely honest and say my mind blanked. Happy? *Scoff* such a foreign concept LOL. The last three years have been utter shit – death and suffering everywhere I turn.

But, okay, let’s try to change perspective. What makes me happy?

My garden. 

It isn’t that I have a pretty garden. It’s not fit for any magazines or pretty Instagram posts. Far from. (Though you should see my zucchini plants right now. I might have gone a bit overboard with the zucchinis this year. I have eight plants, and… eh… the yellow flowers are so pretty!)

Every time I go out into the garden, all tension leaves my body. I go around and trellis plants, touch flowers, pull weeds, and breathe easier.

I think one of the big faults in the world today is that we don’t touch the soil. Did you know that touching soil triggers the release of serotonin? Soil is an antidepressant.

Preserve Food

My second thing that makes me happy will make me sound insane, and maybe a bit trad-wifey (*snort* not a chance). I love canning, baking, and dehydrating. I love filling my shelves with jars of things I’ve grown or picked. I make jams and syrups, salsas and pickles, and so on.

I’d really like to learn how to ferment things. Apart from making sourdough bread, I’ve never fermented anything, and I want to learn how to do it.

Animals  

At first, I figured I should make my third thing writing, because what’s the point if it doesn’t make me happy? But it’s a given. Then I figured reading, reading makes me happy, but… It’s also a given, isn’t it? My family? As a mother of four, it would be sad if my children didn’t bring me joy, right? Of course they do. And I’ve been with my husband for twenty-three years, married for fifteen. If he didn’t make me happy, I’d have gotten myself a wife a long time ago LOL.

So then I thought, I’d just go with my chickens. I love my chickens, and few things make me as happy as seeing chickens run. Have you seen chickens run? Have you ever gone outside and been met by a flock coming crashing toward you, wings flapping and necks stretched out as if they can’t get their bodies to move fast enough, because they think you’re bringing them a treat? Makes me laugh every time!

But next to me as I’m writing this is Pelle, my ginger cat. He’s snoozing away, wakes up to talk to me on occasion, but spends most of his time right next to my desk. And Frallan, our other cat, who always wants to be petted. And Otis, my dog, who makes sure I get my 10k steps and then some every day, dragging me out into the forest.

And did you know that breathing in forest air lowers your blood pressure and reduces stress? I think many wrongs could be righted in the world if people touched soil and breathed forest air.

So yeah, my third thing is my animals.

Make sure to check out what the others have to say! They’ve most likely listed far more interesting things 🙂

Fiona Glass

Nell Iris

Ellie Thomas

K.L. Noone

It’s Read Around the Rainbow time!!! On the last Friday of every month, we’re a bunch of authors who get together and blog on the same topic. Since it’s a new year, we figured we should focus on something positive and talk about what we’re looking forward to in 2025.

At first, I thought I’d skip this month because with the world falling apart, I’m not really seeing anything worth looking forward to. Bleak, I know, but I feel like we’re balancing on the edge of the precipice of something truly horrendous. Remember the feeling when covid rolled in? That’s how I feel right now.

But I gave it a few days, and do you know what? I look forward to the gardening season. Where I live, I have an estimated 138 frost-free days. It’s a challenge 😅 When Mum passed away, I promised myself I’d buy a greenhouse for the money I inherited when everything was done with the estate. At first, I imagined a fancy one, but we’re not sure we’re gonna live here for more than a few more years (hubby is a military man, and his contract is running out), so I bought a polytunnel.

This will be the second season I’ll grow anything in it, so yeah, I’m excited about that.

My second thing… There is no evil that does not bring something good. We had a mink, weasel, stoat, or something along those lines, get into the chicken coop a couple of months ago.

Several days in a row, I came out to find headless chickens. Not fun at all. Quite traumatic, I have to admit. Both for the chicks and me. I have now moved my chickens to the first chicken coop we built when we moved here. It’s smaller, but they’ve been fine ever since, so we must’ve done a better job building it.

Anyway, my flock is smaller than I want it to be, which means baby chicks!!! I think I’m gonna buy myself some eggs from fun breeds and put in the incubator. Soon. I might hold on for a few more weeks since January and February are the coldest months in Sweden, and baby chicks don’t do well when it’s too cold and they don’t have a mama to look after them.

Then I have a parental failure I feel I have to fix. My youngest is quite fascinated with sharks. We watch Jaws, The Meg, and films like that quite often. She asked me one day if I’d ever seen a living shark. I chuckled a little and told her ‘Yes, and so have you.’ Then I realised, she hasn’t. When we lived on the West Coast, we took the kids to Gothenburg quite often, and there is an aquarium with some sharks. And while I’m against animals in cages, we went there a few times. We moved here when I was pregnant with her.

Then we went to Copenhagen to their aquarium, but she was just a small toddler, so we left her with my MIL over the day and took the three oldest. Then covid hit, and we went nowhere. Then my MIL passed away, and then my mother passed away only two months later, and we’ve had no one to look after the animals to go on any trips since, so… Perhaps not something I look forward to as much as a goal I have. To get my daughter to a shark.

That’s about what I have now. There are always books I want to read, stories I want to write, series to watch, things to do with the kids, and so on, but the garden and the chickens are the ones I look forward to.

I’m sure the other have much cooler plans, so check out what they have to say!

Fiona Glass

Ellie Thomas

K.L. Noone

Nell Iris