Welcome to the . . .
This month’s Museum of Me exhibit is all about . . . our “happy places.” As in . . . those memories, situations, or activities that make us feel happy . . . which is the definition I found in the Cambridge Dictionary when I looked it up:
When I was a child, I had a few “happy places,” although I know I didn’t think of them in that way. They were just special events in my life that got me feeling all giddy whenever I thought about them . . . or situations that brought me feelings of comfort and well-being. Things like . . .
Going to Kiddie Land. (Which apparently was a cause to get really dressed up back in 1964?)
Christmas Morning.
And snuggling up on the couch with my mom and my sister to read or watch TV together. (There are no photos of us doing this. So this rare camping photo will have to suffice . . . because it’s so dang adorable.)
Now that I’m all grown up, though. Well. My “happy places” are a little different. And . . . let’s just say that I have quite a few of them:
Book stores.
Plant nurseries.
Well-stocked fabric or stationery shops.
The fiber-filled barns at the West Michigan Fiber Festival.
Sitting around a campfire.
Walks in the woods.
Relaxing on our lake up north.
Watching the sun go down.
My garden.
And, of course, spending time with this guy . . .
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How about you? What’s your “happy place?” And is it different now that it was when you were a child?
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Thanks for visiting the Museum of Me. Watch for new exhibits . . . on the 2nd Friday of each month. If you’re a blogger and you’d like to create a Museum of Me along with me on your own blog, let me know. I’ll send you our “exhibit schedule” (a list of monthly prompts) and we can tell our stories together.
Love that camping photo – I think we had a very similar tent! As a kid, my happy places were going to VT (my grandparents’ home and the camp at the lake owned by my Mom’s friend) – hiking, swimming, making stick houses. And yes, libraries, book stores (still favorite places). Now I’m happy doing what I love – cooking, knitting, stitching, reading, spending time with Fletch – especially on the patio with a beverage at the end of the day. It’s nice to have so many options!
Chock full of sweet and happy here. And every time I see a picture of you and your mom, I think, Whoa, how much you two look alike! But today I realize how much Tom and Erin do, too! Love that picture.
My first-and-foremost happy place as a kid was anywhere–anywhere at all–with my maternal grandma. And that was the case until she died, 6 weeks before my wedding. As an adult, it’s all sorts of places…in a library…among trees…by water…in our van on a road trip…sitting across from my very best friend…at the cottage with Troy.
Neat exhibit!!
I think of my happy place as a literal place, but I like your definition and interpretation better. I get a little excited when I’m perusing a bookstore or library, having dinner with Ryan, or walking in the woods, so I think I just might have more than one happy place. (And that camping photo is adorable!)
Wonderful happy places, then and now!
I figured your garden would be high on the list, as would a bookstore and being Up North. I think you’ve done a pretty good job of making sure you are never too far from a happy place in your adult life!
When I was a kid ……………the ice rink. When I had blades on my feet I felt like I could fly!
As an adult in Florida, it turned into inline blades and doing the trails with my bestie, Donna.
Now …………..well, I think it is my craft room in the evening when I’m in my jammies and I sit on the bed and stitch or knit with Giroux laying right beside me.
It’s also sitting out along the Raritan River in New Jersey with a good drink (iced now/hot when it is cold) and having quiet time with Steve. He reads, I knit …..we watch water flow over the dam. THAT is a happy place.
Almost anyplace outside. Also bookstores, fabric stores, yarn fairs, boats/ships, both big and small, and a lot of other quiet, not crowded, not noisy, places. (Yarn fairs are crowded, yes, but not particularly noisy. Plus, it’s YARN.) Also a cosy corner of a restaurant with my husband.
This is a lovely approach to this month’s museum theme! I think, while our specific happy places my change, the things that make us happy inside really don’t. XOXO
Gardens have always been happy places for me. Going out each morning in spring to see what changes had occurred. Making mud pies with the ‘budding’ lilacs (I was really young and didn’t realize I was destroying the flowers, the now-me is sad). Watching birds and trying to net butterflies. Growing many of the plants that make me happy, lilacs, phlox, milkweed(yes the common one…so sweet), buddleia, goldenrod, peonies….
Your photos are too cute, Kym! And of course your garden is high on your list! Wonderful happy places… all of them!
What a wonderful post. It makes my heart light to read of your happy places.
Wonderful to see the photos of you as a kid. Seems our “happy places” align well, but I would switch the sun going down to the sun coming up. (And, of course, I don’t have a lake up north.);-)
When I browsed the other museums, the happy place was a more of a happy-EST place … and I love that yours is a list!. I left comments there that my happy place is a porch, so I can enjoy the outside, with all the indoor conveniences close at hand. Other happy places would certainly include seated at my sewing machine, cuddling with Lucy, laughing with Charlie & Sam, and doing pretty much anything together with Marc, Katie, Sara, my sister-in-law, and/or my sister. Great exhibit and thank you for sharing!