10 Things that Make Me Happy in September

Hi there! Today, I thought I’d start a new column here on SG about things that make me happy. I first got inspired to do this when I saw Gerry from Floral and Freckled write about it. I thought it’d be a really cool thing to do once every month.

This will be the equivalent of a monthly favourites, I guess, but it won’t have as much of a “I love this, I love that” vibe as those do and will solely focus on things that me, well, happy. Since happiness is my number one priority, I try to always be more positive, appreciate the little things (and the big), and try not to let anything get me down. I hope that these monthly posts will inspire some of you to take on a more positive outlook to your life.

1. When people get really excited about doing something special for you

Just this past weekend, my little brother told me not to go downstairs and make myself lunch on Sunday. Naturally, I asked him why the heck I’d willingly starve myself, and he just batted away my question. After a solid thirty minutes in the kitchen, he presented me with a deep-fried almond-crusted avocado sandwich smothered in hummus with a fried egg on top. And apparently he thought of it himself, so clearly, the whole inventive cooking thing runs in the family.

2. Getting out of the house on time

While I’d like to call myself a pretty organised person, I tend to stay on my phone for about ten minutes too long every morning in bed, so 80% of the time, I’m running out of my house to catch the bus on time to be early for school. The other 20% of the time, I get to take a leisurely walk to my bus stop and it’s always the best.

3. New too-expensive headphones

My parents so wonderfully gave me these Frends Oil Slick Taylor headphones for my birthday a month and a week late and I just adore them. It makes me obnoxiously giddy every time I look at them and they allow me to listen to my favourite music in style. That sounded pretty much like the Frends sales pitch. Oh well.

4. Cooking, especially for or with family

As I said before, cooking’s a thing in my family and it’s something that we all adore. Sure, when we’re hungry and tired and there’s no food in the house, it can be something we dread, but for the most part, it makes us all pretty happy. Last week, I wanted to make cook the yellowfin tuna we’d recently bought and it turned out pretty well if I do say so myself.

I put some avocado oil and seared the tuna (avocado oil gives the nicest-looking cook or whatever it’s called when it comes to fish in my opinion). Then with some pineapple, red bell peppers, sweet Italian red onion, jalapenos,  cilantro, and rice vinegar, I made a salsa-type thing and to go with it. Oh, and I also put a blueberry sauce on the fish and served it with some mashed potatoes.

This was some baked blueberry muffin oatmeal I made over the weekend and it was delicious. What would've made it even better was if the bananas had decided to ripen more quickly.

5. Using hair masks

I wouldn’t say that my hair is problematic, but there’s just something about treating it well with a hair mask that made me kind of love it a bit more. I know that it’s odd since I’m talking about hair, but if you’ve ever used a hair mask, you’ll know what I mean. It just makes brushing your hair or even just touching your hair a bit better.

6. Staying organised and using an excess amount of sticky notes

I find writing things down very, very therapeutic and it definitely helps me calm down and relax. With the new Kate Spade agenda that a friend got me for my birthday, I can do just that and I’ve taken the leisure of colour-coding everything and using sticky notes a lot.

7. Getting an extra discount at the cash

My brother needed a new agenda for the school year since his school stopped providing them for some odd reason, so when I grabbed some money from my mom’s wallet to get him a new one, I expected to have to pay over $15, but in the end, the total clocked in at right under $12. Saving a bit extra money, especially when you didn’t know it beforehand just makes it 20x better.

8. Chai tea lattes

Well… chai tea latte since I only had one this month. There’s something about sipping the warm, slightly frothy drink that just makes everything okay. It’s not ridiculously sweet that it makes me feel like I’m drinking candy, but just perfect.

9. The two-digit tab count on my phone’s browser

I’ve been really into reading blogs lately and while I’ve been bad about commenting on them, I’ve read a lot! I’ll go on Bloglovin every morning and after school and just open everything that I find remotely interesting. Then, I’ll sit back and read through everything. I don’t know what, but there’s something about having that many tabs open that brings a self-satisfied smile to my face.

10. MoreZoella

(It was very hard to pick a favourite, but this was probably my favourite from the month.)

It’s no secret that I’ve been on a YouTuber kick lately, but I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned how much I absolutely ADORE Zoella’s dailyvlogs. They’re all 12-25 minutes long which is absolutely amazing because the more of Zoe’s bright sunshine personality I can get in a video, the better. Even if she’s not doing anything “interesting,” she somehow just manages to lift your mood, even if you’re pretty darn happy to begin with.

(If you want more Zoe, this one's pretty great too. Oh, and the rest of her channel's pretty great too, just saying.)

Just tell me what makes you happy. Maybe it’s something you share with me, or something completely different or random, but I’d love to hear what makes you happy. I promise I’ll be a good and nice blogger and comment back unlike my busy and exhausted alter ego that has taken over for the past month. :)

Thank you so much for reading!

- J

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