What were the 3-5 things that gave you joy this week?

:: Rediscovering, remembering artist Anne Packard: When I was working on my Full Snow Moon Dreamboard, I used a few images from an article about painter Anne Packard from the December/January 2010 issue of Coastal Living magazine–one of a table and tools in her studio, and the other of her hands working on a tiny painting. The hands remind me of a similar picture of an 83 year old painter, hands splattered with paint, that Andrea Scher shared on Superhero Journal recently. I want to be old like that, I want to be creative like that, I want to be free like that.

Honestly, it was hard for me to cut up those pages and use those images. I love that article so much, love everything about Anne’s work and life, and covet her studio. She reminds me in some ways of poet Mary Oliver, another gloriously creative and free spirit–what/who I want to be when I grow up.

:: Tina Fey: Everything about this woman makes me happy. When I was younger, I wanted to be a performer, like Barbara Streisand, Lucille Ball, and Carol Burnett. Who cares about “pretty,” but oh to be talented and funny (and gorgeous–maybe not in the traditional Hollywood sense, but all these women are gorgeous)!

In the 41 6-Word Days lovefest on A Human Thing yesterday (it’s a lovefest every day), a few of us got to talking about the line from 30 Rock, “I want to go to there.” It’s one of my favorite quotes, even more so because of the story about where it came from. In an interview on the Jimmy Fallon show, Tina Fey told him that her oldest daughter Alice says funny stuff that ends up in the show all the time, but for this particular line, Alice was about three and Tina was secretly considering taking her on a trip to Disneyland, so she was online, researching and looking at the website when Alice came around the corner, saw what was up on the screen (the Cinderella castle) and said “I want to go to there.”

I was explaining that yesterday, and while trying to find a video of that interview, I ended up watching some other Tina Fey videos and thinking about how much I love her–she makes me laugh, makes me so happy.

:: Registering for Blogging from the Heart: I know I’ve said this already, but I am so excited about this class. I signed up in the first few minutes registration opened because I just couldn’t wait (the class is officially sold out). Clearly, the theme for this week’s joy jam is women I admire, and Susannah Conway is one of them–funny, brave, open-hearted, smart, gorgeous, and talented. As good as I feel about the blogging I’m already doing, I know that this class is going to open up a whole new part of my heart.

:: Playing “find it” with Sam: This is a game where I take whatever toy Sam happens to be playing with, ask him to sit and wait, go into another room and “hide” it (no place too difficult, because he’s really not all that good at it yet), return to where he’s waiting and tell him to “go find it!” He loves this game. I have to make sure Dexter doesn’t help, because he’s super good at finding, and would win every time.

:: Glen the baby squirrel adopted by a dog: This is actually an older story (February of 2009), but Eric just forwarded me an email about it today. If you click on the picture, it will link you to the original news story and a video. In the mail Eric sent me, it ended with what it called “the moral of the story”: Keep loving everyone, even the squirrelly ones.