I started following a blog a few weeks ago about writing. A recent post from this blog suggested keeping a list of five things you’re grateful for each and every day. I read this right before Thanksgiving, which may have influenced my decision to give it a try. (Try it – it certainly brightens the bad days and acts as a culminating reflection on the good ones.) I don’t really think I’m enough of a writer to be following a professional writers blog, but one of my favorite aspects about blogging is that it’s somewhat anonymous; anonymous in the sense that we can reinvent and recreate ourselves and no one’s the wiser. When it all comes down to it, no one knows who I am or what I am; readers only know what writers choose to share, and who’s to say it’s all true?

My roommate, on the other hand, is an excellent writer and actually gets paid to write, which makes her not only a great writer, but also a professional. In addition to her superior command of the written word, she (let’s call her E) is also rather creative. E is lucky enough to have an equally creative boyfriend (we’ll call him T) who visited from Austin, Texas last week. Bored on a recent cold, gray day (also known as this past Monday) E and T decided to work some magic on house. Within a couple hours, they transformed our porch from a porch into easily the most festive porch I have since a music and arts festival this summer.

In E’s words, “These will look good in June, too, right?” I’d say so.