In our house

I love listening to music.  The kitchen is always filled will music, usually some 90's or 2000's music playing that brings me back to the carefree teenage days.  My son is getting used to some spin doctors, Britney Spears, old school Shakira, and some proclaimers.  At night sometimes I just turn off the lights and lie in bed listening to youtube bring me through playlists.  Lately acoustic has been my go to and this is played a lot for me, the acoustic version of Rockabye.  I absolutely love it and they do a fantastic job. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pY8RjDTmOM

I do enjoy puzzles, and I laugh at today's happiness challenge because finishing this puzzle would be the complete opposite of happiness.  First it would mean my night time busy task I do while cooking supper would be gone, also I would probably just have a jumbled mash of puzzle pieces glued together because THIS IS THE HARDEST PUZZLE EVER!  I should have realized a bunch of red flowers wouldn't make an easy time.  So no, it's not done but that makes me happy

This fell on the perfect day.  Through work I held a seniors bingo game and lunch but threw in a little chair yoga and some chi meditation as well.  I was unsure how receptive they would be but was pleasantly surprised to see them all taking part as much as their bodies allowed and following along with the entire process pretty carefully.  I had invited an instructor and she was wonderful and I found myself breathing along, doing the slow careful movements, feeling stretches in my body and a release of stress.  Seniors chair yoga, who would have thought that would be my happiness today

I'm a huge fan of mindful meditations especially at night.  I've got to learn more to end my days off with winding down, breathing deeply, and clearing my thoughts.  I always feel very relaxed and very calm when I allow myself to give into the process and treat the meditation properly instead of half-assed fighting it while ruminating on something else entirely.  I still enjoy taking the extra time to smudge after meditating and clearing myself and my environment. Meditating makes me very happy

I adore crafting and it's definitely something I love to do.  I love woodworking, I can cross stitch, back in the day I toll painted, lots of different avenues and mediums.  However I will admit that at the start of a busy week, with school closures due to snowstorms (thanks first day of Spring), and my minimalist attitude of not having bits and pieces scattered around the house, I didn't have much hands on things to really get my craft on.  But then at 10 pm when the house was settled I had my almost nightly craving for a peanut butter and jam sandwich on white bread.  So I crafted a Kraft peanut butter sandwich and I can tell you I felt happy lying in bed eating it in the quiet.

Working up a sweat can be difficult when you are still on a lot of restrictions about the physical activity allowed.  Today was beautiful and the oldest kid was having a day where he was struggling with his emotions and asked to go outside and work off his feelings through physical activity.  We walked a normally nice trail but with the melting, slippery snow, it ended up being quite the sweat just to walk (and I fell down which means tonight is a hot shower, icy gel, and robaxacet night).  Still even with the fall it was great outside and the warm temps plus slippery trek contributed to working up a sweat for sure.  That treacherous walk made me be mindful of my steps and that gave me an hour peace while walking and enjoying the day.  Pure happiness

This was an easy challenge for me.  I routinely rely on my list of friends both near and far to end my day off with.  Having the kids alone means it's harder for me to just jump out and have coffee or nights out with friends, so the phone, FaceTime and Skype are all pretty popular for me.  That little bit of catching up with my friends at the end of the night is the perfect way to end the day on a happy note

 Today I garden.  Well there's still 4 feet or more of snow covering my flower beds so that wasn't going to happen, and I wasn't flowing in cash enough to try to find some seeds or soil to do a few seedlings.  So instead I grabbed this $5.99 shamrock from the grocery store and a bundle of spring flowers on sale 50% off.  I arranged them into a vase and placed both plants smack in the middle of the dining room table.  Now as I cook, clean, eat, or sit at the table I can admire the greenery and find happiness in how pretty simple little flowers can be.

Tonight I have to have an early night.  This is great timing.  I have an MRI scheduled for 8:00 am tomorrow and it's an hour away so that's an early rise to get on the highway in time to make the appointment.  So tonight I stripped the bed and put on clean sheets, fluffed the pillows, tidied the room, and am looking forward to slipping between the sheets and drifting off.

Watching a performance is a bit of a large task in a small rural town, on a school night, at short notice, with limited funds, and no babysitter.  But literal terms it doesn't have to be.  Instead I took watching a performance to be whatever caught my eye.  Today it happened to be my two children indulging in a walk where the snow was melting and the temps were rubber boot and spring jacket warm.  Watching them run across big melting snow piles, stomp through slushy water, kick chunks of melting soft snow, and run at full speed up clear pavement roadways was quite the performance.  I enjoyed it, it brought me peace and happiness so I call that a win.

I'm not an artist and I envy those that are.  Beautiful watercolors and pencil sketches are my weaknesses when it comes to art.  Still art is quite a flexible definition so when my challenge today was to make art, I spied my daughters felt markers, grabbed my sons sketch pad, and lay on the chaise doodling away.  Nothing in particular, nothing amazing, but I made my art for a good 30 minutes and do you know what?  I found happiness.  It was calming and took concentration which kept my mind free from wandering into other thoughts.  Added bonus was the kids quietly coloring next to me.  What a wonderfully simple task that made all the difference to how my night ended.

Today was bitterly cold only getting a little warmer but the sun was out with a blue sky.  It was the sort of day that lured you outside then slapped you and said "gotcha!"  But outside I went.  I didn't go far because time did not permit me to go far today but I crunched snow under my boots and listened to the sound of it.  Really listened to it.  I took deep breaths of cold air and felt my lungs come alive.  I looked up at the bright blue sky and remembered that life is good and after the storm really does come the calm.

no filter needed

we must find happiness when 30 cm of snow falls in March

 Maybe I'm a sucker for fads or catch phrases.  Hygge, the year of yes, mindfulness, happiness.  All these things are things I pursue or pursued and tried out.  I find Hygge throughout my day.  I spent 2016 in the year of yes and cannot proclaim how amazingly fun it was.  I practice mindfulness.  Now today I am in the pursuit of happiness.

I've got a child who is finding himself in a mood where he requires a lot of physical contact.  He's not moody, not mopey, not a handful, in fact his new need for connection has made him easier to be around.  He's constantly searching for family projects to do and still climbs up in my lap in the couch.  He wants to sleep in my bed, he requires extra hugs at night and they have to be long and tight, and he genuinely just needs reassurance throughout the day that I'm nearby.  I'll take it gladly, another cuddle on my lap is something I'll never deny.

So while watching him find what he needs in life to be happy, I realized I've been slacking this year on what I promised would be a year for making sure I found happiness.  Then I stumbled across the 30 days of happiness pursuit and I liked it.  Easy.  Vital.  Do-able.  I like that some things are out of my comfort zone and others are just things I forget to let myself do.  For the next 30 days, starting tomorrow, I'll work my way through the list and hopefully at the end of 30 days I will feel that doing an item a day to make me feel happy is not something I have to remind myself, but something I just naturally do.  I'm excited!!
 And for inspiration along the way I'll have these beautiful little watercolor cards that my friend Johanna mailed me.  Gentle reminders each day that it's ok to take time for ourselves.

Everyday the choice is ours how we react to the things around us.  I love the saying "you can't control what others do, but you can control how you react to them."  There are days when I cry, there are days when I scream, there are days when I am so insanely upset and frustrated I don't know what to do with myself.  And then there are other days when I choose not to let the circumstances around me win.


Hooray.  I waded downstairs and surveyed the scene.  I had called my father because that's what you do when you are faced with a basement of water at 8:00 pm, you call your dad.  I wiggled the sump pump, I tried to kick start it into working, then I kicked it hard.  It sent a geyser up, water began filling my basement, I screamed, dad sighed, I kicked it harder and it stopped.  So for now it's quiet, nothing is coming in and nothing is going out.  I'll call the guys tomorrow to come and repair whatever it is but for now I choose to laugh.

I choose to laugh at the geyser, I choose to laugh at my $200 hunter boots wading around in dirty basement water, I choose to laugh at the fact that of all the things happening in my life a wet basement doesn't even make the top 10 of things I care about right now.

This I choose.  This is why tonight I can lie in bed and not worry.  Somehow the bill will get paid for the repair, my house is otherwise warm and safe, and one day I will laugh and laugh about my first house and all the grief it caused me.

This is my house, this is my life, and I choose to laugh.

Unprompted my son asked if we could change around his room and take out the tv and xbox.  He decided that it was making his room feel less cozy and not the quiet space he needed to sleep.  I was proud, a gaming system was never something I wanted to introduce anyhow, so seeing him make that decision was a proud moment for me.  Now when they go to bed they read, draw, or do something quiet until they begin to drift off to sleep.  This is the far cry from last year when J would throw a wild hissy fit if he didn't have music to listen to because it stopped the intrusive thoughts of divorce from entering his mind as he drifted to sleep. 


We've been really trying to stay unplugged some days and reconnect as a family.  The kids decided suddenly they wanted a family game night, and because I love board games I agreed.  We bought snacks, ordered pizza, and after ballet settled at the table for an unplugged, no phones allowed night of games. 
 The game of life, Uno, Bingo, we made it through a few rounds of each before their eyes started getting droopy and their giggles made it clear they were heading into the stage of overtired sillyness.
 Cleaned up, teeth brushed, tucked into bed they asked if we could play more games tomorrow.  I mean who is ever going to tell the kids no we can't all sit and play games.

I know it's these nights, these simple easy nights that will remain etched in their memory as things we did as a family.

cats version of family game night