Tag Archives: home

happiness

Compassionate healer

We have the best family doctor, we found her by chance and she’s not close to where we live, but I am so grateful she’s our doctor. She knows us all so well and is so caring and compassionate every time we go to see her. It makes us feel safe, cared for, and listened to.

The girl had to go see our doctor today and as usual it was such a positive experience. She expressed some teenage concerns and the doctor listened, not just listened but heard and was fully present in the moment. She made my girl feel important, cared for, and loved. That is a real gift. It’s happiness.

A bonus happiness moment is that we were feeling well enough today we could finally go visit mom again. It’s been a week since I got this cold/flu thing going on and I wasn’t able to go in and see her. Talk about an amazing lady with so much courage and strength.

Standard
happiness

Today they curled

Today we went to small town Alberta and the kids participated in a very Canadian activity – they went curling. Somehow I have never curled before, but it sure looked like they were all having a lot of fun. Turns out this is an unexpected bonus of the kids joining 4H is they get to do cool things like this.

It was good to get out and laugh and have a little bit of fun. Happiness.

Standard
happiness

The cat house

I woke up today and there was a cat sleeping outside everyone’s door. Apparently we have all been assigned cats and they guard us at night.

Aladdin is sitting close by me now waiting for bed. He won’t cuddle all day but at bed time o’clock he starts to come closer, and as soon as I go to bed he makes a nest between my feet and sleeps all night.

Therapy cats.

They sure have brought a lot of comfort and joy to this house

Standard
happiness

Happiness blogs

I started this blog almost 3 years ago on my 44th birthday. I was still in the beginning stages of working my way out of my dark night of the soul years (sometimes I feel like I’m still at the beginning, but I’m not). I began with the idea that I would do 44 days of happiness – my goal was that every day I would have to find something that made me happy and I would write about it. Sometimes those happiness moments were really hard to find at the beginning, I think I wrote a lot about Henry the Heron who I used to see every morning on my walk. I remember many times the day being over and me realizing I still hadn’t had a moment of happiness and making sure I did something right away so I could say I had done one thing that had brought me some joy.

I think now about how small and unhappy my life was then. I mean really, in the last 3 years my entire life has imploded, gone sideways, blown up, and been shaken like I live inside a snowglobe and still I have found moments of happiness every day. Thank God I trained myself to look for them or I would have been having a right pity party.

My life now still is pretty uncertain, full of bumps, and honestly I have no idea what I’m doing – but it’s so much happier. We are home, we are safe, we are free. Those are big words. It has helped me incredibly to have a check in every day and find something to be grateful for, something that made me happy, to express gratitude.

This morning I found an email from feedspot.com saying they had chosen my blog as one of their top 75 happiness blogs – I am number 64. Look it up here

Seriously how cool is that?

I even got a little award to put on my blog – that was a smile filled moment of happiness.

Standard
happiness

Keeping the faith

I woke up this morning pretty ticked off with God. There’s no nice way to say it, I wasn’t questioning His existence, but rather questioning why He seems to enjoy seeing how much I can take before I break.

Yesterday the boy told me how he felt that his generation hasn’t been raised in the church and he that blamed my generation for that. He said how grateful he was that I’d taken them to church and led them on a path to get to know God.

With that in mind I took my pity party to church this morning in hopes that the sermon would provide me some comfort. It didn’t. It probably annoyed me more than any sermon has in years. Fortunately it was a guest speaker, but I will be happy to not have to hear him again.

I left church still pretty pissy with God. As we came over the hill on our way home and looked out over the ranch and the mountains I stopped the car. I said this is how I know God exists and that he’s not a complete jerk. Look at how beautiful this is, only love could make something so amazing.

Figures since I’ve always found God at the ranch. But it’s not just the place, although it’s very spiritual for me, it’s the people – the tribe – who remind me that God exists in everything.

I stopped by my uncle and aunt’s place to pick up some food for my mom. Watching how my family loves and cares for each other – that’s God stuff, that’s God in the details, that is a reminder that we aren’t walking this journey alone. That is happiness

A photo my dad took of the mountains in the background of the ranch. This is my spiritual happy ground

Standard
happiness

Laugh yourself silly

This afternoon the girl (the social animal of our family) organized some friend time for herself. It’s the one downside of living in the country – that friend get togethers take a little more organization. She went and watched a friend play a volleyball game and then they walked to get ice cream. May not sound like much, but it’s a totally different world for her having all that independence.

The boy and I hung out and did some errands while she socialized. That kid was ON today and was cracking so many jokes my tummy hurt from laughing. Not only that, but we sat in a booth at Tim Horton’s for a while and his friends came in – not only did he acknowledge my existence in front of his friends, but I actually got to join them. That was a pretty awesome moment.

Laughter, it really is the best medicine. We needed a good belly laugh. I feel so much better for it, so much happier.

Standard
happiness

The Christmas List

I got a massive text on my phone earlier this evening – a wish list from my daughter for Christmas. Proof that she is stuck in the years between, not quite a young adult, no longer a child. Makeup, hair accessories, earrings are on the list – but so are Lego, stuffies, and chocolate. I love it – grow up but stay a child my love.

She came into my room and sat beside me and giggled her way through her list. Christmas music is now allowed in our house (the kids put on the time ban not I).

It was just such a beautiful, normal moment. And that is where happiness is found, inside the small everyday things. It’s love, it’s happiness.

Standard
happiness

That November 15 thing 

There are days that come where the last thing I want to do is find a moment of happiness. Sometimes it feels like things just plain suck, but this is exactly why I do this blog – it’s to remind me that every moment has the potential for happiness. Some moments are greater than others, but there is happiness, peace, love, joy to be found in every moment.

Today would have been Dad’s 77th birthday. I still can’t believe he’s gone, I still want to run over and tell him things when they happen, I look for him when I need advice, I just miss him. He really was quite an exceptional man.

When I look back on my childhood I think the greatest gift I had was the gift of unconditional love. I never once doubted that no matter what I did, how badly I screwed up, what disaster I found myself in, or what amazing things I had to celebrate that my parents loved me and were behind me completely. I didn’t realize what a rare gift that was – to me it was just how life was.

I mean sure, there were those years in my teens when they became totally irrational, but besides that they were pretty amazing parents.

So much is changing right now I can’t catch my breath. I need to sit in the moment and yet I don’t want to. But I will.

My happiness moment today is remembering and celebrating my dad, loving and holding space with my mom, and being so incredibly grateful that I have my sister to walk this path with.

Standard
happiness

A little tenderness

I was in the parking lot today and I watched an elderly man push his wife to the car in her wheel chair. She dropped something and he stopped and walked around searching for the item and then handed it back. Then he helped her out of her chair and into their car.

The tenderness this couple had towards each other made my heart smile. There are two options I figure – to live life guided by fear or to live life guided by love. I could feel the love flowing off this old couple. That was happiness.

In the middle of chaos and uncertainty there are people who react with love and tenderness. I aspire to be one of those people.

Standard