It's been quite a week, on both a global and a personal level, and there is fear about the future.
But I vow to not let that stop me from being happy in the moment.
We're on our way today to take family pictures with Santa...all of us including Charlie, who is dressed in her pretty Halloween dress again. I still haven't figured out what I'm wearing and since we're supposed to leave in 25 minutes, I guess I'd better work on that.
Have a happy Sunday everybody!
It's hard to believe it but I'm almost through my 100 happy days - less than 15 days to go!
So, at 86 days and counting, am I happier than when I started?
The answer to that is a definite YES. I am so much happier than I was on May 22...BUT I can't really say that it's due to the fact that I participated in the 100 Happy Days challenge. I'm happier because our circumstances have changed and we've moved away from the cliff. We're definitely not lounging about in the sunshiney meadow just yet (I don't even remember what being in the meadow feels like) but at least we're no longer dangling over the edge so that's a whole bunch of happy right there.
Anybody who truly believes that money isn't an important component of happiness never dealt with my mortgage company. It may not buy happiness (I'm not entirely convinced it doesn't) but it buys security and my experience has been that it's very hard to have happiness without at least a bit of security. Your mileage may vary but wait till you've spent the last 5 years hanging over the edge by your fingernails and then we can talk.
Oh but wait, I was here to talk about happy, wasn't I? Got distracted there for a moment, I'm back now.
One thing this lovely challenge HAS taught me is that every day has happy moments, moments I'm so grateful for. Each meal is a blessing, each laugh, each smile, each sunny day, each puppy wiggle. The other day I went out to my car and it wouldn't start - dead as a doornail. Right then and there I thanked God that this hadn't happened the past few weeks when I needed that car for work and rather happened on my first day without a temp job. Then I thanked him again when, after wiggling the battery cables, the car started right up and hasn't had a problem since. THAT was a happy moment.
There are so many of them.
I'm grateful.
I still like having money rather than not having it.
Here are a few of my happy moments from the last month
50 days ago I ran across the 100 Happy Days challenge on Instagram and I thought, why not?
Actually, what I thought was - I need this.
Florida wasn't turning out the way we'd hoped and I knew I needed to focus on at least one happy thing each day so that I wouldn't dwell on yet another disappointment. Five years of stress was starting to get to me.
Ironically, the day after I signed up for the challenge we found out that Florida definitely wasn't going to work out for us and we were back on the edge of the cliff. I chuckled at the irony of having committed to 100 Happy Days just the day before but I never once thought of not going through with the challenge.
50 days into it, it's definitely been a struggle to find that one happy thing each day. Some days are no brainers
Other days are definitely more of a stretch
This past week has been the biggest struggle of all, not only are we still dealing with our situation but there's big, heartbreaking stuff going on in my family that makes me feel helpless and alone.
But I'm determined to stay the course and keep finding that one thing that makes me smile each day because it really does help me keep calm and peaceful in the midst of the storms. It helps me to appreciate all the blessings that fill my life. I wish certain things were different but I am beyond grateful for my life and my family. I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep posting my happy things long after the challenge is over.
Here are a few of the things that have made me smile over the past couple of weeks
Of course, some days there's no struggle at all. Something comes along that makes me VERY happy. Yesterday was one of those days. I had a chance to reconnect with a friend I hadn't seen since high school graduation. We found each other on Facebook about a year ago but yesterday was our first face to face meeting in over 3 decades and it truly was as if no time had passed at all.
So here's to the next 50 happy days.
