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Green living, playful parenting and the pursuit of happiness

Things I Love Thursday.

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if it makes you happy

 

Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness;

it has no taste.

― Charlotte Brontë

 

Random things making me happy this week.

 

The intense quality of the light, filtered through the yellowing leaves, as the sun gives its last gasp before disappearing over the horizon.

 

autumn light

 

Gulping down hot soothing soup or lemon pomegranate tea as the evening air grows nippy.

Pumpkin everything.

The growing certainty that running is, in fact, helping my knees not creak so much on a daily basis.

My foam roller, for massaging out my crankier knee on the morning after a hard run.

Talking to my boys about something and having them end the conversation with, “well, that was a nice intellectual discussion.” They’re probably being sarcastic but I don’t care.

Taking my daughter to have her nails and hair did— I had a Groupon and I always feel guilty for maybe depriving her of “girly” things— and having her wanting her hair undone within the hour; nail polish peeled off with 24 hours. That’s my girl.

This picture.

 

Fort Delaware

 

Oh, and this one too.

 

Cass Starbucks

 

Those are my sunglasses she has on. They’re Oakley— I think the Necessity— I’m so very super picky about my glasses (much like anything else that goes on my body) and these don’t pinch or give me a headache, they wrap around enough to fully block sun but don’t distort my vision, and they stay put when running or on top of my head. They’re pretty much the holy grail of sunglasses. Necessity indeed.

I love them.

I love this sentence from this article:

 “If a spider turns to look at you, it is almost certainly a jumping spider,” Jakob said, adding that they respond to their own mirror images and watch videos showing insects.

I love Joe Biden and all his malarkey.

I love the Beasties app, which is sort of like a fortuneteller only using animal totems. It’s New Age naturalistic silliness, yes, but the first time I asked a question the Badger answered so I’m sold. Anyway, it’s pretty and I like taking a minute or two of my day to meditate on what the BIG QUESTION is for me today.

I love that my husband and I will sit and watch bug happenings on the porch and narrate them. Who needs TV?

I love this post about happiness and the tale of the happy shirt contained within. From Charlotte Anderson.

I love Big Bird.

 

big bird

 

I love how much my niece looks like me in this photo.

I love the way my Saint Bernard puppy feels the need to sit on the chair next to me several times a day, placing her big paw on my arm so I must cease clackity-clacking on the keyboard, to rest her heavy-ass head on my shoulder and give me hugs.

I love the new Mumford & Sons album.

I love that tomorrow is Friday already.

 

What do you love this week?

 

Monday Motivation: the only lesson you’ll ever need.

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Happiness is a choice no one can make for you.

Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself:

I,

not events,

have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.

I can choose which it shall be.

Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet.

I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.

– Groucho Marx

 

Everything I really need to know in life I learned from my children and Groucho Marx.

This is something I’ve been wanting to scream in the faces of a lot of people. Sadly it’s a lesson that can’t be taught, only realized.

Give it a try.

It’s the easiest and most difficult thing you’ll ever do. Undoubtedly the most powerful.

 

Your whole life will change. I promise. 

 

If a Tree Falls in the Forest…

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fallen tree branch

Be as a bird perched on a frail branch
that she feels bending beneath her,

still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.

Victor Hugo

We had a ginormous tree branch snap in half in the night.

I know that poor Jeff saw that mass of green outside our window and probably was depressed by the idea of getting that mess cleaned up. In the midst of a heat wave.

I saw that branch and was immeasurably happy. For three reasons:

  1. The angle of the snap meant that the branch missed breaking through the roof of Cassidy’s bedroom… by inches.
  2. It also missed the power line. That would have bit the big one.
  3. The branch did fall squarely on our birdhouse, but Jeff saw the house wrens fledging last weekend. So they should all be safe, thank goodness.

lucky fallen branch

Things happen and we have no control over them… but we have every bit of power over how we perceive them. When I look back on my life, there is a very definite sense of before, and after, and that line is drawn by the moment that I really took that statement to heart.

If a tree falls in your front yard and no one is there to be unhappy about it… is it really such a big deal?

pulling down the tree

Well.

Maybe.

If you’re the one trying to bring it down with a lasso.