I’ve decided that it is necessary for me to list out whatever I can think of that makes me happy. This serves two purposes. One, it forces me to think about the things that make me happy, which in turn makes me even more happy. Two, I can come back to it when I inevitably have a hard time again and hopefully it’ll help bring me back. So, here goes.

Creating things and expanding my mind. I’ve realized before, but been reminded very recently, that creating things, having any sort of artistic expression, is very important to me. Whether it’s knitting, writing anything, whether it’s fiction or not, drawing, coloring (yes, I said coloring), playing music, singing music, only slightly related, listening to music and discovering new music…all of those things make me so happy. Specifically, though, I have to make sure I keep knitting nearby. For some reason, making something awesome with two sticks and some yarn is the best stress reliever and unhappiness banisher that I have in my arsenal of things that get rid of negative feelings. I also love reading and learning things. I think playing tabletop games can somehow fit in here, too. We play a Pathfinder campaign with some friends almost every Friday, and it is so much fun to get to play a fantasy character and go on crazy adventures. I also enjoy board games, but roleplaying games are my favorite tabletop games.

Feeling like I’m making any difference to anyone. It’s been important to me for a long time to help whoever I can in whatever capacity I can. I do my best on a daily basis to at least create a positive experience for everyone I come into contact with. I’m always very friendly, especially to people in service jobs, because I’ve been there, and I know how important nice people are. I’ve been really searching for a way to do more recently. In college, Bobby and I helped get the Oakland University chapter of Habitat for Humanity off the ground, and it was amazing. The year that Jimmy Carter was here for the week of building homes, we worked on a home for a man and his daughter in Pontiac. It was a beautiful experience. People who receive Habitat homes are required to put in a certain amount of what they call ‘sweat equity’ by helping build their home. Working alongside this man, and seeing his joy and his happy tears, and hearing the gratitude in his voice when he received his keys on the last day was magical and very moving. I really long to be a part of having that sort of impact again someday.

My lovely little family, my big family and friends. I need to be surrounded with people I care about. I do not do well alone, and I can sometimes get a little freaked out when I’m with mostly people I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time, I’m a social butterfly. However, if I’m having an off day, I get super awkward. I love having my love, my beautiful son, and my two crazy corgis to come home to every evening. I don’t go out much because I cherish the time I have with my quirky little family. My friends are also very important to me, and it’s important to me to spend time with them, or for the far away ones, time to talk with them. I get very attached to my friends, and I tend to get hurt pretty easily if I feel like I’m being distanced. This is both bad and good. I leave myself wide open to get hurt constantly, but I am also a very loyal and caring friend. That’s just my nature. I’ve been hurt a handful of times, but I can’t change me, so I just work with it. My family, both the one I was born with and the one I married into, are very important. My grandparents will likely get their own post sometime in the future, but I owe a lot of who I am to them. They saved me when I had no one else and raised me as their own child in a very loving and supportive home.

Being good at my job and doing good work. This one plagues me a lot, because it is so hard to gauge. On the one hand, I know I’m good at what I do, and that I deserve to be where I am. On the other hand, I could be so much better and I feel like I’m constantly struggling to keep up. I’m working on things to help lessen the struggling feeling. Good feedback from my boss and him having the belief that I can do more things helps. Having friends who I work with that are very encouraging also helps, even though I tend to think they’re just saying those things because they’re my friends. I know that’s not the case, it’s just hard not to default to that. Having those friends also give me advice on how I can improve and how I can better keep up with current trends is also helpful. TJ sent me a link on a webdev subreddit today that struck home and really resonated with me. It was mostly the comments. Here it is: https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/3kb0rl/the_struggle_of_being_a_developer_with_a_wife_and/

Being active and fit, and eating good food. Movement, health, and good food are all so incredibly important. I feel so much better when I’m active and eating right. I’m starting to try to take a larger role in dinners because it’s not fair for it to all be on Bobby like it has been. Bobby and I have started working with a personal trainer, and it has been awesome. We’ve started riding our bikes again, too, which is great. We went for another ride tonight after dinner, it was a perfect evening for it. I just need to try to fit more running in. I either need to get my lazy butt out of bed earlier in the morning, or I need to get comfortable running after dark. Those are really my only options during the week. I also need to make sure I’m adding yoga back in. Yoga keeps me a happy girl, too. Something about it, maybe the moving meditation aspect, focusing on my breathing, focusing on something other than a zillion different thoughts and worries bouncing around in my head, the stretching and simultaneous strengthening of my muscles, the feeling of peacefulness, I think it’s really all of those things.

The outdoors. I love being outside, whether I’m active or just sitting under a nice shady tree on a sunny day. I love hiking, biking, and camping. I love swimming. I love walking. One thing I miss a lot is that Bobby and I used to take nightly walks together after dark. It’s a thing that we’ve always enjoyed doing together, since back in the days when we both lived with our parents and extended our time together by going on walks before he took me home or I had to drive home. There’s something magical about wandering around at night, talking about whatever is on your mind with your favorite person. We don’t get to do that too much anymore, only on nights when Lukas is spending the night somewhere else, but we’ll have those nights again in the future. One of my favorite things that Bobby and I have done that involved being outside after dark was during the meteor shower this year. We brought our hammock out behind our garage, snuggled up together, and stared up at the sky where the meteors were supposed to be the most visible. We saw four meteors shoot across the sky, the last of which shot across our full field of vision. It was beautiful, and amazing, and our sweet little boy was sleeping right inside the house.

Bobby. I could go on and on forever about him. He’s the most caring, supportive, funny, smart, handsome, awesome dude and I am so incredibly lucky I locked that down. He knows when to push me to do something, and when to back off. He knows me better than anyone, including me. He is always right there to comfort me when I’m having a bad time. We have fun together. He’s my partner in every aspect of our lives. He is such an amazing daddy to our little boy. We have a ridiculous amount of things in common, mostly probably because he made me try new stuff a lot along the way and I liked most of it. He helped me climb out of my shell when we were first dating because I was painfully shy. One of the things he had to challenge me to do one time was to say hello to every person we passed on a walk. That was so difficult for me, and I’m so glad that he pushed me to do it. I wouldn’t be outgoing now if it weren’t for him. He thinks I’m pretty whether I just woke up, just finished a crazy workout, or I actually put effort into my appearance. We have the same ridiculous, silly sense of humor. I love that I can be completely weird around him and with him. I love that we dance together in our kitchen. I love that we’re active together, that we have adventures together, that we experience the beauty all around us together. I don’t even know what else to say, he’s just wonderful.

Lukas. I never knew how much I could really love another person until I became a mama to my beautiful little boy. He’s so smart, sweet, and adventurous, and he’s only 3! I enjoy most moments with him, let’s be real, he’s not always sunshine and rainbows, but more often than not, he’s a joy. I just love watching him learn and do things. This is going to sound super weird, but even the way he eats is adorable. I love that he makes up his own words to songs already. He loves being read to. He loves dancing and singing. He’s getting pretty good at being polite. He ran up to me in the dining room today and was so incredibly excited to show me the fort he made with a giant box and one of his blankets against the couch. He plays lightsaber duels with us. He’s snuggly, when he wants to be, which is a lot. He scares the hell out of me with how daring he is. He’s a little ball of energy that I wish I could harness. He has big beautiful eyes and pretty curly hair. He’s a little peanut. He’s very charismatic, he charms most people he’s around. He’s full of wonder and wants to figure out how everything works. He loves building things. He’s obsessed with trains, trucks, airplanes, and space ships. He enjoys drawing and coloring. He tries so hard to hug the dogs, but they usually want nothing to do with that. There is a lot more, but he’s just absolutely wonderful.

Our dogs. They drive me bonkers sometimes, but they’re awesome. We have had Barkley since spring of 2009 when he was just a 3 month old pup. He’s so much fun and such a loyal, good pup. We added Pancho to our pack this past April, he’s 7. He’s an absolutely wonderful dog. He’s crazy cuddly, he and Barkley get along swimmingly 95% of the time. I love seeing them play together, and cuddle together. Since Pancho joined our family, he’s become a lot healthier and seems so much happier. He wasn’t abused by his old family, but he was neglected, and I don’t understand why. He’s such a sweet dog. I’m so thankful that we went with our gut and went against our brains on getting him. We didn’t think we were ready for another dog, and maybe we weren’t, but he’s so fantastic. Both dogs are great with Lukas, and are so loving and patient. They fight sometimes, and it feels like they’re right under our feet all the time, but they’re so worth the little bit of frustration because they’re awesome dogs.

I’m getting lazy now, kudos if you’re still reading, but I want to fit some of the other random things in here. I love gaming in pretty much every form. There’s something about relieving some stress by logging into my game and shooting some aliens. I’ve also been playing a game called Child of Light recently. It is such a beautiful, interesting game with so many elements. It has a great story, beautiful art, puzzles, and turn-based combat, which I’ve never done before. I love punky colored hair, I’m about to switch mine from purple to orange and pink soon. I’m loving exploring these fun colors. Piercings, I like the few that I have. I don’t know if I’ll get more or not, maybe. I also love tattoos, I’ve been obsessed with getting more since I got the one I have 5 years ago, and I love admiring other peoples’ body artwork. I have a few large pieces I’m planning out. I have no idea when I’ll get them, but they’ll happen eventually. Adventures also make me happy, whether they’re big ‘going on a trip’ adventures, or small ‘the brewery we wanted to go to had a power outage and we need to decide on other plans’ adventures. Oh, also, hugs. Hugs are pretty much one of my favorite things. I’m a hugger. If I make a new awesome friend and they seem open to it, I’ll hug them. I hug my friends, I hug my family, I hug my dogs. I just really love hugs. A lot.

So…that’s a list. I might be forgetting some stuff, I probably am, but the point is that there are a lot of things that make me happy, and a lot of things and people I have to be thankful for. This is here as a reminder of those things.