We're In the Big Time!

It doesn't take much to amuse or make me happy.  We moved into our little neighborhood almost 35 years ago.  It's a cute little neighborhood, but the streets are narrow.  I can live with narrow streets, but parking is a bit of a bear.

It was pretty difficult all those years ago to drive our neighborhood at night.  There were no street lights.  That problem was solved 5 or 6 years after we moved in.  A couple of years ago extra fire hydrants were added.  Unfortunately, one of them is in front of our house -- remember narrow streets and lack of parking. I didn't think our house insurance company would appreciate us complaining about a fire hydrant, so we deal with it.

Sidewalks, though, were sparse.  We had a sidewalk in front of our home, but a lot of people didn't.  Apparently, each homeowner installed their own sidewalk if desired.  We were fortunate to have one when we moved in.  The City is finally installing sidewalks for those homes that don't have them.  Finally, after all these years, we can actually walk all the way up and down the street without having to walk on the street or on a neighbor's muddy grass!  Our street is now complete, and they are working on the other streets in the neighborhood.  It won't be long before we will actually be able to walk all the way around the block!  How cool is that?!

Yep, it doesn't take much to make me happy.  Or maybe it's just sweeter after the long 35-year wait.

Stained Glass Curtains

My Stained Glass Curtains

I was about six years old when my parents bought a new house.  At first, they couldn't afford to buy curtains for the sliding glass door in the family room, so Mom retrieved her collection of fabric scraps.  Mom made patchwork curtains for the sliding glass door.  They were supposed to be a very temporary solution, so she didn't even line them.  When the sun came through those curtains, it was magic!  The whole room lit up!  It was like a beautiful stained glass window.  We all loved them so much, that Mom left them there until they completely rotted away before replacing them.

I always said that someday, I would have "stained glass curtains" in my house.  We built the addition to our home the winter of 1986 - 1987, I believe.  For the first time, we had a sliding glass door.  I didn't have a collection of sewing scraps because I'm not the sewing wizard that my mother was, but I bought some fabric to make curtains.  I wanted all the colors of the rainbow.  I wanted them to last a long time, so I bought white muslin and lined them.  I thought they were beautiful, and I was very proud of them.  I loved being in that room!

As my children became older, however, they referred to my work of art as "gay" curtains.  It's was very odd to me that "all the colors of the rainbow" meant something completely different to my children.  About a year ago, I finally had to replace those old curtains.  It was a sad day for me.  The curtains I made this time around are from one fabric.  It was a much more expensive fabric than my original curtains.  I lined them with better fabric, as well.  I like them.  They go with my family room. quite nicely -- but nothing could ever replace my stained glass curtains!

Kids, laugh all you want -- but sunshine coming through the colors of the rainbow still make me happy.  Mom, thanks for teaching me that beauty is seen in many ways -- and it doesn't have to be expensive.  I miss you.

The Choice

"Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times." -- Aeschylus

A couple of months ago I saw the quote above on Twitter. I was in a really bad mood, which had been building for a couple of months. There had been days on end when I just kept putting one foot in front of the other just to make it through the week. I don't remember who posted that quote, but if I did, I would certain express my gratitude. I wrote it down on a yellow "sticky" note, and taped it to the bottom of my computer screen at work. In the days that followed, I developed a plan to "make myself happy." It turned out that I was not really "unhappy" at all; I just had a bad attitude.

God gave us "agency" to make choices. We generally think about those choices as being between good and evil, but we also have the choice to be happy or unhappy. We've all heard stories about incredibly disadvantaged or disabled people who are joyful and lead productive lives. Their lives are productive because they choose to be happy.

Everyone has a bad day now and then, and that's to be expected. Life is full of peaks and valleys. It's what we do with our lives when we are in the deepest valleys that determine who we are, and where we are going -- maybe even how fast we get to the next mountain peak.

My plan to make myself happy was simple enough. All I had to do was to stop dwelling on a situation that I perceived to be unfair to me. A funny thing happened: as soon as I stopped dwelling on it, the situation evaporated. I realize now that the situation only existed because others were walking on egg shells around me trying to avoid my increasingly bad attitude.