A Few "Happy-Happy" Things. . .

“When my one-year-old grandson Jayden enjoys something,

however mundane and ordinary,

he does a little dance and chants in sing-song,

"Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy..."

His cheerful enjoyment of the simplest things is an admirable trait,

so I will follow suit and make a point to notice and exude

"happy, happy, happiness" about simple, daily, easily overlooked things.”

~taken from my High Desert Home blog

Happy-happy me today. . .

~Friends who travel the world and bring me the best jasmine green tea from Asia (the highest quality, they say—for diplomats. . . and for me, too, apparently). It’s delicious. And when I run out, ultra-cool J-Tea from Eugene sells a mighty fine jasmine green tea themselves. Morning coffee~after dinner tea. Nice.

~A beautiful, warm, sunshiny afternoon on such a lovely campus. Leaves are turning, the sky is vibrant blue, and the air feels crisp-but-just-warm-enough. I sat outside on a bench between classes, and my nephew (a student at the honors college, like his sister) came by, sat down beside me, and we visited. Love my nephew!

~Fun at the football game with mom and gang. It got loud (and I got almost hoarse because I do my part as a fan!), and Oregon won even though our best player was out for the entire game and our quarterback went out with an injury just after half-time (and we were playing against a ranked team). No problem. We are rife with great backups! It’s super-fun to be in Autzen stadium—one of the most intimidating stadiums in the U.S., they say.

~Feeling immensely grateful to God for being able to afford to eat tasty, healthy food. And for what seems like a miraculous stretching of the grocery budget! Today: two pieces of sprouted grain toast with almond butter-miso spread; a loaded green smoothie (romaine, kale, cucumber, apple, lemon juice, banana); a falafel pita sandwich with lots-o-veggies; some dark chocolate; a healthy “raw” bar to get me through the afternoon; green tea; a giant dinner salad with romaine, pineapple, avocado, red bell pepper, and Asian vinaigrette, with curry-cashews on top; a bit more dark chocolate (see why this is so happy-happy?). You know, I just feel so great when I eat well.

And, finally, because I have five little quizzes to take online by midnight (and I need to do the homework first) and I have lots of reading and some short-answer questions to fill out. . . and still want to get to bed at a decent hour. . . The final happy-happy?

~Hijole! I got an A+ on my Spanish test. How did that happen? If you had told me a month ago that, after being in Spanish class for less than ten days, I’d be writing a two-page essay in Spanish on a test, I would have laughed. But, along with a page of questions we had to answer, that’s what we were asked to do, and I’m just so thankful that it went well. I don’t ever feel in total command of what we’re doing for class (in fact, sometimes I feel half-panicked about it), but maybe that’s just the nature of the process of this language-learning thing. (And maybe it’s also the nature of too-perfectionistic me—something I’m truly trying to overcome!)

But, at any rate, God is good! And I’m thankful my life is full of “happy, happy”! I hope yours is, too! (And for a lot of us, it’s all about the way we choose to look at it, isn't it?)