I am never down. I am either up, or getting up.

 I’ve had people tell me that I always have a smile on my face. I try to. I consciously strive for that. I am a very happy person in general. Of course, I wasn’t always. Like anyone else, I’ve had my share of obstacles and challenges. I know now, you do what you need to and go on. I believe there’s no reason to dwell or live in that state for any longer than is necessary. I consciously feel the pain or anguish or turmoil while I’m there – really feel it - then let it go. There is always something to be grateful for. There is always something to be happy about. And the two are not exclusive.

At one point in my life I was not happy. I was stressed out from work, family, friends and my marriage. Basically, I wasn’t happy with life in general. The common denominator? Me! I could either continue to deny there was any issue at all, or take a long, hard look at it. Oh, it is so much easier to deny it and try to forget about it and pretend it doesn’t exist or bother me. So much easier! But it does bother me. And it doesn’t go away, it gets worse. I’d drive to work crying and hoping to be sideswiped by a semi. I had to deal with this once and for all.

I am an avid researcher. I will research the hell out of any subject I need at the time. I’m also a do-it-yourself-er. If I find I can’t do it myself, then I’ll bring in help, but my initial attempt will nearly always be to learn what I need to learn and take care of the issue. The subject of this day: “how to be happy”. Wow. There are multitudes of books, millions of articles, thousands of experts and tons of newsletters. I’m pretty good at weeding out the riff-raff websites but there were still pages upon pages of information. Where do I start? At the beginning.

The base concept I took away from nearly every reading came down to gratefulness. Yes, I write about that a lot – and this is why. I found I wasn’t happy with what I had because I had taken it for granted. The stress and fast pace of life makes it so easy to fall into that trap. I started by methodically going over each issue and looking in the mirror for the answer. If I quit my job and got a different one, would I be happy? No – I’d simply be swapping one set of issues for a different set in a new company. If I stopped seeing all of my friends and got new ones, would I be happy? No – you have to really be a friend to have a friend and I knew I wasn’t holding up my end of the bargain a lot of the time. If I disowned my family would I be happy? Certainly not! Every family I know has some degree of dysfunction. To say “dysfunctional family” would be redundant. And finally, if I left my husband, would I be happy? Well, ok, not at that particular time. Later. But at that time I wasn’t a very good wife either.

Bottom line, I needed a major attitude adjustment. Oh, ugh. That’s going to be a LOT of work! But I found that if you master one small thing at a time, it’s not all that difficult. It takes time to learn to consciously think about what you’re doing – and be happy about it. Vacuuming is one of the most mundane chores a person can do. Your mind wanders other places and before you know it you’re done and barely remember doing it. Next time you vacuum, really look at the carpet and watch the crumbs and lint and debris magically vanish. Think about how much you’re helping the life of your carpet. Think about the allergens you’re removing from your household. Your home is your haven and it should be treated accordingly in order to make you feel safe and comfortable there. When you’re done, you’ll have such a feeling of accomplishment. And, yes, I do this. This works just the same with something less mundane like your job. For me, I was totally overwhelmed, overworked and stressed out. I know how this job is and regardless of where I work, I had to decide if this is truly what I wanted to do for the rest of my working life. I thought long and hard and came to the realization that I love every aspect about the job. I like the fast pace, I like fixing things. I like learning something new every day. My stress came from a lack of time-management and in this job, there is no such thing. I had to accept that fact and simply prioritize. And I did. And, again, I had to consciously feel thankful for my job every day. I had to force myself at first. It certainly doesn’t start out as second nature. I’d think, “I’m so happy that I have this job.” And then think about what makes me happy about it today. Some days I accomplish a lot. Some days, I accomplish nothing productive. But every day moves me in a positive direction simply by what I’ve learned. And for that I can be grateful. And that makes me happy. And the experience teaches me that I can weather any storm and remain happy.

Finally, happy people smile, right? Not always. Some people don’t have that outward show of emotion. If I truly wanted to embrace happiness I needed to exude happiness. The experts say it makes a difference. I can tell you, as cheesy as it sounds, it does work. If you’re feeling sad or a little down you’re supposed to smile for 10 seconds. I think I remember my mom telling us this as well. (Yes, mom?) So, in my attitude readjustment phase, I employed this trick as well. At first I felt so stupid sitting there grinning for no reason. But, funny thing – it actually works. Now I don’t think about it anymore. I smile at people wherever I go. Sometimes it’s a game to see who will smile back.

:-)

Perfectionism

My mom called me a perfectionist. Everything had to be right and in its place. Clothes folded correctly and all the same. My room dusted and vacuumed every week. Hair parted exactly in the center. Even when I ate, I’d eat one thing at a time so as not to mess up my plate. I still butter my toast exactly to the edge. Everything was clean, even and symmetrical. The funny thing is that it sounds extremely neurotic to me now, but when I was a kid, that was just how I was. To this day I love that about my parents. They let us each be what we were and celebrated it instead of suppressing it. (That alone is a topic for a different post.) However, it seems that according to the me now, the me then was neurotic. LOL!

I’ve learned to relax a bit over the years. I don’t have to pick up every speck of fuzz off the floor the second I see it – I waited a whole hour once. I mix up my food on my plate. I part my hair on the side. It’s not completely gone and never will be and that’s ok with me. But it doesn’t control me as much as it used to. Nowadays they call it OCD – the extreme cases, anyway. I think I liked the term perfectionism better. It sounds more human.

As I’ve matured, I see that I’m not only like that because I have a disorder. I’m now a clean freak because I appreciate the fact that I have a home and a car and clothes to clean. I take pride in maintaining that which I am fortunate enough to possess. I see the homeless people often and can only imagine how grateful many of them would be to have even the simple things I have. To be able to bathe daily, to have food in the refrigerator, to care for a pet, to choose different clothes each day – these are things we have all taken for granted at one time or another. We will almost always learn appreciation through loss of these basics. How did you feel the last time your water heater went out? Could you imagine only ever having the option of a cold shower? I did that for a week once – years ago. It was horrible. Now, every time I take a shower I still have a fleeting thought about that week and appreciate my hot water heater even more.

Take care of yourself and your life and everything in it.

Spokane and Lake Coeur d'Alene

What a terrific 4th of July vacation! Jeff, Braxton and I went up to Spokane to spend a long weekend with Sue and Rex. They're such wonderful hosts - we wanted for nothing. Thanks guys! We love you and we'll see you again soon!

 

At the Stonehenge replica in Marysville, WA

 

 

 

 

 

On the lake, on the boat...

  

Jeff & Braxton

 Our wonderful hosts...

 

 

Beautiful sky before the fireworks

 

The dock to our campground

  

Our campground - Mica Bay Boater's Park

 

 

The Spokane River and Falls

 

 

 

 

Jeff and Braxton try out the Radio Flyer slide!

 

 

The renovated Davenport Hotel in Downtown Spokane:

 

Every day

Yesterday I was not the same person I am today. Tomorrow I won’t be the same person I am today. That is, if I’m lucky. And if I’m willing to pay attention.

Learn something new every day.

This is really easy for me in my job. In technology, things change so quickly that it’s a running joke anymore. But in general life, it’s so very easy to trudge through each day without thinking, and therefore without learning.

The big events have a big impact and are quite obvious. I recently learned about a friend of a friend who passed away from an aneurism. I know this happens – most people do. It’s even often a supportive cliché used to justify living life to the fullest – because you could die from an aneurism at any moment in your life. That and getting “hit by a bus tomorrow”. Even though I didn’t know the friend, this rang awfully close to home. As it would for most. And I truly did take a moment to focus on all that I’m grateful for in my life. I learned that I want to be more conscientious of those I love and care about.

But not everything is life and death. Most of what we deal with in life isn’t life and death. Most of what we deal with is repetition. Day in, day out. SSDD, as some say. So, outside of school or work, to learn something new every single day becomes quite the challenge. You have to pay attention. You have to be conscious of your surroundings at the moment. You have to be in that moment. If you’re out playing golf and thinking about laundry that needs to be done, you’re not in that moment and you’ve removed any opportunity to see anything new. This, as well as the fact that you’re not concentrating on hitting the ball.

Years ago, before I learned this – how to live in the moment (and not neglect the rest of my life) – I was gardening in my backyard. I had a small vegetable garden and a border of flowers around the small yard. Nothing special. I was crouched down weeding when, out of the corner of my eye, almost behind me, I saw a large black spot slowly and erratically fly by. I turned to see a very large, extremely slow bumblebee buzzing by. I have no fear of bees so it didn’t bother me, but I was so curious. Why was it so slow? It had to be the biggest bumblebee I’d ever seen. Maybe some funny species? After a moment, it sped up a bit and eventually flew away at the normal speed of a bee. Back to my garden and a moment later I saw another one. I got up and turned around and just stood and watched the backyard. Maybe they were in our eaves. Or our neighbors’ eaves. I’m looking up and I see another one come from below. What the…? Ok, so then I watched the ground. A moment later, I see a big, black bumblebee dig its way out of the dirt, walk around drunkenly for a moment and then slowly start to fly. It looked like it just woke up, which, I’m guessing at that point, was the case. I never knew bees hibernated in the dirt. I never knew bees lived anywhere other than in hives.

For me personally, I know that when I’m doing one thing and thinking about another, I don’t really “see” what I’m physically doing. I would have never seen the bee in my peripheral vision because I don’t seem to have much peripheral vision if I’m not in the moment. The more I pay attention, the more I realize how little attention I’ve been paying. The best way I’ve found to accomplish this is to think about the things I see. There’s a dialysis center on one of our morning routes and granted, we’re out there early, but I see these people coming in for treatments by car, by bus, by taxi, and I wonder what time they have to get up and how often they have to go there. I see the freedom I have to get up and go without a thought. These people have to plan around their treatments. I had walked by this place for months before I realized what it was – I was so lost in my own head and not in the moment that I saw it but I didn’t really see anything. Now I know. And now I know why I didn’t see it.

Granted, this new knowledge may have nothing to do with anything. But then, at some future point, it may. The bees made me realize that there is more going on around me than what is just in my head. And the crap in my head is often just that – crap. Worrying, surmising, dwelling – none of it is constructive. Living in the moment and paying attention to my immediate surroundings stifles all of that. So now, when I pass that dialysis center, I feel grateful for my own health and that gives me the motivation to stay healthy. And if that’s all I take away from it, I’ve learned a great deal today. And that alone makes me a different person today than I was yesterday.

Portland Fountains Walking Tour

Technically, it's "Portland's Municipal Fountains Tour". Jeff and I did this self-guided walking tour through downtown Portland last week on his birthday. Most of the fountains were on but all of them will be on once summer hits. The tour took us all day as we stopped several places along the way to enjoy some great food and refreshment - the Cheerful Tortoise, Dan & Louis Oyster Bar, Lotus Cardroom & Café, and Buffalo Wild Wings. We didn't do the last/optional fountain because happy hour at Portland City Grill sounded much more appealing by that point of the day! We took pictures of ourselves at each fountain. Fun day!

Here's the brochure: Portland Fountains Walking Tour [PDF]


1. Animals in Pools Fountains
SW Yamhill & Morrison streets between 5th & 6th Avenues

2. Pioneer Courthouse Square Fountain
SW Broadway Avenue & Yamhill Street

3. Teachers Fountain
Simon & Helen Director Park, 815 SW Park Avenue

4 . Shemanski Fountain (Rebecca at the Well)
South Park Blocks between SW Salmon & Main streets

5. Chimney Fountain
North of SW Lincoln Street between 3rd & 4th Avenues

 

6. Lovejoy Fountain
Lovejoy Fountain Park, SW 3rd Avenue, between Lincoln &
Harrison streets

7. Dreamer Fountain
Pettygrove Park, SW 3rd Avenue between Market & Harrison
streets

 

8. Ira Keller Fountain
Keller Fountain Park, SW 3rd & 4th Avenues between Market
& Clay streets

 

9. Elk Fountain
SW Main between 3rd & 4th Avenues

 

10. Salmon Street Springs Fountain
Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park, SW Salmon Street & Naito
Parkway

 

11. Bill Naito Legacy Fountain
Waterfront Park, SW Naito Parkway and the Willamette
River & W. Burnside Bridge & SW Ash Street

 

12. Skidmore Fountain
Ankeny Plaza, SW 1st Avenue between W. Burnside & Ankeny
streets

 

13. Car Wash Fountain
SW 5th Avenue & Ankeny Street

 

14. Lee Kelly Fountain
SW 6th Avenue & Pine Street

Here's the view from the Portland City Grill. Perfect ending to a terrific day!