Things to Be Happy About

I will be the first to admit it: I have not been in a very good mood this weekend.  Call it hormones, call it being tired...  Whatever it is, I have been doing my very best to fight off the urge to sit in a corner and just be grumpy (and perhaps spontaneously cry).


My husband--years ago, when we were still dating--told me to keep a running list of happy things.  The idea was that whenever I started to feel down, I would look at this list and remember that life is still beautiful.  I have not always been good about keeping this list up-to-date, but I have found that it certainly does help... especially when I get in my sit-in-the-corner-and-grump mood.


So, with that in mind, here is something that has recently come into my possession:

It really is a happy little book; it is just a happy-things list that someone has compiled and published.  I bought it at a used book store...  There is even a dedication to someone I don't know on the front page.


That writing on the front page prompted me to do something that I usually don't do: I decided to write in the book, adding my own happy things to the already existing list.

Yes, look at my lovely handwriting...

There is something freeing about writing in a book--something that I haven't really done since college.  It turns the book from a monologue by the author into a running dialogue, incorporating the reader into the narrative.  What the author has published are her happy things...  and I am adding my own.

As with my previous lists, I haven't been really consistent with my additions.  (It's not like I add something new every day...)  Yet, it is nice to open that little book and see my own handwriting staring back at me, telling me that there are things to be happy about--and seeing the author's original list, complete with things that may not have occurred to me.