My Personal Recipe to My Happy LIfe

       A happy life is not as hard to come by as people seem to think it is.  Life is not always easy, no one ever said it was going to be, at least they didn’t tell me it would be. I have seen people that don’t have a home or money to put food in there belly, but they seem to be in high spirits and have a good positive outlook on life.  It amazed me how they can be this happy and have nothing.  While talking to a few of these people, I found out they had, at one point had what most people think of as a good happy life; a house, money, nice things, a family, and friends. Through dumb decisions or bad luck they have lost all but their family and friends.  That led me to believe having people that love you and that you love is one major part of being happy.  Therefor i have made two of my ingredients family and friends.  Again let me say it’s not always easy, but it has proven to be worth it to me.  

      I have also added, always give your all in everything that you do.  Thank you dad, who always said, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.”  If you do not, is it really worth it?  I don’t feel as though it is.  When the task  I have done is finished, and I have not given my all, I look back and think I could have done better.  Then that does not make me happy.  I want to be happy.  

        My husband and I don’t have much, but we have worked hard  for what we have.  Knowing that we are working hard in this crazy thing we call life with people to love is enough for us.   There have been times that it as been hard but if you think about it, it could always be worse. So look at your life and be thankful for what you have and make a choice to be happy.

The Picture That Started it All

             Waiting for our kids to come home from school, my husband and I talk about the up coming season of basketball for my daughter. Making sure someone will be off  for her games and practices, in come the kids.  Expecting a form for basketball, she brings in a form to enter the after school art program.  A little disappointed I ask her if she still wants to play basketball.  She tells me “no I would like to try this art program.”  I am a very controlling person and when things don’t go the way I want them or how I think the should I tend to get upset.  This is not what I wanted.  In school I played basketball and wanted my kids to do the same.  After my husband took me away to the room (to chat with me) I realized that Daylann is not me; as much as I would like her to be.  

                 The art program form states that only fifteen kids will be excepted.  The kids that are interested will draw a picture and the instructor will choose the kids from that.  So Daylann gets to work.  She is just not ecstatic about anything she has done.  At nine years old she seems to have a hint of determination.  Then one day she comes home after school and has a picture that she has done, her minds eye of  Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night. 

       In that moment I knew that she was more like me than I could have thought.    As a child I had Van Gogh all over my room; I’m not sure why, but I have always loved his work and come to find out my daughter does too.  That picture got her into the art program.  I now am not so upset that she didn’t want to play basketball anymore.  Every week she gets better and better,  maybe someday she will be as famous as Van Gogh.  

Living like the desperate housewives.

Well, where I live there is not much to do, so my neighbors and I have declared ourselves the Desperate Housewives of Lincoln Gardens!  I have a pool table in the garage; my fellow housewives brought their card table over, and  on a humdrum day we enjoy sitting around the table sippin’ on some wine.  While playing a various assortment of games we indulge ourselves in random gossip of the not so extravagant Lincoln Gardens.  For instance, our eccentric neighbor, to the left, that tends to bring out her trash in her night robe and slippers around five in the evening everyday.  Then we have the older couple that ride around the block on bicycles, they seem to be very nice waving at us each time they go around.  We like to make up stories to fit these people, assuming they lead lives full of suspense and drama.  As we slowly come back to the real world with the radio going and the children playing in the yard; we’ve come to realize that we may not be so desperate after all.