Happiness List

With everything going on in my life right now, it seems like it could be quite easy to focus on the negative things.  To focus on complaining or feeling sorry for myself.  These things come quite easily to me and sometimes I need to remind myself of how lucky I am, how happy I am in this moment and much hope there is that even if things aren't brilliant right now, there is still that hope that they could be in the future. 

So when I read this blog post by Stephanie Burgis, in which she posted a Happiness List, it came at the perfect time for me.  It was exactly what I needed to read right at that moment.  And since I read her blog post and all of the things that were making her happy, I began thinking of all the things that were making ME happy.  And in doing so, I was probably appreciating things a bit more than normal.  And with a rare weekend of sunshine, I ended up having the absolute best time. 


Purple tights - Until a few months ago, I was never much of a dress person.  I never felt very comfortable with them as wearing them I just feel overly self-conscious. But I bought a couple in the Christmas sales last year, and thought 'why not?' I liked wearing them so much that I started picking up other accessories ... and last week I found a cute pair of purple tights that go with my favourite dress perfectly.  Wearing my new dress with my brightly coloured tights make me exceedingly happy. 


Blog inspiration - It's taken awhile, but I think I'm finally working myself out of this latest blogging slump.  This makes me happy on many different levels.  And the thing I love the most is having my inspiration back.  I love when an idea for a blog post takes over my brain and gets my creativity going.  Thanks for patience with this, my lovely readers! Hopefully you'll see the results of my new-found blogging inspiration soon!

Pooh Country in Ashdown Forest - Many, many years ago, N took to me to Ashdown Forest, where AA Milne took inspiration to write his Winnie the Pooh books.  I had a wonderful time there and we've been talking FOR YEARS about returning.  We put it off for a long time after the boys were born so that they'd be old enough to wander around on their own as well as old enough to recognise (and LOVE) the Winnie the Pooh stories.

This past weekend was absolutely PERFECT weather-wise and N and I thought it the best time to go back.  And it was lovely.  We wandered around the pretty countryside, ran in the forest.  The photo is of E holding his bundle of sticks to play Pooh Sticks on Pooh Stick bridge.  It was an amazing day.  It was wonderful to see the boys running around.  E was explaining to me that one of the characters in Winnie the Pooh is 'Christopher Sparrow' though and I DID laugh nearly the whole day about it. This was the view we looked at while eating our picnic lunch:

Brighton beach -After Pooh sticks, and running around for ages, we decided that instead of coming straight home that we were close enough to Brighton to go there instead.  Honestly, there is nothing I love more than spontaneous road trips! And Brighton was absolutely lovely.  We had fish and chips for dinner and collected seashells and wandered up and down the pier.  The boys got quite confused seeing the Brighton Wheel though, confusing it (understandably!) with the London Eye. 


Chessington World of Adventures - And rounding up the BEST WEEKEND EVER, we spent the Sunday at Chessington.  We spend so much time at Legoland that it always makes such a nice change going somewhere else.  And it wasn't busy at all.  We are all able to walk onto all of our favourite rides ... Bubble Works and the Runaway Train amongst others.  It was a good day.

My two boys - These two beautiful, cheeky boys will always end up on my Happiness List.  They are challenging and funny and clever and kind.  They make me laugh hundreds of times a day.  Their goofiness is endless.

I really can't quite believe how grown up they've become.  The things that come out of their mouths shock and surprise me, especially when they tell me things I don't know (like about Antoni Gaudi, the Spanish architect) or they astound me with their absolute naughtiness (this is mostly the Littlest). 

But they make my life so much more interesting and fun and worthwhile.  I love spending my days with them (mostly) and I will certainly miss them next year when they're both full time at primary school. 

N's photography - Have I mentioned before that N blogs? He writes a photography blog, you can check it out if you like.  The above photo was taken last summer and we especially travelled to Dungeness in Kent in order to take this photo.  I love how creative N is.  He takes lots of photos of the boys and of nature (flowers, trees, waterfalls etc) but my absolute favourite photos that N takes are his more experimental photos, that deal with light photography, splashes, x-raying fruit and that sort of thing.  Recently, he did a really fun photo shoot involving the children's toys.  I won't say much more, but one photo in particular had me laughing out loud randomly while out walking to pick the boys up from school.


Riddles for a Year iPhone app - N does quite late hours and it can be hard sometimes that we don't have much time during the week to hang out and have fun together.  Some days we're both just exhausted from our long days (his at work, mine with the children) but it is always nice when we end up doing things together.  We take the time out to go to the cinema at least once a month (more lately!) and Friday nights are free because of the generosity of my MIL (which should have its own listing in this blog post, really).  The other day, we spent quite a bit of time going through this fun app, in which it lists riddles for every day in the year.  It was fun working on these together and is just quite a fun app anyway!


Standing on the corner, chatting - Without trying to sound too mopey or whatever, but I don't have many friends in my real life.  But I do have a particular friend that I see most days and on not so rainy afternoons, we can often be seen lingering on a street corner chatting away.  I love that.  Through talking with this friend, I find myself entertained, and thinking differently, seeing myself and others in a new light and I feel less alone and isolated.  And as a stay at home mother, that only has its benefits.  If you're reading this, thank you C!

So this is my list. I would love to hear the things that have been making you happy recently!