My Own Happiness Hit List

Building on yesterday's post about how to get over a bad mood, here's my own personal list of things that bring me joy at the moment:

1. Seeing water (not ice) on Lake Champlain … and it's gloriously still and calm
2. The appearance of very young, very pale spring green leaves on trees
3. The smell of baking chicken
4. Going to our CSA (farm coop) on Fridays to pick up jars of extra creamy milk, just cut grass-fed beef steaks, fresh new maple syrup, and some gloriously old and huge rutabaga's
5. Cleaning the house with my family (and watching our kids mop floors, clean bathrooms, and empty trash cans) … that REALLY brings me joy
6. Knowing that my future truly is up to me  -- which is both daunting and joyful
7. Working with Rich and Lena, my business coaches, who get what I do better than me
8. Working with my incredible staff who turn stuff around so fast, and have such amazingly good ideas for making this little company go
9. The photo I saw of a 99-year-old Parisian woman decked out for the Paris fashion shows in black Issaye Miyake plus a lavender ostrich feather hat
10. My friend Laurie's seed incubator, which is roughly the size of a coffee table, and is hatching seeds for about 5000 flowers right now
11. The tenacity of wild strawberry leaves, the only green thing in our yard as the last foot of snow finally melts
12. My friend Trisha
13. Anticipating the first icy swim in the lake with Larry, my husband, as we plunge in in our new swim skins
14. The words that come as God tells me what to write, as usual, in this blog
15. The sanctity of doing what I am meant to do in life

Tags: Self-motivation, living your dreams, joy, happiness