happiness is...

there's a song from Your a Good Man, Charlie Brown (favorite musical since elementary school, hey kristin chenoweth) that says everything that happiness is to each character. To the characters, happiness, among other things, is

finding a pencil

walking hand in hand

getting along

being alone every now and then

two kinds of ice cream

having a sister

singing together

playing the drums in your own school band

telling the time

anyone and anything that's loved by you.

I love that. Happiness is found in so many simple ways. We have SO many reasons to be happy, and I think we forget that a lot. I know I do. We control our own happiness.

Here's some background to this change of blog...when I got home from Uganda I was not happy to be in Provo. Not happy at all. I didn't want to be here, I thought the people around me were dumb and ignorant of whats out there in the world, I wanted to be with people like my Ugandan friends who really valued life, I wanted to continue living real life, not BYU world life. I hung on to my bitterness about BYU and Provo for a while, and then realized that I was being ridiculous. If the only thing I took home with me from Uganda was that I was now better than everyone else because I had seen a tiny part of the world, that was a change I did not want to have. While I thought about what to do to get my act together, my thoughts kept going back to one afternoon spent with Liz and Brooke exploring the dirt roads on the hill behind our house. We discovered a beautiful village (we were Mzungu novelties again, we caused quite the scene) and a school with little sayings painted on their walls and on tires scattered throughout the grounds. One in particular stood out to me, and kept coming back to me while I was pondering life: I choose to be happy.

That is what did it for me. Happiness is a choice. I could blame my anger on provo and other people, but I was the one letting myself get angry. If I choose to be happy, I will be happy because I will be doing things that coincide with a happy lifestyle. Who woulda thunk?!

So, let it be known throughout the world that on this day, the 25th of January of the year twentyten, I begin my happy blog. It will be kind of like a gratitude journal...just little things that make me happy. I'm just trying to remind myself of what makes me happy, and hopefully from it, be even happier. I hope it makes you happy too

ya know what makes me happy? You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.