It makes me SO happy:)

Happiness is a word constantly tossed around and I'm not sure a lot of us really stop and think.."am I happy with this life?".  There can be lots of reasons why we humans don't stop and ask the question and an even bigger array of potential answers...but for me asking that question was a daily, if not hourly occurrence for so many years.  My ex-husband would yell and belittle me, my job and list of comments was overwhelming and I often felt like I was all alone in a household of 4 people and at the end of each day I would think "am I happy with this life?".  The answer was always no.  But I think just the simple fact I continued to ask myself that, to put happiness as a potential option in my life continued to keep me focused on what could be.  How, what and when was totally up for grab but I knew there was a change coming.  I knew there was a time I was going to create my own happiness.

I did't know it would take the loss of my father, the betrayal of my husband and 18 years of my life to get there.  Those events and dozens of others along the years finally let up to the day when I just knew I needed to be happy, that my life was not long enough to wait until I was 60 to get there and that I needed out.  I left my marriage, sold my business and moved to an entirely different part of the state where I knew no one.  I didn't know where anything was, I didn't have a job and I had hauled my mother, 2 horses, 4 goats, 3 dogs and 3 cats with me.  It was adventure time:)

This is the story of how I create my happiness.  The things I learn, do, grow and make...the process of happiness, in my world.  May you create your own as well.  Understanding that with all good there must be bad, the age old yen and yang I am finding more and more that as I create and nurture my world it is doing the same back and the bad is becoming more tolerable and less painful to me.  I am simply creating my own balance.

Balance in my life includes gardening organically, growing as much of my own food as possible.  Building and creating things on my little farm here in the pacific north west, having land of my own to do as I please is amazing and I am endlessly thankful for how blessed I am to live here.  Being on the ocean, as the Mary Oliver quote says The cure for anything is salt.  Sweat, tears and the sea."  Never being one for tears I opt for the other two!  Caring for my animals, I have a pack of old goats and some equally aged horses in addition to my dogs and cats.  Animals are so special to me and I strive to give them all the best life possible.  Yoga.  Daily.  Yoga is so important for my mind, body and soul....one of the first rooms I set up in my new home was my yoga room.  It's small, special and every single item inside brings me immense happiness.  Where it all goes from here is part of the adventure, the amazing, beautiful, cunning and blessed journey of this life.

Namaste.

(This is Lola Bean, my 10 year old Boston Terrier.  She is my constant sidekick and most loyal companion.)