30 Days of Happiness Challenge! Bonus Day 31!

Alllll caught up!  And just in the nick of time!  I couldn't really be cutting it any closer...

Ah-ha!  If you want to see a happy person--what is the answer to the below question?

Who just did her taxes?!

THIS GIRL!

Hooray!

What was the happiest moment for you in March?  I'd love to hear some stories!

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 30!

At first I was lamenting that I had forgotten to do these posts on Saturday and Sunday.  And then I realized I was missing the whole point of the challenge.  It's not so much about if you do it every day, but that you blogged 30 (or 31!) HAPPY blogs!  That is an accomplishment all in itself!  

I think I do!  But it also helps that March was a pretty great month.  Which isn't always the case as March has some tough emotional baggage in my life; that I can come to the end of the month in a lighter mood really does count for a LOT!

Thanks (again) to my friend Lizzy for putting together this challenge.  I think there is so much we can all do to choose our mood and how we want to feel and things like this can really help to put us into the right frame of mind.  :)

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 29!

Okay.  Okay.  I know I'm a few days behind, but I have a really good reason!

On March 28th, in the evening, we left Florida at 8:30pm.  Then we flew to Phoenix for a very short layover (we panicked because the flight out of Florida was late and it caused some anxiety, but all turned out well!) and then flew to Seattle after that.  We arrived in Seattle at 2am and then had a 6 hour lay over.  It was not fun and not much sleep was had.  Then we hopped on the plane at 7:30am (or something?) and landed in Vancouver at around 8:30am!  THEN.

My Uncle came and picked me up at the airport and whisked me away to the ferry so that I could attend my little sister's graduation ceremony!!!!!!!!!!  So my sister graduating from Law School was a *very* good thing that happened that day and I am so proud of her and of all of her future accomplishments that haven't even had the chance to happen yet.  She is soon to be off to Toronto to complete her articling.  I really hope she doesn't fall in love with the East as that would mean I would never get to see her and that's just not okay in my books!  Plus...I think she's a West Coast girl deep deep down.  :)

So yes.  I didn't sleep much and then the ceremony didn't finish until late and I was in a weird place with no computer so blogging wasn't really a possibility!!  But I think the events of the day completely made up for a bit of tardiness!

39 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 28!

Day 28 means it's almost April!  That means it's almost May!  And *that* means it's almost June which means it's almost my birthday!  Ha ha!  Hooray!

Open up any Kurt Vonnegut book and you'll pretty much find a quote that makes me happy.  I'm not sure that I have a quote, necessarily, that makes me happy.  Whenever quote questions come up on quizzes and in things like this, I always just have to google a quote and figure out one that makes me happy.  But I feel like that's cheating and that a lot of people have a stock of quotes that they like.  I"m not so much one of those people.  But Kurt Vonnegut books are filled with gold, in the ways of quotes.  He had such a unique approach to literature and to speaking about the world and human experience.  A way that is both harrowing, but beautiful.  A way that is perhaps too brutally honest.  

If you've never read any of his books, you should!  I've read so many that they've all bled together in my mind.  

If you *have* read one of his books, which is your favorite??  :)

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 27!

What did you get up to today?  I got up to...the sun!  There is an awful lot of it in Florida!  Thankfully it is not as hot as it was when I was here in 2011 in August!  That was almost unbearable!!!!  I don't do well in heat overall!  Once in a while though, it's nice!

I like tea!  I haven't had any caffeine in a long time.  It's been almost two years?  Or wait...has it been two years?  I didn't decide to give it up consciously, but one day I realized that I hadn't had it in a long time...so I just decided to never have it again (I like to give things up.  Chocolate, cake, cookies, soda/pop...the list keeps growing!).  But I love me some tea.  I recently got an Organic Cinnamon/Vanilla Rooibos at a tea shop in Vancouver and I LOVE it.  I really do miss traditional Black or White Chai Tea--but Cinnamon Rooibos might fill a large part of the void for me!  

The thing about a tea though....is that I don't like to drink it when it's very hot.  I'm *always* scared that I will burn myself and thus I pretty much always wait too long to start drinking it!  :)

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 26!

Ut ohs!  The 30 Day Challenge is almost over!  I'm curious to know what you all find to be a fun thing to blog about...whenever I get in the habit of blogging, I get toe enjoying the ritual of doing it each day.  I'm just not sure that I could think of something to blog about every day!  Thank goodness for blogging challenges, I guess! (Thanks Lizzy!)

Ah-ha!  I had a few movies that I really enjoyed growing up.  The Little Mermaid, of course.  It was a classic in my household.  And along with that, strangely enough, was Dirty Dancing.  For some reason, when I was younger, it was a bit of a tradition that we would watch Dirty Dancing at Christmastime.  Don't ask me how that happened...it was just the way things were!  When I was last up home in August, I even managed to catch it on T.V. and watched a bit of it with my Mom.  She fell asleep, but I ended up watching it to the end.  

Oh, nostalgia!

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 25!

Funny that the topic for today is about vacation--when I'm currently on vacation!!  It's a short vacation, but still!

A place that I would *love* to go back to, and somewhere that I could consider a "dream" destination, would be Ios, Greece.  There is something about being on a island, a small island at that, that is very special.  I was lucky enough to go there back in 2001 and I would love love love to go back and to bring my SO with me.  It's the kind of place where you can walk anywhere that you need to go and the weather is soooooo great.  I would like to go at a time of year that isn't "high" tourist season--a girl can dream!

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 24!

Today I left Vancouver to go to Florida!  What what what?  Here to visit the in-laws.  Yep yep!

I am not much of a dancer.  In fact, many might say I am a terrible dancer!  So dancing at home isn't something that comes naturally to me.  Can I post a video of a song I like to sing to?  Singing is way more fun than dancing, in my opinion!  Ha ha...

I could sing her songs all day!  And I *might* get to see her at Coachella, which is a pretty exciting idea, if I do say so myself!

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 23!

23 is one of my favorite numbers, you know.  Well, that and 3 and 5 and 17.  But still!  

Googling "Bliss" brings up strange results.  They're all this weird animated looking field?  Why is that???  I get why nature would be blissful, for surely.  But I don't understand why a weird looking computer desktop would be "bliss"??  Maybe it's some trendy thing I'm just not aware of.  Or maybe it's that everyone uses photoshop too much!  I just don't know!

I am going to cheat and post one of my own pictures.

This is one of my most favorite running paths in Vancouver.  I feel "bliss" when I see it!  :)

30 Day Happiness Project! Day 22!

Daaaay 22!  Today I had the day off and I'll be working tomorrow--something different for a Sunday.  I did have a rather successful day as I managed to get out, in the rain, to run just over 10.5 kilometers.  Hooray for that.  The not-so-hooray part is that now my running shoes are soaking wet and they better dry in time for me to pack them up to bring with me to Florida on Monday!

What's the topic of today?

But...I have so many favourite people!

One of my favorite people is about to graduate from Law School next week!  I'm so sad that I won't be able to see her convocation, but at least other people from my family will be there to see it and they better take a million pictures.  This person has long light brown hair, side-swept bangs, and blue eyes (one of them is sleepy, but that can't hold her back!).  She has the ugliest feet you will *EVER* see in your entire life, BUT, she has a heart of gold.  Even though she's my "little" sister, she's taller than me (*grumbles") and you can often find her in clothes she borrowed stolen from her unsuspecting friends.  She's very determined and confident and that confidence is something she has worked very hard for.

Mhmm!

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 21!

Friiiiiday!  Hooray!  I have Saturday off, so this is exciting!  I do have to work on Sunday, but that is okay because I don't usually work on Sundays and I used to really like to!  Yay for having a day off soon!  YAY!  :)

Day 21!  

Hmmmm.  I don't actually eat cookies.  I haven't had one since 2001.  So yeah...it's been a while!  My SO apparently makes wonderful cookies, but I have never tried one.  I'm silly like that!  

Can I talk about soup instead??  :D

I recently combined this recipe with this one and made a very tasty roasted cauliflower, fennel and garlic soup.  As I have previously stated in this 30 Day Challenge--soup is the greatest!  Yay for eating in bowls and using spoons!  Yay for soup!

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 20!

Spring has sprung and the end of the week nears!  You can't really ask for more than that, right???

This is interesting.  Found photography is a cool thing and this is an event that happened just up in North Vancouver.  I wish I paid closer attention to these things when they were happening!  I always like going to museums, but I'm kind of picky about the exhibits I go to and I'm not in the habit of seeing what kinds of "cultural" events are happening in my city or the surrounding areas.  There is always time to improve on that though!!!

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 19!

Oh goodness.  It's starting to feel like I'm running out of days!  Oooh nooooo!

Favorite blogs?!  Check!

My lovely friend Lindsay has a super blog where she posts about her awesome vegan food creations.  Sometimes she posts about other things, but it's usually about food and food is the best!  

This one isn't so much a blog as it is a blogging community...and does anyone ever even still use Live Journal?  No one knows...but what I do know, is that this community called Behind the Lens always inspires me to take my camera out!

Food.  Check.  Photos.  Check!

Makeup?  

Check!  Viola's blog, Killer Colours, is greatness.  She focuses on a lot of cruelty free products (but not everything, sadly) and her tutorials are lovely.  I envy her nail polish application techniques and her posts about her daily life always make me nostalgic for Europe.

Yay blogs!

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 18!

Hiii hello!

Day 18, what topic whilst thou bring us?

Ah-ha!  Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  I have a few songs lately that make me pretty happy.  I'll link y'all to some of them:

The drums and the bass here make me all kinds of happy:

A couple of years ago I made a New Year's Resolution to become a better whistler.  Every time this song comes on, I feel like it makes me an *awesome* whistler!

And Okkervil River *always* cheers me up, even though the theme of their songs isn't necessarily "cheery".  I really should see them live again sometime as it has been a while since I have!

Mhmmmm!  I'd love to know some of your happy songs!  :)

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 17!

Oh boy!  We've made it past the halfway point!  I guess technically that happened yesterday, but blogging from an ipod does not lead one to wax poetic.  Not that I am feeling particularly verbose today--having had gotten up at 4:45am this morning and not really sleeping all that well (I think I've been awake since around 3:30am...but who is keeping track?!!).  Oh well though!  I got off work while they sun was shining and I meandered home along the seawall so I call today a success!

It also does happen to be March 17th and for a lot of people, this is cause to wear green.  I didn't actually wear green today.  Oops?

It's Monday night--I don't care of it's a "holiday"!  Ha ha...Here's what I'm about to crack open:

The orange one, the one in the middle!  Cyoni makes *the best* orange juice in the world.  I could drink it every single day.

What'cho drinking?

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 16!

Ooon no!  I turned off the computer for bedtime before I wrote my blog!!  *gasp!*. I have to get up at like 4:45am which is already only 8 hours away from right now!!!  Gaaaah!

I can't get the little picture to upload for today's topic, but I will edit this post tomorrow to add it!

Edit!  Here is the topic of the day!

I know the topic is to google "dream" and post your favorite find...

Here is mine:

Maybe because that is about to be me at any moment......

I hope my iPod typing didn't cause a billion typos...until tomorrow!!

30 Day Happiness Challenge. Day 15!

Today's topic perplexed me.  I had a rather trying day and then it ended in a trying way so I was feeling rather...ambivalent when I walked in the door when coming home for the evening.  Thankfully I had a bottle of wine in hand and I knew the night was looking up, even after the long week and long day!  

But then!  I had a surprise waiting for me for dinner.  GRAVY!  I had been talking about how I wanted to have gravy for the potatoes we were planning to eat and then I was surprised with wonderful gravy which I proceeded to pour over the entire contents of my dinner plate (fried tofu, steamed kale and roasted potatoes).  Gravy can turn any sub-par day into a WONDERFUL and very happy day.

+1 for Gravy and for the people who make it for us!  :)

30 Day Happiness Challenge. Day 14!

It's almost the "weekend".  Hooray!  Although this weekend I only get one day off.  One day off is better than no day off in my books, however!  So hooray just the same!  Do you have any fun weekend plans?  I'm not sure what I'll be up to on Sunday, but likely not too much as I have to get up at 4:45am on Monday so I can walk to work.  Oh boy!

Anyways.  On to today's 30 Day Happiness Challenge Topic!

Mmmmmmm food.  Eating is probably my number two favorite thing (just after sleep.  YAY SLEEP!)!  Are you curious to know what Lizzy's favorite foods are?  She was able to make her list very specific whereas I think mine might end up being a bit more general....

1. Soup!  I LOVE SOUP!  Spoons are my favorite utensil and soup is the best!  I love vegetable soup, creamy (using coconut milk and whatnot) soups, lentil soup, tomato soup, mushroom soup...you name it!  Soup is in!
2. Pasta!  I could eat pasta for days and days and days and days.  I love fresh pasta noodles, especially.  Although they are hard to come by in the vegan variety--unless one actually makes one's own noodles--but that is time consuming as hell...Yay pasta!  I like tomato based sauces, sauces with tofu, creamy sauces (using vegan roux, etc.), peanut sauces.  Pasta salad.  Mmmmm pasta!!!!!!!!!  Also.  Pasta IN soup!  2 in 1!
3. Thai curry.  Especially green curry.  Or red curry.  Or Panang curry!  Curries give me a great reason to eat one of my other favorite things: rice!  I'm having a very real craving for spicy things right now and spicy curries are the best.  
4. Stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy.  Gravy is good on most things, but especially mashed potatoes.  And baked savory bread is always good in my books!  I wish I could eat stuffing ALL OF THE TIME and not just around the holidays.
5. Perogies.  I grew up eating perogies and now that I'm vegan I don't get to eat them very often--but I make pretty bad-ass vegan perogies if I do say so myself.  

I think the main theme of my list is: carbs.  I <3 a="" and="" but="" bviously="" carbs.="" div="" ever="" favorite="" food="" fruits="" i="" if="" is="" it="" kale="" less="" like="" makes="" more="" my="" nbsp="" of="" one="" sense.="" side="" teamed="" that="" things="" think="" too.="" vegetables="">

What's your favorite food???

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 13!

Ooooh Lucky 13!  And what a day it is in the 30 Day Happiness Challenge!

Easy peasy!  My favorite artist hasn't changed in years and years and years.

Who is it?  It's none other than:

Salvador Dali

We've had Les Elephants up in our living room for years.  And one of my favorite moments ever was getting to see Birth of Man in person at the Dali museum in Florida.  It blew me away!  For many years I wanted to get one of the Figure with Drawers images tattooed to my rib cage.  But I see that this guy beat me to it!  And this girl!  Sheeesh!  :)

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 12!

Okay!  This topic has made me feel all anxious and uncomfortable because I can't, for the life of me, remember the NAME of my middle school role model....

I have sent out an SOS to my Mom, hoping that she will remember this person's name...because I think they knew each other when they were teenagers???

Anyways.  Back in the 7th grade I had the most wonderful English teacher.  She was the reason I wanted to become a teacher myself and part of the reason why I came to love English so very much.  I remember her teaching us a book that had to do with these humanoid people on another planet and the main character had blue (or was it green??) skin.  I can't remember the name of that either, but I *do* remember really liking that book and thinking to myself that not all English teachers would have picked a book like that to teach.  Although I can't say that I ever will become a teacher (although who knows...stranger things have happened!), I definitely LOVE teaching.  T.Aing in the English department at my university is one of the most fun things ever an I'm lucky enough to have chosen a profession (in HR) where I can train/teach people alllllll of the time.  

Now if only I could remember her name...............................

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 11!

Hi hello!

Do you ever get surprised by how early you can fall asleep?  (Am I just aging myself?!)  Last night I went to bed at like 8:30pm, thinking I would read for a while.  I think by 8:35pm I was asleep, with the light still on, and my book on my chest.  And then I slept through the night!  Geeeeez!  Sometimes I guess your body just knows when it needs sleep.  :)

Oooooh Reality TV, you evil evil guilty pleasure!  I actually don't watch that many Reality TV shows.  I think my favorite would be a tie between Top Chef and Project Runway.  Even though Top Chef almost always features food that isn't vegan, I still enjoy seeing the cooking creative process!   The same goes for Project Runway--I am by no means someone who can sew or someone who is "fashionable", but I do like seeing how such amazing things can be made from seemingly simple fabrics.  Draping, especially, always WOWs me!  There isn't even sewing involved in that (hardly) and yet the most beautiful things come out in the end!  Amazing!

How about you?  What's your favorite??

30 Day Happiness Challenge. Day 10!

Running into people that you haven't seen in 14 years is a strange thing.  I happened upon an old classmate of mine (classmate??  That doesn't sound like a word I'm supposed to use...) today on the street.  One can never anticipate when that kind of thing will happen, I guess!

But.  What is today's topic, you ask?

The last thing to make me laugh was the episode of Girls I was just watching (Season 3, episode 8).  I'm enjoying this season a lot more than season 2.

Smile?  My new haircut!  I was an anxious mess on Saturday--trying to decide if I was going to call the salon to make an appointment (I have pretty high anxiety when it comes to phoning strangers or just phones in general) and today was the fruits of the stress, in one way or another.  I quite like what the hairdresser did and I think I'll try to go back to her again in 4 months.  Yep yep!

30 Day Happiness Challenge! Day 9.

Oh, spring forward.  How you mess us all up!  Last night I stayed up way too late playing board games with with S.O. and springing forward only made it worse!  *shakes fists*  I wonder what it would take for us to stop having to do this arbitrary time change nonsense...but this discussion is likely for another time!

It is Day 9.

I would dedicate my words to Neil, Andrew and Bean.  Three individuals taught me the importance of unconditional love, friendship and that laughter can come from the most unexpected places.  Although these three someones were only part of my life for a short while, their impact on my life has been profound and I feel so lucky to have been a part of their short lives.

30 Day Happiness Challenge, Day 8!

Day 8!  

This is a video I happened upon a few months ago and I emailed it off to my Mom and sister right away because it's so full of cuteness and it definitely made me smile a lot.

And usually father/daughter things are things I'm not overly fond of.  But it's impossible to deny the smiles that this video causes, I think!  :)

I hope you all enjoy it.

30 Day Happiness Challenge. Day 7!

I remember my entry for last time for this very topic.  It's very hard to top Brad Pitt's smile.  Trust me.  But this year, I am expanding my horizons!

I bring you the wonderousness that is none other than Benedict Cumberbatch:

Do I know how to link to it as a gif?  I don't actually know!  Gif magic!

And Michael Fassbender:

Yeah, okay.  So Brad Pitt ended up being in this picture.  That was a complete coincidence.  I promise!

And because she is one of the most beautiful:

The lovely, Eva Green.

Oh, famous people.  You're so lovely.

30 Day Happiness Challenge. Day 6!

Day 6 is a hard one.  There are too many to choose from!  Too many what, you ask?

And am I just picking the thing I posted last time?  Quite possibly.  I did just watch a LOT of baby animal videos and there are some pretty cute potbellied pig ones and some great kitten ones and awesome puppy ones...but then the video is ruined by weird songs or humans making noise, etc.

However.  Can anything top whistling puppy?  I don't think so.  Watching this makes me smile.

And for some reason I can't link directly to the video.   But if you go to youtube and search "whistling puppy" you will find it and you won't regret it.

Happy Day 6, internet!

30 Day Challenge, Day 5!

5 is one of my favorite numbers, so it's somewhat funny what the topic of today's 30 Days of Happiness happens to be:

Breakfast!!  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm breakfast.  But.  I almost *never* eat breakfast!  I know, I know.  It's the most important meal of the day.  Believe me.  I've told that to LOTS of people who don't eat breakfast.  I'm terrible at taking my own advice.  My favorite thing for breakfast, when I eat it, is savory food.  Whether it's tofu scramble, savory waffles (think waffles with steamed kale, fried tofu and gravy!) or something of that sort--I am totally game.  

I do enjoy myself a bowl of cereal.  I think all the best things can be eaten with spoons (but I'm mostly referring to soup.  I LOVE SOUP!) and cereal is no exception.  I like granola.  A lot.  

Do I like granola more than savory breakfast?  Heck no.  Savory breakfast ANY AND EVERY DAY!

Breakfast makes me type in caps...

:)

30 Days of Happiness Challenge, Day 4!

Day 4, Day 4, Day 4.  What more could I ask for?

I suppose first I could ask for the topic.  And it is:

So off I go to find something joyful on google!

It's pretty funny how often the same image pops up when googling "joy".  It usually involves people jumping up in the air.  I suppose, jumping for "joy"...but come on.  How obvious can you get?!  Ha ha...

Here is the image that I found that I liked:

(From: http://mariashriver.com/wp-content/uploads/drupal/Joy_1-1024x819.jpg?f51cc5)

Is it cliche to think that you can choose joy?  I don't think so and I think it's a very positive message.  I do believe that we choose our attitudes and I think choosing a joyful attitude can really put you and everyone around you in such a great place!  Yep yep!

30 Day Happiness Challenge, Day 3!

Oh boy!  Day 3 already!

If Day 3's topic was a subject in the 2012 challenge, it is quite possible that my answer hasn't changed!

Here's the topic:

My gut instinct is none other than Cute Overload.  Animals being cute is hard to top.  

However, sometimes I am in the mood for different kinds of cheering up!  If I want a guaranteed laugh, I put on an episode of the ever popular My Drunk Kitchen, hosted by the very charming (and always quite drunk) Hannah Hart!  Whenever I am watching one of these videos (with headphones on) and laughing uncontrollably, my husband can *always* guess what I'm doing!  In fact, it's cheering me up right now just thinking about the episode I watched this morning with Mary Louise Parker!  Go watch it, you won't regret it.  :)

30 Days of Happiness, Day 2!

Alrighty then!  I'm *so* about to be caught up on this challenge!  And no more forgetting what day it is!  :)

Day 2's challenge:

Now this is a hard one!  We don't watch too many comedies at my house--in fact, we don't watch movies at my house, period!  (We used to, but haven't for about a year.)  We do go to the theater still, but comedies generally aren't high up on the list of things to see on the big screen.

However!

The following scene from the classic 2003 Christmas movie, Elf, makes my husband laugh so hard that he tears up and that always makes ME laugh so hard that I tear up!

Oooh, Elf.  You're so awesome.  :)

30 Days of Happiness! Day 1!

My lovely friend, Lizzy, over at It's a Geek Life has started up a 30 Day Happiness challenge.  I participated in this with her a couple of years ago and it was good fun, so of course I decided to join in again this year!

One might say I'm off to rough start as I really did think today was March 1st, not March 2nd! That means you'll be getting two posts today so I can catch up!  Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The first challenge:

Does...a smirk count???

I don't really do open lipped smiles in pictures and any that I took looked utterly ridiculous and not like me at all!  I guess I'm just a smirkin' kind of lady.  :)

Thanks to Lizzy for starting this up again--I'm looking forward to the next 30 "days"!  Woo!