hopefully something rhetorical

The following is a list of things that I have discovered make me happy. This post should explain this project if you are interested. I will post them as I discover them with the newest one at the top!

1. I really enjoy time spent working with my hands.  It is relaxing and exhilarating for me to get an idea out of my head and onto paper, fabric, etc.  I am even learning to love the experiments that don’t produce perfect results.  The experience has started to mean more and more to me.  (September 29, 2008)
2. It makes me happy when I connect with a song in a new way.  When I listen to the words that someone is “singing to me” that seem to fit so perfectly with my life.  It feels like I am getting my own private little concert.  And, it makes me feel connected to the people around me.
3. I love cooking for people, particularly when it is on my time. Dinner gets old…same conversations about what do you want to have. But, when you make something for someone who has never tasted anything you’ve made, and it turns out good, then I marvel in the fact that they enjoy something that I have made with my own two hands. I think that’s why I love crafting at all. It is the act of putting together of smaller parts into something that makes the senses dance. (July 26, 2008)
4. One of the things I do love about living in the midwest is the views. They are nothing like I have ever witnessed. In suburbia, where I grew up, you tend to have pockets of pretty in amongst all the commercial sites that surround you. Here, however, every time I get in the car I see something gorgeous.And, another thing that makes me happy about this place is the fact that it has been green in the summers since we have lived here. I was afraid that things were going to go brown because of lack of water, but it hasn’t done it in the last four years. This year is particularly green because of all the rain that we got this spring. I will have to add a picture here soon.
5. I have always been a very active dreamer, and I always notice I dream more when I read more. My favorite dreams are about my dad. He died when I was 15, and while I know he appears in my dreams from time-to-time, I have only had two dreams where I am 100% sure that he was the focus. These were both so vivid that I can remember all of what happened. And, they were both the types of dreams where you wake up expecting them to be true. I like thinking that I was able to spend a little more time with him. Maybe this means I should be reading more to encourage the flexing of my creativity.