The Answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything

I'm turning 29 on Sunday. And I'm trying not to have a total cow about it.
Nobody talks about "the Big Two Nine", any more than they talk about the "Big Three Two"... All the same, this is a big deal- to me.

I know when I wake up on Sunday, I won't feel different, but a part of me still hopes that I will. I want to wake up and not have to remind myself that I'm in the middle of the Happiness Project, and remember to put on a happy face and be sweet even though I want to chew everyone's head off. I want to wake up and know what I want to do with my life beyond babysit and clean up after my family. I want to wake up knowing the Super Unknowable Secret to Happiness and Success.

I want my Zen back. That's what I want for my birthday. There have been times in my life, when totally by accident, I've been happy and content and satisfied. I didn't have to look for it, or spend hours deliberately focusing on the positive just so I could get through the day without screaming; times when I didn't feel the need to research medications, hoping to find the ultimate pill that would make me into Supermom. Of course, I don't really believe there is such a pill; I know all of that has to come from within.

If only I could just Brain my Heart into cooperation!

Isn't that awful? That picture there is what I feel like I have to do every day!

On the other hand... I am the luckiest unhappy girl in the world. I have a husband and a son who love me and live to make me happy. I get to stay home and take care of my little boy when he's sick. I have a terrible little carpet bomber of a dog who loves to lick my feet. I have a family who would take us in and give the shirt off their backs if we needed it. And I have some of the BEST DAMN FRIENDS in the WORLD! Friends that I can laugh with, cry with, and who love me even when I'm raging. 

God, my life is AWESOME!

There, now all I need to do is forget that I'm TRYING and just BE.

Fruits of my half-assed labor

One of the "projects" I had assigned myself this year was to TAKE MORE PICTURES! So my crummy camera and I have been nearly inseparable, although I usually forget I have it with me!

Here's some of my best shots lately

There are LOTS and lots more... I may eventually get to uploading them all to Kodak... If you'd like to see them and order any prints yourself, send me an email, I might be inspired to get that done :)

The Happiness Project

Day 2 of the rest of my life...

I do a lot of thinking and pondering and contemplating about the current status of my life, my family, my health, etc. I'm a "WHY" person. I have to know WHY things work this way or that way; WHY this happened or that happened, WHY I'm doing this or that... Which is usually a pretty reasonable way to go about things, usually there is an answer or solution to be found in the why.
Like if your foot hurts- Why does your foot hurt? Are your shoes too small? Do you have a splinter or a wart? Did you fall down or drop something on your foot? Are you prone to gout? Ok, so you have a splinter (say). Lets take it out and clean it up and you can stop limping and feeling sorry for yourself... What's that? No, you have no real reason for your foot to hurt? Oh well then SHUT UP. (see that's where the "why" system starts to come apart. Or even better; what? you don't WANT to take the splinter out? Fine. ROT.

What I'm trying to say is- This way of looking at things and treating situations is not getting me more of what I want. My whole life is riddled with idiopathic pain, and not just in the literal sense. My relationships, everything I do, is contaminated with bitterness as a result of apathy, and frustration that even when I do know why things are the way they are, I feel powerless and out of control.

And so, I've decided on a new approach. LET GO! What a novel concept. This is really REALLY a stretch for me. I am freeing myself of paralysis by analysis. I am breaking the cycle of anger-action-failure-anger-action-failure, and HOPEFULLY, as a side effect the unhappy-fat-unhappy-fat-unhappy-fat.... And maybe even the disappointment-react-disappointment-react.

This is the Happiness Project.

I treated myself to some hardcover notebooks yesterday. It was hard to write in the first one. I LOVE blank notebooks. Each one is a work of art waiting to happen. Each clean white page is so perfect and beautiful, waiting for someone perfect and beautiful to grace it with perfect and beautiful work. I certainly don't feel perfect or beautiful these days. Like the notebook now, pages blemished with ink and experience, I am a work in progress.

Yes, a work in progress. All I have for a plan at the moment is to sit and write (and doodle and color) about the good things in my life, instead of focusing on the crappy crap and wondering why it's crappy and wallowing in the futility of it all like I usually do.

And that my friends, is what the Happiness Project is all about.

on the 2nd page, all that desperate scribbling is actually an account of a FB wall encounter between me, my buddy Fraser and also Mona.

it goes like this-

Fraser Wai Kin Lau My acapellas are an act of terror, mad professor, drill sergeant’s skulls with a Black and Decker, anorexic man possessed with Samson’s strength, pull the Pillars of Hercules back together.

Mona Cayley

whatever

Yesterday at 7:31pm

 

Elisheba Christensen

yo yo he's a chinaman boy he aint playin no games he's into kickin some ass but he's takin no names- he's gonna bust tha rhymes like he's bustin yo chops and all yo digits are broke you won't be callin no cops.. Yeah the Po Po now they all in his pocket next to his big gun and also his rocket- so don't dis the boy you should be payin him favors, cause he's tha chinaman boy, he's tha rarest of flavors!

Yesterday at 8:21pm ·

Fraser Wai Kin Lau

Come ooon guys.. It's from a song. Do you _have_ to rag on me? :P

Yesterday at 9:15pm

 

Fraser Wai Kin Lau

And Lisa.. That was amazing. I laughed..

RONG TIME!

Hahaha

Yesterday at 9:16pm

 

Elisheba Christensen

hahahaha SNORT
Love you man.
BTW, I knew it was from a song, I also knew you hadn't heard any made up crap from me in like AGES.
it was a flash of RAP inspiration... it may never come again in this lifetime!

Yesterday at 9:41pm · 

 

It was something I considered to be a "Random Act of Awesome" and deserved to be preserved in my Happiness Project.