Choose today.....Happiness.

"Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response."

unknown

Yesterday Big Daddy, off color daughter and I took a walk at the local arboretum.  The last walk I took there was at the end of fall when the colors were at their most brilliance.  Yesterday there was nothing but stark dried up remnants of the season past.  Off Color daughter and Big Daddy had great fun in making fun of my camera stance and breaking off sticks and sticking them inside the band of my sexy hot baseball cap---making me look like a reindeer of sorts.  Once I pulled one out not knowing there was another and off color daughter stated, "oh and Rudolph only had a red nose--she only has one antler."  Off Color son stayed home and played video games--I think he is embarrassed to be seen with us sometimes. 

Later in the day, off color daughter and I went to target to pick up some kind of special water bottle that squirts when you bite it.  While there we passed the books, I caught a glimpse of one with an interesting cover and picked it up.

The cover stated that one day the writer woke up and decided that she had spent too much time waiting to be happy so she was going to choose it.

She stated that she was going to spend a year choosing to sing, choosing not to grumble, choosing to acknowledge the happiness that was already hers.

I put the book back on the shelf but I have continued to think about it.  I wonder what might happen if I too made that choice.  

The seasons of our life come and go just as the palate at the arboretum changes.  We experience the ups and the downs, joy and sadness, love and pain and in the middle of it,

I suspect that there are always moments, glimmers of light shining through even the darkest night of the soul waiting to be caught, felt, acknowledged.

I'm willing to give it a try....try to choose happiness for a week or so and see what happens.

I will smile intentionally.

Sing to the music or write my own tune.

Dance--even when people say, "don't do that."

I will jump and skip and touch and be

be all that bubbles inside of me.

smile and skip and surge and simmer

happiness is a conscious choice ---

let's make today the day we choose wisely.

blessings and hugs