happy.

todays challenge was 'a favorite picture of yourself.'

this one was easy, not so much because i looked awesome and hot but because of the memory it represents:  but isn't that with all pictures?

the memory:  we were leaving our wedding heading to the hotel (well...) and then later headed to hawaii. i can not tell you the emotion i was feeling in this picture.  oh wait, i can.  pure elation, happiness and i can not believe this is me.  it was a moment i will never ever forget.  the best moment by far in my entire life to date.

and that guys hand i was holding.  hot. and mine.

and the amount of tan on my body.  lets not talk about that.

dreams.  they really do come true.

happiness. it's catchy.

it seems like everywhere i turn lately there is stress and sadness, and it affects me and i can feel the weight on my shoulders.  days and weeks like this are when i am especially thankful that for a living i hang out with this little one.
two years old, she knows nothing about stress or sadness that bellows all around her.  what she knows is what she is told.  and it's happy things, and things that make her smile and giggle and in return i smile.  i giggle.

yesterday we were driving and she was talking a hundred miles a minute like usual and she said, "hey caca, ew see those cars?"  and i look over and there is nothing there and she giggles with glee and says, "i kidding!"

happiness, and when you hang out with people that are happy, it affects you.  you can't help but be happy.

she was asking about my foot and wrist yesterday.  i was the lucky recipient of second degree burns on my foot and wrist two nights ago.  yes, call me lucky.  i was telling her in great detail that really hot water was spilt on me and it burned me so so bad.  listening fervently she said without missing a beat, "you just like cold water?"

happiness.  i like it.  it's catchy.

p.s.
he would like for you to know he did this.

pumped himself so high, he was above the swing and then he jumped.

because he is six and because (he thinks) he is awesome.

p.s.s.
how'd i do making those iphone pictures look real?

how to really enjoy your breakfast.

a happiness quiz.

this weekend while we were flying back fro vegas, brad and i were forced to sit apart, so instantly there went my entertainment...instead of picking on him and making him crazy for 3.25 hours, i was forced to act civilized and entertain myself.  this was gonna be hard.

so after sleeping for a little while and getting hit in the shoulder by the flight attendant no less than one hundred times. (i was sitting by a larger man who was taking up more room than necessary.  he kept falling asleep and then getting very very comfortable and getting more and more into my seat...)  it was in these moments, i would slowly turn my head back to brad, just to get some eye contact please-feel-sorry-for-me attention, only to find him peacefully reading or sleeping.  

it was in those moments i was glad i was not sitting beside him, the nerve of him enjoying his flight.  

i would also like to point out that as i would turn to look at brad, the guy across from me always smiled at me and tried to talk to me, i am convinced that he thought i was checking him out...i tried to over insinuate that i was looking behind him,  but maybe i made him feel good about himself for the flight.  i'm not nosy or an eavesdropper or anything, but i do know that the gentleman that was on our flight across from me in front of brad, was a father of three who was recently divorced.  he flies to vegas once a month to see his kids who live there now with his ex-wife.  two of his children are twin boys.  like i said, i have no idea how i know this information.  i do know that he had some cool cowboy boots on... (also, i said nothing to him, but still have all his pertinent information.  impressive, huh?)

you can take the man out of nashville, but not nashville out of the man. (okay, that sounded a little better in my head...but go with me...i'm trying to be clever...)

so in an attempt to entertain myself, i decided to look at the lame-O southwest issued magazine.  accept it wasn't lame-O at all.  it was awesome.

and the only reason that i found this magazine is because the older man in front of dad of three two of them are twins boots wearing man was reading an article about happiness.  and it looked really interesting.  and instead of falling out of my seat into the isle trying to read over his shoulder, i found my own.  thank you very much.  and decided to read.

while i went to get my magazine out of the holder thing in front of my seat, i looked past the man that was beside me and now falling into me sleeping, to his wife - just to try desperately to make eye contact so she might nudge her honey to come back her way, she didn't even look up.  or acknowledge me, because she was too busy playing with her new ipad with a hot pink cover.  she had no idea how to work it and instead of gently touching the screen, she was beating it to death to get it to do anything.  i really wanted to jerk it out of her hand and say, "please be more gentle and learn how to use this thing!!!"  i resisted, i didn't want to wake her husband that was now sleeping in my lap.  

so after trying to get brads attention, and trying to avoid eye contact with boots, reading over older mans shoulder and then seeing lady in the window seat beating her ipad while her husband was sleeping on my lap...

i decided to read about happiness.  

what i learned after two quizzes is that i am really happy and that i should be congratulated.  

go me.  

i also read an article about a man who took a challenge to smile all day at everyone he met.  it was a great article, and what he learned through out his course of the day grinning, was that women are more likely to smile back and the only people that smile at you every time you smile at them without fail are children and homeless people.  which i thought as so interesting.  people that when we see them, we assume they would be so so unhappy, smile at you...when the business man crossing the street gives you nothing.  and children, always smile at you...and they do.  and then and there, i decided that had to be why i might be so happy, there are other things in my life that make me happy, but every day, i have three little ones that i smile at and they smile back...sometimes we go crazy and even laugh.  

if you are flying southwest anytime soon, snag a copy of their magazine and read it for yourself.  you will be grinning at everyone...

well, unless there is a large man sleeping in your lap and a lady beating her ipad.