spread happiness

Glad to find this place in Redwood City. It will come in handy if I need to happy up my hair.

My neighbor always does fun stuff with his scarecrow. This guy is enjoying his coffee.

Found this marvelous tree in my neighborhood. You write a little wish on a piece of paper, leave it in the drawer and these lovely devices send the love into the universe. My boyfriend was thrilled that athiests were included although found it sad that the glare on the photo excluded them.

My boyfriend wants to know what all the little pieces of paper say. He teased that he had secretly gone back and taken them all and was reading them. Hope not. That sort of meddling might make something terrible happen like our house might fall into a sink hole or something.

Nice to know a neighbor has all that love.

I was so inspired by this video of this kids rube goldberg monster capture device. He developed a hypothesis and just to see his joy when the thing succeeds was a great moment for me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uDDEEHDf1Y&feature=email

He uses some great vocabulary, like “chain reaction”, “shockwave”, “spiral” you know I like that, “lever”, “pully”, “this thing”, “hypothesis” and “trapping the monster” and “it worked” “its surprising”.

I like it when life is like this. Persistence. Creating something, then trying it, then persisting even if it doesn’t work.

Catching very slow moving monsters is fun.

There is an article in the Huffington Post that has lots of links to videos of puppy stampedes. Its really cheerful. I like the one on the porch. I think the mom is playing with the puppies and showing them how to circle the couch.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/04/13-puppy-stampedes-videos_n_1254761.html?ref=uk&ir=UK&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009#s663895&title=Porch_Stampede

Puppies are good for making people smile.

I’m going to add this to my Happiness project. Maybe I’ll use these topics but maybe I’ll just react. Source: positivelypresent.com

I was really grouchy last night over a work situation. I was trying really hard not to let it burst my happy bubble but it was just too frustrating.
Someone knocked on the door which is a major problem at our house. My boyfriend hates solicitors and never answers the door or even the phone generally. He is protective of his time. Even if a neighbor was stopping by to tell us our house was on fire or maybe give us a basket of cookies, he’d never answer it. On the other hand, I like to sit on the front porch, harrass people as they walk by and distract their dogs so I can stop them and pet them, and I’ve even considered putting up a sign on busy festival days offering our potty to families with children who obviously need to pee. I’m a little boundry deficient.
So when the little tap, tap, tapping rang through our living room my heart sank a little more like a swamped canoe. Another sad opportunity missed. You can imagine my confusion when he actually answered the door.
Turned out to be some guys soliciting members of an organization trying to prevent the Gov from shutting down the state parks due to budget cuts.
This was the amazing part. Not only did he answer the door. He also signed the petition, joined the group, and gave them a donation. Before you knew it I was giving them my whole schtik on how bad CFL bulbs really are and our plastic project.

It made me smile. He said, “Now I know how to make you smile. Give money to strangers”.

Interesting article in Huffington post today about research that says happiness increases with meaningful conversation. This is something I really have to work on. It will be part of this goal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-morris/happiness-and-deep-conver_b_507148.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

I did three happy things yesterday to promote happiness;

Was actually happy as I moved through the house. Danced a little and smiled. I’m much grumpier than I realized.

Rediscovered the movie link that someone gave me to thehappymovie.com Looked at it and found out that glory be! Feb. 11 is “World Happy Day” (confettie falling over whoever is reading this). http://worldhappyday.com/ I invited Friends and relatives to join me for the local showing of the movie AND encouraged others to host a local showing.

And I joined a meetup group called “The Peninsula Happiness Project”. Even ordered the book, although I did not use a click through link from a friends website to get to Amazon(next time). http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/ I invited them to the movie too.

I even fed the bird and squirrels today. la, la, lala….