Tag: Happiness

Staging Your Day for Contentment and Happiness

On By BackporchwriterIn Food, Home, Life6 Comments

I have a bad habit of taking quotes like this and picking it apart, agreeing or disagreeing. I guess it’s the conversations you have with yourself, invisible arguments with no one, LOL! While I do agree one must be comfortable with the details of their life before being happy, I also think that one has to feel spiritually connected as well, and satisfied that one is meeting our Father’s goals and doing His will. Scriptures indicate joy and peace as a fruit of the Spirit. Even with the mess going on everywhere in the world, it’s comforting to know that we can still maintain a level of joy and peace. The devil tries to overcome us and keep us with fear and anxiety to keep us stirred. Only God can bring a level of protection over man, our fear, and layer on the fruits of his spirits. And nothing can keep us from our God, not even death.

Staging Contentment

That said above, I work hard to have little things – little daily details in life that bring me joy – at work, at home, and even in the car. At work the things that I stage to bring me joy are:

  • Food – having what I need right there, and having options, including snacks, healthy options, and maybe chocolate 🙂
  • Drinks – again having options – water, tea, coffee, and my greens and fruits
  • Gum, mints
  • Sayings, reminders, my daily calendar
  • Plants – even if they are fake
  • Family pictures around me
  • Ability to play music if I need – requiring ear buds
  • My daily calendar that brings encouragement
  • A nice computer setting background and theme – changes weekly lol
  • A working computer, functionality of the office equipment, back up office supplies so no running out
  • Working out of the way and beyond to avoid surprises but they still happen anyway, lol.
  • My window – which I’m having to close the blinds as it’s 80 degrees if I don’t

At home, hmmmm, that is so broad it’s hard to narrow down the details that bring contentment as so much does. But we are talking about staging your details to bring contentment. We do it without thinking about the fact that we are doing so.

  • Coffee – having coffee available makes me happy
  • Setting a routine makes me comfortable and happy
  • Having lots of food options in the freezer and pantry
  • Having control over the calendar and my time
  • Being able to schedule some down time and protect it like a fragile bird – lol.
  • Organization and function in the home
  • Decor and aesthetics
  • Greenery in each room lifts the mood – even if it’s a fake plant that doesn’t look fake
  • Positive sayings or Nic Naks that bring joy when you look at them
  • Family pictures
  • Loving Pets and Pets to Love
  • Favorite quilts in bedrooms and sitting rooms
  • Functional Washer and Dryer and other appliances
  • Easy to access items
  • No clutter
  • A To Do List – I’ll never be bored EVER!
  • Lots of drink options here too, including iced tea, wine, beer, mixed drinks if I want, after dinner drink – no not all at once. One a day – maybe two if dinner is late. It’s five o’clock somewhere and then it’s six o’clock! lol

In the car:

  • Car phone plug/cord, phone holder, gum, hand sanitizer, cup holder, drink, Alexa to go, audible, sunglasses – the obvious!

How detailed do we want to go here? I could go on at how I stage things to bring me joy through the day. The joy of everyday living! A comfortable bed, Vicks Vaporub at bedside for stuffy nose, sleep spray for a sleepless night – the staging is endless. Our every need met. We are rich in so many ways and spoil ourselves. So little in detail but yet aids in the contentment and comforts of our being.

Three shampoos in the bathroom – always – one a herbal essence, one a Suave Rosemary mint, the other is allowed to change to try new ones. These little things bring me joy. ;-). Certain types of cleaning supplies one gets used to that bring glee when you smell it or when it works. These little things bring happiness. Clean bed linens and towels and clean underwear. Blessing the nest! Ok I’ll stop!

Other than that I really don’t have much for you in two days time. So I simply chat about “staging your happy”. Hey it works for me. I hope it works for you!

Good Food, Good Times, Good Joy

We get GREAT JOY out of our menu planning board. Much conversation goes around it. I fixed spaghetti Wednesday night. Mainly wanted to give George a break as he worked in the yard this week, as we had a really rainy period from days last week making it hard to keep things under control.

Salad I fixed on spaghetti night with some fresh greens, celery, carrots, cheese, and splurging with garlic and onion croutons.

I even made garlic, cheese bread. I used up some hot dog buns as Mom and George like their white bread. I used a whole grain muffin for mine. Still bad with the butter and cheese. Mom likes bread almost every meal. I would be as big as a barn. I cannot do that.

You know what though? I’m craving bacon! Might have to fix some Sunday. I think we are having to lay low b/c of the rampant “illness” in our community. So maybe Sunday morning we will have time.

I had dinner with a friend at Memo’s in Mount Juliet last night. She got fajitas and they looked great. I got the 3 enchilada meal and although good, left kinda hungry. Three small folder over tacos of a sort, not much meat, not much of anything really – not even beans and rice. I could have added them (beans and rice) separately for $3 each. Was just not enough for an $11 plate of food. Quite pitiful. Not enough to compete with the restaurants around. Sadly, I’ll likely not be back there. Just didn’t meet the expectations. Taste was not anything special either. The others are better. I didn’t want it to be that way, but it just is. I could have easily made this at home. I had to eat more chips and salsa to fill up. Oh well. But I did enjoy the conversation with my friend Christie. We caught up a bit. Two hours worth of chatting.

Meanwhile in Texas

Someone else got to try spaghetti today -he was not sure at first but liked it! Once he got it in his mouth. lol

Keep your chin up out there. You have the power to make life how you want it – if only in the little details! Sometimes we can’t control the big things like we want, but we can control the little things and little details to make our days better. I’m sure I missed a LOT above – just the few things I thought of while sipping my morning nectar (coffee). We really are blessed in so many ways aren’t we?

What details of your day bring you joy? How do you stage YOUR day for contentment?

“Oh the Things You Will Write on a Piece of Scrap Paper”

On By BackporchwriterIn Uncategorized5 Comments

Saturday morning here. Normally I’d wait til afternoon to post, or perhaps tomorrow, depending on the time. But yesterday one of my precious readers said “I wish you would post more!” What a compliment. It made my day – heck, it made my year.

I will do my best to stick an extra post in even if it’s short. I had been dividing my time b/w movie editing and blog posting. And if I’m going to get the videos done (I’m only in Feb’s now and it’s July, LOL LOL), I’ll have to keep focusing on that.

Not even sure enough has happened since my last blog post, but I always USED to blog EVERY morning. When you do that, you end up blogging more about your feelings I guess b/c there was not much else to write about in a day’s time.

It’s been the kind of year where you almost didn’t even have time for feelings. Have you ever been that busy? Often though I have thoughts in the car and I’ll grab a piece of scratch paper – whatever I can find once I arrive in the parking lot and scribble my thinking. Sometimes I have to turn off the audio book and just have silence so that I can let my thoughts meander. And sometimes something in an audio book gives me an idea or a thought and I run with it.

I thought I’d share some of those scribbles from some of those mornings where my thought lines were able to run free and not taken up by anyone else’s agenda or work day. I often like to ask myself questions and then spend time coming up with the answers. LOL. Yes, I guess I have internal conversations with myself, hahahahaha. Is that normal? Probably not, but I never claimed to be and a pyschology teacher once said “define normal?”

Once I remember asking myself when I was a little bit uncontent:

WHAT IS IT THAT YOU NEED?:

  1. Creative time – Time to write, make lists, think, invent, ponder, and do.
  2. Organizing time – Dividing and organizing my world – all of it in places where it should go – things and thoughts
  3. Planning time – Time to figure out when, where, what, who, how and getting it on the calendar
  4. Cleaning time – Nice, neat, clean lines – everything has a place and in it’s place
  5. Space – Room to do what I need to do
  6. Time to “do the things”
  7. Quiet Time – I guess to do the things above?

I discovered if I have all these things, I’m a happy and content woman! When I don’t I’m longing for them. Of course there are always other needs such as food and shelter, but after you get those basic needs taken care of and working on one’s life, it’s those above that make me a less than perfect human if I do NOT have them.

So it’s not always “oh the places you will go” sometimes it’s “oh things you will write on a scrap piece of paper”.

LOL.

Now I can throw that scrap of paper in the trash. I answered my question and then wrote about it. Oh there’s more, trust me! Have a good day.

Happiness Audio Book, Christmas Phone Background, and Office Decor

On By BackporchwriterIn Uncategorized6 Comments

Quick pop in today. I need to get to work for a long day today as I have to get a lot done at the office that I won’t be able to do tomorrow in my home office. It’s funny, we have 4 office areas set up in the house. George and I each have a personal office and each have a business office for our work.

I began this book as my worship series. I always keep a “worship” audio going. Lately it seems that my contentment easily slips away. It’s my constant need for perfection in all things around me I think that begins to seep in. I think I was brought up in a perfect world sortof – the house was clean, everything worked, everything was neat, new, and in order. Everything prepared for, all options weighed and decided.

I have to work hard at making my world to perfection and when it falls short, I wear myself out trying to figure out why! The world grows farther from perfection every day. I keep spinning my wheels trying to get there! So I think this book will do me some good. A lack of contentment simply means I’m not spending my time and thoughts and efforts in the right places. Already in the first chapter, this book is making things a bit clear for me. We constantly have to reground ourselves toward God and others and less of ourselves.

I was happy to go to work yesterday after being off the four days. It was nice to be off and we were able to get much done. But it was also four days of sadness watching Maisy struggle. Although, that said, I would not have wanted to be anywhere else.

But it was a relief after she ate. She continues to eat some twice a day. And to realize that she may have a chance to pull through this. It was a relief to focus on something else and keep my mind off of it for a few. Joy truly came yesterday morning, amidst the storm.

I brought in a few Christmas things for my work office AT WORK and packed up the few fall items I had. Yes I guess I have 3 offices now? lol

I really need a few more things to sit around. I have some other things in boxes I’m not using. Much of it is breakable though. So I will dig around and see what I can find that is not being used. I am not putting out all my breakable santas and things. I don’t like a lot of things setting around anyway. I will likely begin giving these things away.

I brought the Octopus in and laid it at the door. You press it’s button and it sings a song under water. I thought people would like that.

And a little bitty Santa that lights up in front of my computer and the three candles by my in/out boxes that I have a remote to, to light them up.

George sent me pics during the day to show me what Maisy was doing. Warmed my heart. He also sent pics of the snow. Mount Juliet and Nashville had a bit of snow yesterday but it didn’t stick to anything but the roofs in Mount Juliet, anyway.

At lunch time yesterday at my desk, I ate spaghetti and made phone backgrounds til I found one that worked for me. You can’t have a lot of “jazz” in the background of your phones. I have to be able to see the icons of your apps.

Here is the one I went with. I realized after it saved I didn’t get the lines right but you can’t tell on your phone. Feel free to download it if you want to try it. I use CANVA.

I also found these two “ready to go” on Canva. This one is cute too. I just wanted a pine background and then I’ll move to a snowy one for January.

I made this one but didn’t like it as a background. It was too busy behind my apps.

I’d like to spent more time being creative but it was time to go back to work. I did stop to have a Reece’s and realized how much they have shrunk. I mean didn’t they used to be bigger at one time.

Yeah they used to be a lot bigger. If these manufacturing companies keep shrinking things, we are going to have to use a magnifying glass to see how to open them. They are cutting everything down little by little but selling for the same price and hoping we won’t notice. I noticed.

My resolve? I ate two.

I came home to a sleeping Maisy who woke up and was very excited to see me. No she did not hop up and come wagging her tail, but she lifted her head up and slowly got up to come see me. And tried to follow me around until she just had to sleep. Bless her. I hugged her and loved on her when I got home. I think that is important for her healing. It’s certainly important for ME! This is where she sat while George worked all day.

This was a past year’s December calendar pic that popped up in memories on facebook. I thought it was pretty. Must have been the year I had the Porch Calendar.

And that is all for today. It’s 6:15 and I would have liked to have arrived at 6:30. But I could not get up at 4 this morning. And I really want to blog so here I am. I was up til 9:30 or 9:45 or so ordering Christmas gifts and finalizing a few things. We had a late dinner as we also had a meet up on where we were with Christmas. George buys some and so do I -so we needed to plan. We also had to decide what was for birthdays and what was for Christmas. And I always try to even things up between people as much as I can. For example, Katy and Cody. Does one have more to open than the other? If so more shopping is done. lol.

So I finished a lot of the orders last night. Katy and Cody’s are just being sent to their house. But we have some things we have to ship so I’ll finish the wrapping for those things tonight and Wed night. And then I’ll work on Christmas cards and then the rest of the wrapping.

But I’ll have a long day at work today as there will be a lot to wag home just for a day and wag back tomorrow and the wag more stuff home from work for Friday’s day at home. It IS truly a lot of trouble. I need a private sherpa. I already have a purse and a purse overflow bag. Now I’ll also have a laptop, monitor, calculator, and all my files to pay taxes for the states I’m working on, envelopes to stuff checks with, and so forth. It’s nice to work from home except for the hauling back and forth every day. Oh well.

Better go and get there so I can get through as quick as I can to start gathering and loading. lol