Because it's been awhile.

“You can trust everyone to be human, with all the quirks and inconsistencies we humans display, including disloyalty, dishonesty and downright treachery. We are all capable of the entire range of human behavior, given the circumstances, from absolute saintliness to abject depravity. Trusting someone to limit their sphere of action to one narrow band on the spectrum is idealistic and will inevitably lead to disappointment.....

At times living in the Pacific Northwest, people say the winters can be soul crushing. It's not the rain that gets to a person, it's the gray. Sometimes blue sky isn't seen for weeks. But on days in this sweltering Arizona heat I feel just as much defeated. I don’t want to leave my house, doing anything active outside between the hours of 9am and 8pm is out of the question, and I honestly feel like I’m melting. I imagine hell is just like this.

Maybe, that is because the last five days in Seattle were uh-maze-ing!

I have had a lot of weird dreams lately. There have been two common scenes in many of them... flat tires and losing teeth.

 "To see or dream that you have a flat tire indicates that you are feeling emotionally drained and weary. You may have been unexpectedly let down. Your goals are temporarily hindered and as a result, you are unable to progress any further.

Teeth are used to bite, tear, chew and gnaw. In this regard, teeth symbolize power. And the loss of teeth in your dream may be from a sense of powerlessness.  Perhaps you are having difficulties expressing yourself or getting your point across. You feel frustrated when your voice is not being heard. You may be experiencing feelings of inferiority and a lack of self-confidence in some situation or relationship in your life. This dream may be an indication that you need to be more assertive and believe in the importance of what you have to say."(courtesy of dreammoods.com)

 On a completely unrelated note, could someone please buy me this Madeleine hat for my trip to Montreal?

"Do you think things always have an explanation?"
"Yes. I believe that they do. But I think that with our human limitations we're not always able to understand the explanations. But you see, Meg, just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist."
- A Wrinkle in Time

Happiness is a funny thing. The older I get, the more I truly believe that happiness is a state of mind, or a choice. Everyone seems to have something they can blame 'unhappiness' on.

In my last blog I wrote about reading "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin, and by the end of the book Rubin had concluded (in my interpretation at least)  that people find happiness in feelings of accomplishment. Throughout the book she set monthly goals for herself, with the end goal of becoming 'happier'. Was she any happier at the end of the book? I don't think so. I think she felt
 a. A sense of achievement, b. She began to see happiness from a different perspective or c. Had kept her mind busy and therefore avoided over-thinking "happiness'. After all, happiness is somewhat relative, right?

Since the conclusion of "The Happiness Project" I have begun reading "The Geography of Bliss" by Eric Weiner. In Weiner's nonfiction novel he travels around the world in quest to find the 'happiest place on earth'. Thus far, he has made some profound, yet seemingly obvious notes about happiness.

"Humans, even nomadic ones, need a sense of home. Home need not be one place or any place at all, but every home has two essential elements: a sense of community and, even more important, a history."

"In the west and in the United States especially, we try to eliminate the need for compromise. Cars have 'personal climate controls' so that the driver and the passenger need not negotiate on a mutually agreeable temperature. That same pair, let's say they're husband and wife, need not agree on the ideal firmness of their mattress either. Each can set their own 'personal comfort levels'....I wonder, though, what we lose through such convenience. If we no longer must compromise on the easy stuff, like mattresses, then what about the truly important issues? Compromise is a skill, and like all skills it atrophies from lack of use."

 "I've spent most of my life trying to think my way to happiness, and my failure to achieve that goal only proves, in my mind, that I am not a good enough thinker. It never occurred to me that the source of my unhappiness is not flawed thinking but thinking itself.”

“Money matters, but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important. So are friends. Envy is toxic. So is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude.”

I need to step my game up and finish the first one.... I love when a day at work turns into a new discovery....

I've just added eight more things to my bucket list:
 www.womansday.com/Articles/Life/Travel/Cool-Castles-Located-on-Cliffs.html

How many wishes can I make?

"..On the other hand, you can decide to trust that everyone is doing their best according to their particular stage of development, and to give everyone their appropriate berth. For this to work, you have to trust yourself to make and have made the right choices that will lead you on the path to your healthy growth. You have to trust yourself to come through every experience safely and enriched. But don’t trust what I am saying. Listen and then decide for yourself. Does this information sit easily in your belly? You know when you trust yourself around someone because your belly feels settled and your heart feels warm."

-Stephen Russel