I sometimes listen to NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, and the panel ends the show each week with a round of What’s Making Us Happy. As you can probably intuit from the title, they go around the table and name a thing or two (usually a TV show or concert tour or something) that’s giving their lives a little bit of joy. I’ve had some anxiety and depression and overwhelm in the last week (ran out of one of my amino acids; also, I prefer not working to working, but my job preferred that I go back to work), so I thought I’d try to psych myself out of it by accentuating the positive. Who knows? This might become a regular feature.
Here’s What’s Making Me Happy:
I’m doing really great on my New Year’s resolutions.
To wit, my friend invited me to go shopping (thanks, Michelle!), and I have worn actual clothes when I wanted to wear actual sweats several times. I even took two pairs of pants to a tailor to get them hemmed. That’s, like, some Carrie Bradshaw stuff.
I’ve flossed a time or two and made my bed daily.
I’ve engaged in no Facebook debates. Indeed, I’ve expressed nary a political leaning nor a religious dubiety, even though I wanted to post this cartoon real bad when I saw it:
I repeated things to myself that I said to the beasts (even though it feels embarrassing to say, “I love you, Violet… I also love myself,” even when alone in my house).
I went on a first date with a man and scheduled another with a different man, though the latter had to be postponed. Due to a sick kid. I’m probably going to be a stepmom.
Most importantly, I very much reduced my intake of refined sugar. I had some chocolate mousse on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and a piece of cake and two cookies on Saturday. I didn’t wait until after 7:00pm that day, though. But considering that I got the piece of cake at noon and waited until 4:53 to eat it, I’m calling it a victory. In addition, Sunday included French toast with syrup, which kind of fits in the dessert category, but, really, what’s a brunch buffet without the French toast course?
(Again, this might sound like a lot of sugar to you, but I assure you, for me, it’s a smidgeon.)
Naturally, the glutenful weekend, together with my job preferring that I get up at the ludicrous hour of 6:00am, has made me one sleepy girl today. But that’s not what we were talking about. We were talking about What’s Making Me Happy.
Now. Let’s talk about What’s Making You Happy.