31 Days: Three and Four

March 3:  What Makes You Happy?

So I'm only four days in and I'm already doubling up a second time.  I promise I shall get better at this!  Hopefully...

So this is another question that's kind of hard to narrow down because there are a large number of things that make me happy.  But I will do my best to not make this too lengthy.

First of all, spending time in God's Word and praying both make me quite happy.  I enjoy spending time with God and constantly marveling at all that He's done.  I also always get a feeling of peace when I'm reading my Bible or praying and that makes me happy because that kind of peace just reminds me that everything is in God's hands and I wouldn't want it anywhere else!

My family also tends to make me quite happy.  Spending time with them is never boring.  And since we don't spend as much time together as we used to, I feel like those times are happier now than they used to be at times.  Or actually I think its more that I appreciate and treasure those times more.

Spending time with friends also makes me happy.  Since moving into Albuquerque, I've lost contact with a number of my friends who live out in the mountains, or, even if we still talk, we don't get to see each other all that often.  Since then, kind of like with my family time, I've found that I really do appreciate the time that I do get to spend with friends.

Reading, singing, and music in general also make me quite happy.  Reading makes me happy because I have a very active imagination and reading just really fires my imagination which does make me very happy.  Singing also makes me happy because, well, its just fun!  I simply really enjoy making music and singing is something that's always made me very happy.  Music obviously ties into the singing.  Music can very easily affect my mood, so I try to listen to generally happy music, because listening to happy music or songs that I really like can put me in a good mood no matter what I'd been feeling just before.

March 4:  Best Childhood Memory

This one's kind of hard to pinpoint again.  So I'll name several again.  One of the first things that comes to mind is fishing with my grandpa up at Shady Lakes.  I haven't been there since I was kid.  In fact, I don't even know if its still open, but I used to go there a lot with him and my grandma and we'd stand and fish for hours.  I loved getting to spend that time with him and my grandma.

Another childhood memory I have is again with my grandpa.  Along with fishing, we also used to go horseback riding at this one stable.  I honestly can't remember where it was, but I was always so excited that we were going to go see the horses.  Even as a kid I loved horses and desperately wanted one.  We'd choose our horse and my grandpa would set me on the saddle in front of him and we'd go out on the trails for hours at a time.  We didn't go a lot so it was always a treat when we did.

My third childhood memory is kind of a random one because I hadn't thought about this in years and years and yet it came to mind as I was pondering this question and I haven't been able to shake it since.  When I was really young at our old house in town, before we xeriscaped the front yard, we used to have a whole line of rosebushes from one side of our property all the way over to the driveway.  Being rosebushes they had a tendency to get aphids all over them.  After the number of aphids had gotten a bit out of hand, my parents bought several packages of lady bugs.  I have no idea if they still do that, but being a little kid and loving lady bugs, I was so excited.  I remember opening those packages and there just being swarms of lady bugs.  I plunked myself down and very carefully put each and every one of those lady bugs on the rose bushes.  Once I was done I shook my finger at the rose bush and informed the aphids that the lady bugs were going to save the roses and they had better leave.

My final childhood memory which is actually more memories is when my family would go to the lake.  Growing up we would go down to Elephant Butte all the time during the summer since it was so close.  We'd pack up and leave Friday afternoon, spend the weekend at the lake and drive home Sunday afternoon.  Towards the end of the summer we'd take our week and half to two week long trip over to Lake Powell.  When the water level dropped at Elephant Butte, we eventually stopped going so our trip to Lake Powell was even more exciting and special.  Since my parents decided to sell our boat after moving into town, those memories are very precious to me since in many ways I kind of grew up on that boat and have a lot of memories tied to it.  And I also don't know when or if I'll ever go on another boat trip like those again.