Backyards

Feathered Friday--Birds at the Backyard Feeder

March 09, 2018

“I don’t ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.”
—Pete Hamill

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the backyard with you-know-who lately. While I supervise playtime (she eats, or at least chews, everything and we’ve already been to the vet once because she ate something she shouldn’t have), I have the chance to slow down, be quiet, and observe. Our yard is full of birds, some of which I’ve never noticed before. The simple pleasure of observing the birds coming and going has made my backyard jaunts happier. Today I thought I’d share a few of our pretty feathered visitors:


Rufous-sided towhee 


Red-bellied woodpecker

Catbird

Mr. Cardinal

Ruby-throated hummingbird

Bonus Butterfly:

Zebra longwing
What’s making you happy today?

Danielle LaPorte

Insanity and the March Rebellion

March 05, 2018

Photo courtesy Ryan McQuire, Gratisography.com

You’ve probably heard this definition of insanity before: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Well, call me insane.

For more than a year, I’ve been creating monthly, quarterly, and yearly plans, setting goals for each month, religiously writing down and crossing off tasks and to-dos in an effort to build my freelance writing business, strengthen my health, maintain our home, keep in better touch with my friends and family, improve my horsemanship, sketch more, and so on. I want to experience all the simple pleasures and everyday adventures I can—I don’t want to waste any precious time, or look back and wonder what I did with my life. My lists usually help me stay focused and remind me that I have a choice about how I spend my time.

Until they don’t.

Until I reach overload, and realize I’m moving many of the same items from list to list, week to week, month to month, without doing them. Expecting that “this month it will be different.” (See, insanity.) Even the ones I was nailing were beginning to bug me.

Danielle LaPorte’s words in White Hot Truth sounded eerily applicable: “Contemporary women revere their [To-Do] lists like Moses loved his stone tablets. They are directions to the Promised Land. The thrill of crossing something off: check, check, and check. Mmmmm, feels so good. So good that you might write stuff down that you’ve already done just so you can cross it off (yep, you got it bad). Like any addiction, the to-do list is destined to lose its thrill when it rules us….
“My list started feeling like a row of soldiers shouting at me…. Once I started paying attention, that background noise became awfully loud. Its refrain, on repeat: I sort of suck because I should…” 

Well then.

So last week when I hauled out my master list for the year, my goals workbook, February to-do list, and prepared to write out March’s list of goals I hit a brick wall.

Nope. I can’t do it this way anymore, at least for now. I’m sick of copying the same-old, same-old goals and tasks from month to month. Even the ones that consistently get done every month. It’s only March and I already feel burdened and rebellious. I do not want to feel burdened and rebellious. I write about happiness, fercryinoutloud.

The Rebellion caused me to look at my proposed goals and decide 1) whether I still wanted to do them, and 2) whether I could realistically do them this month given the other responsibilities on my plate (I’m looking at you, Luna). I hate admitting this, but I do not have the physical or mental energy to do the number of things I want to do at any one time. And I can’t always be saying no to the simple pleasures and everyday adventures that give me joy and help me relax in favor of working or “achieving.”

I sat for a few moments reflecting on which of these many (many) items were truly important for me to accomplish (and do well) in the next four weeks. Which ones would I enjoy most—whether because the thing itself was enjoyable or having it checked off the list would make me feel especially relieved and happy.

Instead of copying all of February’s goals to a new file, renaming it, and removing the items that got checked off in February that don’t need to be repeated in March, I started fresh with a blank piece of paper and wrote down just a few things I’d like to do in March. The writing jobs I’m committed to. Puppy obedience classes. Planning and preparing for an April trip to California to see my parents and my friend Kerri. My list was shorter, but more meaningful to me.

I don’t know what March is going to bring. Maybe I won’t even accomplish what’s on my shorter list. But at least for now, I don’t feel quite as insane.

How do you cope when you feel overwhelmed by everything you’d like to do?

Gifts

Honoring the Gift of Life

March 02, 2018

Photo by John Jennings on Unsplash

“Happiness is about understanding that the gift of life should be honored every day by offering your gifts to the world.”
—Mike Maples Jr., quoted in Tribe of Mentors (Tim Ferriss)


Note: Tribe of Mentors is full of great life advice. I’m only about a third of the way through. Expect to see more quotes from the book appear on Catching Happiness.

Everyday adventures

Have You Had an Everyday Adventure Lately?

February 26, 2018


I don’t know about you, but my well of inspiration needs refilling. Maybe you’ve been cooped up all winter, and you’re craving something different, too. Have you had an everyday adventure lately?

There’s nothing wrong with having pleasant comfortable routines—I’m a big fan. But the second half of the Catching Happiness tagline is “everyday adventures.” When pursuing a happy life, everyday adventures are just as important as simple pleasures, but since they require more effort on our part, they sometimes don’t get the attention they should. Having a mini-adventure to look forward to makes it much easier to cope with life’s inevitable boring or difficult stretches.

Everyday adventures don’t have to cost a lot—or anything at all. They’re more a mindset than anything else (being called for jury duty, for example, was an everyday adventure!). Here are a few possibilities:

  • Eat at an ethnic restaurant you’ve never tried before, or cook a meal from a different culture at home
  • Visit a park or botanical garden (weather permitting), or a zoo, aquarium, or museum
  • Watch a foreign film
  • Read a book in translation, or from a culture you’re unfamiliar with
  • Take the long way—or at least a different way—when you drive to work or run errands.
  • Go to the library and browse the books, music, and DVDs—check out something completely new to you.
  • Take an online class.

In addition to being something to look forward to, everyday adventures are often a gift for the remembering self. I love having something to share when someone asks me what I’ve been up to lately, beyond “Um, working and taking care of our house,” that is. I’m not sure yet what my next everyday adventure will be (besides Luna, that is)—but I’m thinking it’s time for some well-filling inspiration.

What will your next everyday adventure be? Please share in the comments!


Dawna Markova

Each in Our Own Rhythm

February 23, 2018

Photo by Iulian Pana on Unsplash

“Most of us and our organizations still follow the old mythology, where we are thought of as perpetual motion machines, working at one speed—fast as can be, productive as possible—like stair-climbers in a gym, up, up, up, asking us to exert more effort but getting nowhere very quickly. Ascent, ascent, higher and higher. Never descent, never darkness or a plateau for regeneration.

“As a consequence, we become imprisoned in our own rigidities. What if, instead, we realized, like Ram Dass, that we go through many incarnations in this one life? What if we realized that instead of ‘things’ getting better and better if we work harder and harder, that, like a seed, we will each in our own rhythm, go through endless cycles of gestation, birth, growth, death, and renewal?”
—Dawna Markova, I Will Not Die an Unlived Life