August

August Progress

August 21, 2020


August.

Or, as I like to call it, “Ugh-ist.”

Never my favorite month. Except for the birthdays of some loved ones (hi, guys!), August is a month I just try to survive, and I have a long history of complaining about it every year here on Catching Happiness.  See “August Monday Musings,” “Feeling the Heat,” or “In Which I Compare Myself to a Horse.” 

But 2020 has been such a strange year, and while this August is…weird to say the least, for me personally, it’s better than the past few years. Last summer, Tank had a serious hoof condition and was lame, and my husband’s truck engine blew. The year before that I was stressed out about moving Tank to a new barn and our son had been forced to move home temporarily.  And the year before that, Tank had an abscessed tooth that required twice-a-day doctoring. This month, fingers crossed, I’m just dealing with ordinary, day-to-day stuff. For which I am very, very grateful.

Despite my typical lack of energy in August, I have been participating in some challenges this month: the KonMari 8-Week Tidy Challenge and Susannah Conway’s #augustbreak2020 Instagram challenge. I’m doing them both imperfectly, and that’s OK. I’ve probably missed more days than I’ve posted on Instagram, but I’m allowing myself to take it easy. (See my posts here.) I’m a bit bogged down with tidying my books (is anyone surprised?), but I’m making progress. Slow, languid, August progress, but progress nonetheless.

In progress...

Tidied

I feel like that’s a lesson I can learn this year: keep trying. Do it imperfectly, but don’t give up. Soften. 

I hope that you have been able to enjoy some of summer’s simple pleasures, and that you’re experiencing August progress. Tell me about what you’ve been up to in the comments!

Happiness

Finding Deeper Happiness

August 14, 2020

Photo by David Brooke Martin on Unsplash

“If our happiness is dependent on anything that’s transitory, we must always search for new things to keep us happy.
“For all of us, there’s another form of happiness that isn’t transitory: it is instead sustaining and renewing. It’s the happiness we find when we’re aligned with whatever it is in life that we find personally fulfilling and meaningful. Although other people, possessions, or thoughts can be part of it they are never the origin of this deeper form of internal happiness. Internally rooted happiness simply is.”
—Lynn Ginsburg and Mary Taylor, What Are You Hungry For?


Happiness

Learning the Skill of Happiness

August 07, 2020

Photo by Carolyn V on Unsplash

“Happiness is a state of activity.

“This is a tremendously powerful thought. Thinking of happiness as something we do, as something we actively participate in creating, rather than something we simply feel, can change the way we approach our happiness and our lives.

“This is another big perception shift; happiness is absolutely a feeling and a state of well-being, but the key to happiness is understanding that it is created through action. And learning the skill of happiness helps us to consistently and naturally take the actions to shape and live our happiest, most dynamic life.”
—Kristi Ling, Operation Happiness

Fear

Soften Instead

July 31, 2020



“I don’t know why it’s so hard to remember that our fears rarely materialize, and that in bracing ourselves for the impact, we create the impact. If only we could let go and soften our bodies, soften our minds, soften our expectations, whatever happens would be felt as a nudge rather than a crash.”
—Susannah Conway, This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heart

Acadia

A Handful of Happy Things (Link Love)

July 24, 2020

I’ve spent more time than usual with my computer over the past months, and I have a handful of happy things to share today. So here goes:

I so much want to travel somewhere, but until I can I’m finding ways to visit places virtually. I’ve watched Will Greene’s time lapse video of Acadia National Park twice already—and I only discovered it yesterday!

A St. Petersburg, Florida couple is turning old newspaper boxes into little free libraries. Especially helpful when libraries are closed or offering limited services.

I’m still pondering these “Six Lessons We Learned During Lockdown That We Can’t Forget After It Ends.”

 “How to Feel Like Things Are Moving When Life Is On Pause”—a few suggestions from the author of Joyful.

Scroll to the bottom of this post by Jen Louden for an explanation of why so many of us feel angry, and an exercise to “Prevent the Blast” when you feel like you’re about to snap.

You NEED to see this Squirrel Ninja Obstacle Course.

I feel like what David of raptitude.com writes in “Most Accomplishments Are Invisible” is even truer in July than it was in December when this post went live:

“So if you feel inadequate whenever some form of the ‘achievement Olympics’ comes up, don’t. We live in a society that assesses people by what their lives produce, not what it takes to live them. Inner work is ignored unless it explains some outer work.
“That says a lot about society, and nothing about you. Rest assured that many millions of us know the immense value of changing your inner world, or even just surviving it, because we’re doing it quietly alongside you. Most of what the human world accomplishes on any given day is very hard to see.”
I wrote this piece for a local county’s visitor’s guide. Click here to see the entire downloadable guide. 
There’s a new baby giraffe at Busch Gardens in Tampa. I love giraffes!



Hope you have a safe and happy weekend!