11 things that make me terribly happy (in no particular order)

As I've been re-entering the blogosphere I've been catching up with some of my favorite blog reading as well. I stumbled onto The Rockstar Diaries one day last year when a regular read led to another site which led to another which led to a site discussing the author's fantastic sense of fashion and wonderful photos. I kept reading RD because the story these two are creating with the life they are building together is so uplifting and hopeful and sweet...and not the cloying kind of high-fructose sweet that makes your teeth ache, but the honest, pure sweetness of romance and art and love (le sigh).

Anywho - there have been a series of posts on Mrs. Davis' blog regarding happiness and I thought it only fitting that I jump on her list-making band-wagon. But I'm making mine 11:

11 things that make me terribly happy

1. When Kevin tells me “seriously that’s the best thing you’ve ever cooked” no matter what I feed him
2. Music that squeezes my heart
3. Ben & Jerry’s Oatmeal Cookie Chunk Ice Cream
4. The sound of trains
5. Wonderful foreign films filled with beautiful color
6. When Hiro decides to nap IN my lap, and not just next to it
7. A good play
8. Accordions – to see and to hear
9. Singing at the top of my lungs while cruising down Lake Shore Drive
10. Putting two dryer sheets in the laundry just for that extra bit of smell-good
11. Reading about others' happiness and letting it inform my own

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good year...

In a few days I will mark the end of my 33rd year. I’ve long believed my thirties would be a time of tremendous progress for me - perhaps because I was once told by an acting coach that I’d really start to get work in my thirties, or maybe because I’m a perpetual late-bloomer. For reasons I can’t name precisely, I felt the year numbered 33 would be an especially auspicious age. 33 promised to be a year that would see previously illusive happinesses unfold themselves like long awaited late-blooming flowers, finally offering their full beauty. 33 would be the age at which I could finally release the breath I’d been holding all my life, sigh in great relief, and cross that line between the woman I longed to be and the woman I am.

I haven’t accomplished all I’d hoped to at this age, and often wonder if I’m too old for (fill in the various goal/activity/hairstyle/skirt length). New-to-me art forms call to me on a fairly consistent basis – a banjo or ukulele will say “play me” or a camera beckons me to view the world through its lens. Shouldn’t I, at my age, be content with performance and writing and sewing? I wonder if I’ve passed the stage in life when it’s acceptable/appropriate/possible to continue pursuit of my current chosen field(s) of art, let alone pick up new ones. What if I never star as lead in a comedy that’s both critically acclaimed and financially successful, become America's next some-where-near-the-top-of-the-middle singer/songwriter, and/or write the great American post-feminist novel all while winning a Tony® for best new play, mastering the fine art of baking French macarons and rearing the worlds most precious and well behaved children? Oh motherhood, who’s knock on the door of my belly is growing increasingly insistent - I swear I hear you! And yet...I can’t think of the past year without thinking all these potential ambitions and more (that's right I, said more) are in fact possible.

In many ways I was right about 33 being a water-shed year. I’ve been consistently active both behind and on stage, and became an artistic associate of a young theater company. I began plans to start a business with a fellow artist involving handmade crafts (on hold for the time being, but still a very new venture for me). I started this blog, a small step in becoming a more active writer. I’m taking care of my body in a much more healthy way than I ever have before, and I’ve started to realize I’ve finally reached that place of confidence in myself that prevents the opinions of others from inflecting any real impression upon my self-worth. I’m actively choosing happiness on a consistent basis. And the most wonderful of my year-33 happenings – I accepted a marriage proposal from the most wonderful man I’ve ever known. Not a day in this year has been spent without the sound of our laughter, and I eagerly anticipate the thousands of laughs we’ll share as we build a life together. Thank you year 33 for being so amazingly gracious and giving.

Bring what ya got year 34 – I’m ready.

Merry Christmas

To cap off this holiday season I'd like to present you with one of my favorite Christmas songs, sung by one of my new favorite bands.

...and a little child shall lead them

Blogging is hard...

Well, maybe not so much the actual blogging as the blogging every day part, and so I don't. Blog every day that is...though I want to....and know I should...but I don't always seem to be able to carve out the time to do so. Or the time I have carved out to do so is interupted by cats, or rehearsals, or slick infomercials (those walk-fits I ordered better be damned good), or the crack-of-literature-that-is-the-Twilight-series, or boys who have to use the computer to play games....you see where this is going. And then there's the never-ending question: What to write?

Conundrum! Any excuse at all to use the word conundrum.

So today, in keeping with the upcoming holiday, I will post about things for which I am greatful.*

Borrowed Grandparents + family of significant other (especially that sweet baby - I may have to get one of my own someday)

Realizing there is SO much music out there that I have yet to sample and that I DO, in fact, like indy, folk, country(ish), choral, anything-with-an-accordian-except-polka (thank you Emelie sound track), rockabily, fill-in-obscure-genre-here music AND discovering new-to-me musicians that I love love LOVE! (such as She & Him, DeVotchka, First Aid Kit - the Sweedish sisters, not the electronica group from the 90's) and that I don't have to be a slave to free radio's current rotation of crap (yeah!)

The color pink. And green. And tangerine.

My cats - I promise not to be that crazy-talks-about-her-cats-all-the-time girl (though I am feeling an ode to felines post coming soon) BUT - I love them.

Surprise outings with old friends (yeah Carrie!) and being reminded yet again how very blessed I am to know such amazing, wonderful, talented people, and to be able to call them friends.

My Kevin, who's smile still brightens my day more than any sun ever could.

This blog, where I get to say stuff I might otherwise not, or forget, or write but never share. I shall no longer neglect you blog, but use you with new vigor...next week...after my wee trip for the holidays. I swear.

*Confidential to Hawking - notice I used "for which I am greatful" and did not write "am greatful for" thus avoiding the "ending a sentence with a preposition" grammar trap. I do promise to work on the spelling!