My favourite things - this week

1.  My score on the happiness test!  84 out of 100 where 70 is the benchmark for happiness.  I have to say, I'm pretty happy about that!  It made me think about the fact that my life is not perfect - it never will be - yet I am content and making progress.  Why not try yourself?

2.  My first book group meeting of the year.  At the start of our thirteenth year, we met to discuss Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize winning "Bring up the Bodies".    It was generally favourably received.  I personally liked it much more than the first book, "Wolf Hall" and confessed to weeping during Anne Boleyn's execution, it was so beautifully and delicately written.

3.  Impro Melbourne's season opener of the Maestro format.  I went to the opening night last Sunday night and was so thoroughly entertained I nearly forgot how hot it was and that I was stuck to a vinyl seat.  The most thrilling part of improvisation in any art form is that the creation exists only in that moment, is never to be repeated and you have to be there to witness it.  Sunday nights at 7:30pm at The Space, Chapel Street, Prahran.

4. My wish came true on Wednesday afternoon.  A tiny glimmer of hope.  I don't expect this experience to be regularly repeated, but I wish it would be.

5. This photo.  I took it when walking across the pedestrian bridge over the Yarra River from Southgate to Flinders Street station.  It was about 7:30pm.

Sunset on the Yarra
©divacultura 2013

Happiness is...the small moments.

Browsing in the book store the other day, I saw Snoopy and Charlie Brown out of the corner of my eye.  They were on the cover of a book by Charles M. Schulz called "Happiness is a warm puppy".  It made me smile and I thought to myself, "Isn't it though?"  On this grey Melbourne day, here are some things that I've caught myself feeling happy about today.

1. Happiness is waking up to the sound of rain and the knowledge that it was right to cancel our outdoor choir gig today.

2. Happiness is knowing that the weather bureau was accurate with the weather forecast.

3. Happiness is realising my dress was on inside out before I left the house.

4. Happiness is not being the driver of the vehicle facing the wrong way after coming off the road and crashing into the safety railing.

5. Happiness is the satisfaction of doing the washing and drying it on the line in yesterday's lost sunshine.

6. Happiness is a series of green lights that allowed me to arrive fifteen minutes early when I expected to be five minutes late.

7. Happiness is not having an addiction that requires me to sit in my wheelchair in my pyjamas in the rain outside the hospital so I can smoke a cigarette.

8. Happiness is having pyjamas that I wouldn't be embarrassed to wear out if the situation required it.

9. Happiness is meeting a parking inspector who told me not to hurry back as he was just finishing his shift and I shouldn't worry if I went "a bit over".

10. Happiness is taking some time to think about the small things that are good.

My brother has just moved house and I spoke to him on the morning after the move.  He told me: "I'll pay you a million dollars if you can drive up from Melbourne and find the kettle."

It's the small things really.