I have a little speech prepared...

Thanks to my good friend and fellow blogger, Michelle (JoJo) at A Mid-Atlantic English (http://michelloui.blogspot.com/), for giving me a Happiness Award! Yay! An award! Her blog is subtitled "long term expat lifestyle" but it's a fabulous blog for anyone interested in travel, family dynamics, the ambiguities of our life choices, or basically anyone keen on beautiful, thought-provoking essays. I certainly enjoy it very much. Thanks, JoJo!

A responsibility that comes with this award is a list of 10 things that make me happy. I'm going to amend that, and rather list 10 things that made me (or will make me) happy TODAY.

1. The morning e-mail from my husband, checking in and telling me how he can't wait to see me later. It's so nice starting each day feeling like a newlywed.

2. Tide To-Go Stain Remover pens.

3. Someone brought in shamrock-shaped sugar cookies.

4. The alliteration of "shamrock-shaped sugar cookies" pleases me as well.

5. The anticipation of taking a quick walk by the Mississippi during my lunch break (for the first time after a long winter).

6. There are no meetings today!

7. This is a happy thing yet-to-come, but it will make me very happy when I get home from work and my new cat Moxie cuddles with such intensity that you'd think I just rescued her from a well.

8. I also like that when Moxie is done cuddling, she meows and taps me on the shoulder to get down so we can move onto the "treat" portion of our reunion.

9. Another yet-to-come, but it makes me happy that my heart still leaps with excitement when I hear my husband's key in the door when he's arrived home from work.

10. I am very happy that I ended up buying the Libery for Target comforter that I almost passed over.

1% Fun

My life right now is 95% work, 2% cleaning, 2% being sick, and 1% fun. The working full-time + going to graduate school full-time + teaching a college English course plan was STUPID. What was I thinking? I only have 1% fun now!! That's not right. I keep telling myself that once it's over I'll be glad I did it. And I only have about 11 weeks of this left...except now that I type it out, that still sounds like a really long time. Anyway, I don't like this at all.

But, that 1% fun is there at least. Thankfully I have a fun husband and a fun kitty and fun friends. I did manage to decorate and make an icebox cake for Dave's birthday, I watched some of the Olympics (see photo below of me and Moxie watching together), and Moxie's cuteness makes unfun things (like being sick) seem just a little more fun.