Happiness is

When I was in high school I kept a little notebook called "Happiness is..." Every few days I went in and made a little list of things that gave me happiness.

Today I have a cold (thanks to my germy little black taggers - bless them), and I have had a disgruntled week. I'm not sure why entirely, but I have just felt unsettled lately. I am doing too many things and keeping too many people at a distance. Both of these are things I want to remedy, but I'm not sure how. Does anyone else ever wonder if they are broken a little bit?

So, I thought I would consider happiness. Lately, happiness for me has been:

• That Switchfoot song "Dare You to Move" - it's taken me back a few years
• Getting hot chocolate at night with roommates and some new friends
• Making Valentines for people that I love and actually using all the Valentines stickers that I've been too scared to use because they were "expensive"
  
• The special moment that I had when I was making brownies for the Valentines and I turned our brown sugar into a bag of soupy muck - it was hilarious
• Watching old episodes of "One Tree Hill" and admitting to myself that even though it is dorky, I still like the whole Nathan/Haley romance stuff
  
• Having a good cry, even when I felt kind-of dumb about it afterward
• Singing the songs from "The Chipmunk Adventure" with Krissy's friend, Dallen ("we are the girls, we are the girls, we are the girls of rock and roolllll-uh!")
• Talking on the phone with KC and listening to her wisdom
  
• Quoting Teen Girl Squad and feeling like a freshman again - "I have a crush on every boy!"
• Wearing the awesome beaded necklaces that I got in England with my mom
• Having dinners with Melissa and Krissy and discussing life
  
• Nice notes. Some especially good ones from this week:
• "Emily, I have been watching you, and I like what I see. Yow, yow!" --from "Anonymous" (but I know it was Dallen)
• A picture of two people talking with a tin can telephone (as we are going to have one with our next door neighbors so we can tell each other when they're keeping us up at night)
• "Roses are red, violets are blue, If you won't be my Valentine, I'll go boohoohoo!" (This was especially good since all three of us in our apartment got the exact same poem)
  
• Yoga - always, yoga
• Telling my elders what's actually going on in my life and not feeling bad about it - actually feeling relieved, because sometimes I'm just too tired to put on a face for them, and it's probably good to be real with them sometimes anyway
• Listening to Melissa's excellent renditions of her life experiences: "And then! [with fingers fluttering].. baby candy bars...alllll over...baby candy bars...."
• My jeep, Harvey
• Going to the Sunflower Market
• Awesome oatmeal with dried cranberries, raisins, sunflower seeds, and coconut
• Post Secret
• "Things overheard at BYU" - a hilarious page on Facebook
• My current iPod book: "The Amateur Marriage" by Anne Tyler
  

See, life is happy.