Monday, April 09, 2007

Things that make me happy

My rule for this weekend was that I was only going to do things that make me happy. And boy, when you decide to do that, moments just pile up on top of each other and overwhelm you! It was really such great weekend!!

The first thing that made me happy was getting my reports in on Thursday after school. YAAAY! I was officially free to enjoy the weekend. (I'm just going to pretend that little stack of marking isn't staring back at my from the basket on my 'dining room' floor - where I tried to hide it!) Sleeping over 12 hours on Thursday night also made me happy!

Friday morning I went to my church's Good Friday service and was really struck again by Jesus' sacrifice, and by what it meant for where I'm at in my life right now. It was nearly audible (nearly! I wasn't hearing voices or anything!), him saying, "Hillary, I died so you wouldn't have to carry all this. Lay it down. Let me take it." How freeing it was to just give it up. I'd been trying to carry way too much, and I don't need to. God is SO good.

A bunch of people went out for brunch afterwards, walking through the neighbourhood of old heritage homes - beautiful gigantic homes along tree lined streets, the warm breeze and cherry blossoms filling the air. I had a good conversation with my friend Lloyd on the way there, which really built me up and encouraged me. He is one of those people who is just generous in every way, and every time you come away from talking with him, you feel good.

Brunch was great, and after that, I went home and began shoveling out the masses of paper that had seemed to breed and were threatening to take over my desk! There's nothing better than the windows and doors open, the sweet smell of the jasmine flowers outside my door wafting in, and doing a good, hearty clean-up. It felt sooo good to be able to see my desk again! hehe! I might post before and after pictures, but then you'll know how bad it really was!!! EEK!

Oh who am I kidding? Here ya go, before and after...


Afterwards, I headed out to another friend's house for a big Easter dinner (the one that would have been way less fun that hanging out with charm-boy) and guess what? It was SO much fun! Lloyd cooked a HUGE dinner for about 10 people - turkey AND ham! - and we ate, drank, and made merry. I learned that I'm still not very good at holding my liquor. A glass of wine, a chocolatini (mental note: buy chocolate liqueur!!!) and a daiquiri, even over two hours or so and a with a large dinner, and I was NOT ready to go home for a few hours! I suppose that would definitely fall into the category of "things that make me happy," albeit in a slightly different way! Ha!

Saturday was more of the same - brunch with my grandparents, more house shovelling - you know, taking care of all those little corners that you don't usually get to but that stress you out when you see them? Ah, it felt good. Then my friend Brad called and informed me that I was going to his house for dinner with him and another friend. :D I was treated to another yummy dinner (thanks, Brad! It was scrumptious!), and then Brad and Ian came back to my house to watch a movie while I cooked and prepared Easter dinner/lunch for the next day.

With no extended family Easter dinners this year, and my mom having hurt her back a few weeks ago, I offered to have my immediate family over to MY house for something to eat after church on Sunday. I made it very clear that I was not doing EASTER DINNER, but that I would make "something to eat after church." The EASTER DINNER label was a little more than I wanted to take on at this point in time. But Sunday turned out to be great, too! My parents came to my church (which was their church when they were growing up, and all the way till I was in grade 4), and shock of all shocks, my brother and sister came too! (If you're reading this, K & B, I'm really glad you came, it was nice to have everybody there!)

Church was AWESOME - I love the way my church tries to incorporate the diversity within our congregation. The readings, the art, the decorations, the music, the sermon, the testimonies - all were triumphant declarations that Christ is risen! AND? We even sung the song that I posted yesterday morning! Yay!

Lunch went well (no-one got poisoned! ;) heehee!) and we had a nice afternoon just goofing around and talking. It was neat to have the whole fam to MY house! My mom says this officially makes me a grown-up. I say, "Noooooo! I don't WANNA!"

And then? Sunday evening? What better happy-maker than to go for a walk on the beach with a friend? I called my Vanessa up and asked her if she wanted to head out with me.

"Uhh... it's kinda rainy here."

"Eh, it's ok. It's not raining here, we should be ok."

Except.

This is Vancouver, and rain hurtles in pretty quick in these parts! By the time we got to the beach it was POURING! Well hey, that's ok! It was easy to find parking!

Vanessa and I ran around at the beach in the POURING rain, laughing at the ducks and taking goofy pictures of ourselves. In a "Oh, what the heck? I'm supposed to be doing things that make me happy, right?" moment, I took a flying leap off a grassy knoll - and then anything else I could find - and landed with both feet into a colossal, sandy, muddy, and rather deep PUDDLE!


(click any image to make it bigger:
you can read the rock and see the splash of my insane puddle jumping shenanigans!)

Let me just say this: PUDDLE JUMPING MAKES ME VERY VERY HAPPY! I repeated the act a number of times, creating little sandy lakes inside my shoes and making my jeans so wet I had to cinch up my belt another notch so my pants wouldn't fall off with the weight! Vanessa was content to watch the craziness unfold, so she was the official photographer. AH! It was glorious!

Especially when it was finished off with hot chocolate, whipped cream - dry pants!! - and Amelie, the most happy-making movie ever! - back at my house afterwards.

Today I allowed myself to sleep in and just wake up when I woke up (8am! grr... I'll have to work on that!), and I'm headed off to Home Depot's garden center to buy some baby flowers to plant in all my pots on my patio. I didn't do anything with my patio last year, and I missed it. I'm going to go make a little garden. Inch by inch, and row by row, I'm gonna make my garden grow...

And those? Those are all things that make me happy. Have a great Monday!

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds like a wonderful weekend! :) Your happiness makes me happy!

Queen Bee said...

What a great weekend! And no Charm-Boy ;)

Anonymous said...

You can be an official "adult" and still love jumping in puddles ~~ why do you think I hang out with three & four year olds?!?
Sunday lunch was wonderful; thanks, Hunny! And: RUN! RUN! RUN! from charm boys ...... you are worth soooooooooo much more. Love ya.

Anonymous said...

a very good, happy weekend indeed!

enjoy the gardening - I need to get over to Home Depot too. I say that every year, but always leave it too late :)

Jean said...

Reading this made me happy too!! And seeing your contagious smile can only brighten one's day!! :)

Hope your Tuesday is as happy as the weekend was!

sarah cool said...

Can you make me a little garden?? And deliver it?? I've got a lovely guest bedroom!!

Hillary said...

Sarah - Done and done!

Actually, I called the nursery yesterday, and it's still too early for bedding plants, so no garden for me. Not yet anyway...

(So Jenn, you're not too late! :D )

Paul said...

Today's comments are sponsored by the numbers 1 to 7:

1. I'm glad that your Easter was so good. I couldn't really get into Easter this year. Our Good Friday service was quite dry and liturgical and our Easter day service was similar, but very long, with the addition of a Ghanaian minister, who preached a good 45 minute sermon, but was very difficult to understand. The fact that the heating was stuck on, didn't help much either.

2. I spent quite a lot of time this weekend painting walls, and trying to update a horrendously complicated blog template that I wrote for someone a while ago to new blogger. This didn't really help with 1.

3. I wish my desk was as tidy as your before photo.

4. That looks like a pretty decent Easter dinner to me.

5. Yes you are a grown-up, but you have my permission not to act like one all the time.

6. Reading on, it would appear that you don't need my permission.

7. Happy gardening.

leesepea said...

I love it that you have multiple pen cups and they are sorted by pen type.

Just like me.

James doesn't get it.

Boys never do.

*Giggle*

Hillary said...

Leesepea - HAHA! I was wondering how long it would take someone to comment on that! *sheepish look* I had a lot of pens! I wasn't gonna throw them out! :D