It's Friday; It's a Good Thing

I took a break from the rush of life today to sit and read a completely fun book. I haven't seen the movie, so it was all fresh to me. I expected to read it as I ate lunch, since you bloggers out there were pretty quiet today. I ended up reading the whole thing.

There was part at the end that reminded me both of my recent blogging about emotions and also about what the good things are in life.

Here is a section from Ann Brashares' Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants:

"Maybe happiness didn't have to be about the big, sweeping circumstances, about having everything in your life in place. Maybe it was about stringing together a bunch of small pleasures. Wearing slippers and watching the Miss Universe contest. Eating a brownie with vanilla ice cream.... Maybe happiness was just a matter of the little upticks - the traffic signal that said 'walk' the second you got there - and downticks - the itchy tag at the back of your collar - that happened to every person in the course of a day. Maybe everybody had the same allotted measure of happiness within each day."

Maybe the little happinesses in a day equal one big sweeping happiness.

So today, in the spirit of It's a Good Thing, I'm counting the little happinesses, and waiting for that big sweeping one that is sure to come along at some point in time. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but someday. Maybe not in the way I hope it is coming, but something grand all the same.

A few from just today:

1. Time tonight to finally relax a little with a glass of wine

2. Kids that I absolutely adore. I am more in love with them every day.

3. A school event that made us all smile. Friends we run into and talk so long with that we don't get to every room we should.

4. Ice cream out on a school night. Celebrating just life.

5. Getting through the Tracy Anderson exercise without once dropping my arms or legs.

6. Daffodils.

7. Another few good pages on the new manuscript. The feeling like it still might work.

8. A roaring fire and cold rain outside. Perfect for writing. And curling up on the couch with a good book.

9. A writing group I adore. I so, so adore. Even on days like today when we hardly write back and forth, just knowing they are there sometimes - like today - is all that keeps me going.

10. New CDs. I have four new CDs - a treat for me. Every day is a new favorite song. Today's? David Cook's Permanence.

What are some of your small happinesses?