finding happiness

pondering happiness quite a lot in the face of the excitement of moving to the other side of the country (which admittedly is like moving from one side of wisconsin to the other and not as big as it might sound). husband is like a little kid anticipating christmas. he actually fell asleep last night with a smile on his face. he's covering reams of paper with sketches of the possibilities for renovations. we're now betting on two horses, as it were, and have given an offer on a second place, since the dog sled transport to northern canada is apparently unreliable, or else the laid back realtor hasn't actually sent a dog sled or any thing else, as we've heard nothing regarding our first offer. not being ones to wait around, husband has now talked himself (and thereby both of us) into the second place being better anyway. and he's right, there are more possibilities for ripping out everything that's there and putting it back in as we would want it.

now betting on this one as well. what's cool is that there's a lake on the property.

and although the first thing it needs is a new roof, that does afford opportunities not afforded by the other place, which recently had a new roof, although the engineering calculations surrounding that new roof are openly suspect in several places. so i think husband is right, the second property is better for us anyway. but my point actually is that even just talking about all of this is making us so happy.

leading me to think about what happiness is. it's an eternal question, isn't it? and we're eternally in search of happiness, tho' i'm not sure we always recognize it when we see it. for me, it's something different than contentment. contentment is a mild, tame form of happiness. a resting, easy thing. whereas, what i think makes us happy, makes us really tick, is having some enormous, seemingly impossible, daunting project on the horizon. i can definitely see that in husband. he's transformed and positively beaming at the prospect of this project. of course, it's also his new job that's transformed him - he was more than a little bored and frustrated at work and just going through the motions. he's looking forward to his new job, but even more, to the new house and all of the possibilities it represents.

these projects also remind me of our strengths - i can see things in my mind and he can build them. i pick colors, he paints them. in other words, i get all the fun and he does all the work. i guess i'll probably spend another summer with no kitchen, cooking on an old stove out in the yard and eating lots of salads. maybe it'll be time to try that raw diet i've long wanted to try. perhaps it will clear my mind so that i'll make good choices on all of those colors that we'll need on the walls in the new house. whichever one it ends up being. at least the waiting paralysis of last week seems to have passed and an excited, expectant happiness has stepped in to replace it. and that makes me very happy.

what made you happy this weekend?