Day 24: The Happiness Project

This is getting tricky, y’all. Not the happiness part of the project, as that’s going better than expected, but rather the photography part. I didn’t take any photos yesterday. None.

Which makes Day 24 rather tricky to pull off.

And really, Day 24 had a lot of surprisingly cathartic moments, which have left me in a much better mood for today (but let’s not get ahead of ourselves).

For one, the Thwack was chilled out enough to let me assemble the ingredients for a ton of gingery-garlicky-parsley’y meatballs (like gyoza, but without the wrapper, really). That’s two days straight now that he has been mostly amenable to just chilling out and waiting for Lunch #3 or Breakfast #5 (no one ever tells you before the baby comes how much time nursing takes up- it takes up all the time that exists, y’all. It expands to fit). Small steps.

I’m not going to post a picture of a big plate full of raw balls of meat though. Ick.

And I’m not going to post yet another picture of Gummy McDroolsalot-Yogurtbreath patiently waiting on his mat again, arms and legs flailing wildly.

And then there’s the second happy thing, which is still too intangible and tentative to write about but which kind of emotionally and mentally begins to fix much of what has been ailing me lately. Cryptic, I know. It involves work, travel and options for the next year and beyond. Basically, we did a big brainstorming session about what the hell to do and how to get to where we want to be and actually came up with a rough plan. With spreadsheets, because that’s how he rolls, yo. And it’s a wonderful plan. I’m excited. And relieved.

I’ll discuss that one more as plans come together.

And finally, at the end of my third fencing class, after an hour of lunging ‘n parrying with tiny 9 year olds, the instructor and her assistant came up to me and said they had a bet going on the origin of my accent (obviously not Leicester as I actually use consonants). That led to chatting about Canada, then to travel in general, then to an invitation to join the instructor’s belly dancing group. Did I ever mention that I used to dance? I studied it for a few years in the 90s, until my teacher suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack in her 40s. I did it again intermittently during my Turkey years but hadn’t really thought of it in ages. So, not only did I have my first spontaneous and engaging conversation with someone here who was not one of my husband’s family members or friends, but it was one that might lead me back to something I actually like doing.

We shall see.

The whole Happiness Project collection of posts can be found here.