Day 99, 100 Happy Days: Happy Hour and Acupuncture

Wow! I'm nearly done with my 100 happy days, and again it has been a great project. Looking for something to make me happy really does help to make me happy.

Today I went to happy hour with two of my besties. We used to meet once a month, but we've just been too busy to make that happen lately. So it was extra good to see them.

We went to Atomic Cowboy and ordered a MASSIVE pizza. Twenty-six inches of deliciousness!

Also, I went to acupuncture today, and that always makes me happy. In this case more than usual because yesterday I really jacked up my neck. I went in to my appointment not being able to turn my head to the right much. Tonight I can turn my head almost all the way to the right. Happiness!

Day 92, 100 Happy Days: Hot Cocoa on Cold Night

Tonight I was happy to come out of the frigid cold into a warm apartment. I don't mind the snow, but the the cold is really hard to take. All I wanted when I got home was a hot mug of cocoa.
Nice to get what I want.

Day 91, 100 Happy Days: No Obligation Day

I relished having a day with no obligation. It is ultimately how I want to live my life. (Certain people have been known to sing my praises for being super low obligation girl; what with my no kids, no pets, and hardly any houseplants... Okay, so maybe just person has sung my praises. But still...)

Lately I've been feeling bogged down with commitments, obligations and responsibility. So, it was nice to just chill today. Well, I didn't exactly chill. I worked. But I did so in a leisurely, sloppily dressed, woman with no obligation way.

Also, dinner with a friend. This is a friend who I have sort of known for years, but never met. (Oh, modern life!) It was nice to finally meet, have a drink, and a delicious Cobb salad.

Day 74, 100 Happy Days: A Day Off

What was there to NOT be happy about today?
Don't answer that. There is always something to not be happy about. But the good news is that there is always something to be happy about. (Hence 100 Happy Days.)

My point being that I found many things to be happy about today...
I actually cleared my schedule and took a day off. And I actually got myself to an acupuncture appointment, which always feels like really good self care (I hadn't been there in months). It was a gorgeous day - blue skies, and stupidly warm (high of 63, but I swear it felt like 73 degrees).

I spent about 8 minutes total talking to people today - and that was just my acupuncturist and a librarian.
I took two naps.
I had a mocha and a delicious banana/blueberry smoothie (not simultaneously).

Today was a good day.

Also, perspective: I was looking for an old photo just now and I came across a video I made in January 2013. Back then - when my mom was sick - I was doing these vlogs - like video journals - just for myself, because I was too tired to write. Usually I'd do them driving home at night, so it would be somewhat of a brain dump. (I'd turn the camera on and put it on the dash - I wasn't looking at the camera as it recorded.)
All I can say is: what a difference a couple of years make. Anytime I'm feeling stressed or overwhelmed now, I should just watch one of those vlogs. I'm so thankful that phase of my life is over.

Yes, life is good.

Day 73, 100 Happy Days: My Favorite Soup

I was SO happy to come home tonight to find that I had splurged on my favorite soup at the grocery store last night. It was waiting for me to heat up.

Shout out to Boulder Organic for the amazing Red Lentil Dahl soup! It ain't cheap but it's totally worth it. And it was exactly the thing I needed.

Yum!

Day 64, 100 Happy Days: A Hot Cup of Chocolate

This was the kind of day when the "to do" list grew bigger as the day went on instead of smaller.

It's 4am. I'm giving up on that damn list. It will still be there when I wake up.

This lovely cup of hot chocolate got me through the night. Or at least part of it. I was so happy to find that I had just enough mix to make one last cup. Ahhhh.... yessss. :)

Day 61, 100 Happy Days: Ethiopian Food

So, there is an Ethiopian restaurant a half a block from my studio - Arada. I go there every few months, and every time I go I wonder why I don't eat there all the freaking time.

The owner (I wish I knew her name) is always there, and always remembers me. Tonight she even remembered what I like to order (the vegetarian platter). (Perhaps this place is becoming my Cheers...)

In any case, it's nice to go to a neighborhood restaurant with amazing food, and feel at home. 

Also, it makes me happy to support another small business.

Day 59, 100 Happy Days: Guinness and Blood On The Tracks

Tonight I discovered that some wonderful person had left me a Guinness in my studio fridge!
So I took a break from putting my studio back together (after the big wall and floor painting project), put my feet up, and had an ice cold can of Guinness.

On the stereo was one of my favorite Bob Dylan albums: Blood on the Tracks.

Happiness.
 
Here is one of my favorite songs from that album...

Day 40, 100 Happy Days: One Damn Good Meal

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake with quickly melting ice cream.

Okay, so it wasn't JUST the damn good meal that made me happy. It was also the fact that I was
celebrating a birthday with an old friend. In fact, this makes 25 birthdays that we've celebrated together... actually 50, if you count the 25 of mine that we've celebrated since we met. That's a lot of celebrations!

Today we spent four or so hours in my studio painting, and then we went to dinner at Table 6. So good! If you would have told me that brussel sprouts could make me happy, I'd have said you were off your rocker. But... happy they made me! Granted they were fried... with horseradish, gouda and some sort of a sweet and tangy "special sauce". The amazing Butternut Squash Rissoto made me equally as happy. Out of this world.

Day 36, 100 Happy Days: Childhood Snack and an Adult Beverage

Most of the Tamales sank when I tried to rearrange for a better pic

I tell ya, today has been one of those days. Not bad, but... not good either. Just sort of a beginning of the week/beginning of the year/I haven't done much in the way of admin in a long time and my phone is ringing off the hook kind of a day. And everything needs to be done right now (or 2 weeks ago) and... you get the picture.

I've hardly left my desk today. And that is saying a lot since my desk is at home. It's probably been a 12-hour day. Luckily, I've learned from years of NOT taking breaks, how important breaks are, so I get up and move around a lot. If I don't, my body suffers. I even take little yoga breaks here and there - mini happys!

So finally, after I got enough stuff done tonight, and I could take no more, I decided that popcorn sounded like just the thing. And then I remembered the box of Hot Tamales (candy) that I got the other day normally I would not keep something like that around, but... it was only 49 cents... what was I to do?

Now, a lot of people think that I'm crazy, but back in the day (high school), my friend Jane and I would go to movies and mix Hot Tamales with our popcorn. YUM!! Hey - don't knock it 'til you try it! So I was super happy to make an old school snack at the end of my day. And I just happened to have some Kahlua on hand too. Perfect. Life is good!

Happiness Project Day 87: Dinner at Cucina Colore

A good friend took me out to dinner at Cucina Colore in Cherry Creek tonight. It was a late dinner, and they were getting close to shutting down. When we found this out we said we'd go someplace else, as not feel rushed or make the staff wait. But the host was very nice and convinced us to stay.

Once again I was enjoying the food too much to take pictures (which is really a good thing), but trust me, the food was beautiful and delicious. We shared the buratta, which (I found out) is a cheese made from mozzarella and cream. It was served on a bed of arugula (which I normally hate), with oven roasted tomato and basil pesto. Amazing.

Then we each had a salad for dinner. I had the Pollo E Orzo salad, which was delicious. Believe it or not, we left there stuffed.

Good food, good company, and being made to feel welcome... what more could a girl ask for?

Happiness Project day 71: Dinner For One, A Nice Red, and Andrew Bird

Evening plans cancelled, taxes out of my head, car out of my head. Andrew Bird playing on my modern day boom box (aka iPhone).  Dinner cooking on the stove. (For one? Yes please) And a nice glass of red waiting. Happy as a clam, if indeed clams are happy. 

Happiness Project Day 66: Groceries

Rough day all around. I'm glad that I had to come home and write this blog - it gave me a reason to go looking for something to make me happy. Today it was groceries. It's nice to have groceries in the kitchen.
Living alone, not liking to cook, and not being a fan of the grocery store all add up to me not having a stocked kitchen very often.
So, today's bit of happiness is not cause for me to jump for joy, but... I'll take what I can get! And it's more than a lot of people in the world have.

Happiness Project Day 64: Happy Hour at The Keg

Well the title says it all, doesn't it? It's a hour (at least) of happiness. Except the place we went to had a "cocktail hour" instead of a happy hour.  Indeed.

It was great to check out a new place. We went to The Keg in LoDo. Contrary to it's name, it did not have peanut shells on the floor and frat boys guzzling cheap draft beer. It was quite nice, actually.

The food was delicious - we had an assortment of appetizers from the cocktail hour menu: crab cakes, prime rib sliders (amazing), some cheesy garlicky shrimp deliciousness. Also red wine. Oh - and fresh baked bread and housemade potato chips. And then, dessert! I'm not even a dessert person, but... wow. Three little samples of yumminess: a butter tart with vanilla ice cream, a fudge brownie with vanilla ice cream, caramel, hot fudge and whipped cream, and a mango "what-the-hell-is-happening-in-my-mouth" brulee.

I'm sorry that I only thought to take a picture after the the meal was done. It's not the most appetizing picture, but it sure does represent a meal enjoyed.

And speaking of caramel...

My Happiness Project Day 46: Zotz!

Old school candy... aww yeah! Anybody remember Zotz? Hard candy on the outside, with a very satisfying fizzy inside. Took me right back to elementary school.

Wikipedia tells me that it's an Italian candy. Didn't see that one coming...

My Happiness Project Day 41: Living Alone, Cooking For One, and Miles Davis

"Vino" ©Tabetha Hastings

Being alone is so underrated. I often take living alone for granted. I come home, get on my computer, get to work. Or get to Facebook. My mind is going going going, so I'm not appreciating the reality of my own time and space.
But tonight, I took a break. I put on some Miles Davis, had a glass of wine, and enjoyed cooking myself dinner.
Now, those who know me well, know that I do not like to cook. But that's not exactly true. I tend to get caught up in what I'm doing, and I don't like to take brakes to do some pesky thing like cooking. But also... I just don't like to cook for other people. I don't like the pressure for things to turn out well, or the multitasking of trying to carry on a conversation while trying to make things taste good and keep them from burning all at the same time. It's just too much for me!
But when I'm alone (and can break free from computer) it's really nice. So my bit of happiness today was fully enjoying my solitude, my cooking, my wine, and my Miles.

My Happiness Project Day 39: A Glass of Red, A Bottle of Red

It's been a weekend of work, but also of dinner and/or appetizers and/or drinks with friends, new and old. A lovely weekend, really. And now I'm happy to wind down with a nice glass of red. Tonight's red is a nice Chilean Carmenere.

Day 39 Bonus:
I wanted to post a video with a song about wine here, but I thought UB40's Red Red Wine was a bit too obvious. So I decided instead to post Billy Joel's Scenes from an Italian Restaurant. I went searching YouTube, and what I found was this funny video of him singing the song and interrupting himself to talk about how he wrote it.

My Happiness Project Day 36: Possibly the Best Salad EVER

Look: I make a good salad. I just do. You won't hear me brag much on food that I've made because I don't really cook. I can do a mean breakfast, and a mean salad, and that's it.

So when I say that this is possibly the BEST salad ever? You better believe it. What makes it even better (healthier), is that there is no meat or dressing.

If you happen to be interested in assembling this deliciousness for yourself, here's what went into it:

• Greens (Whatever greens you like. I got the Organics Mixed Baby Greens from Safeway.)
• Chopped red bell pepper
• Sliced red onions
• White button mushrooms
• Gorgonzola*
• Asparagus
• Carrots (Regulation. None of that nasty baby carrot crap for me.)
• Ciabatta or bread of choice. Lightly toasted.

I sauteed the onion, pepper and mushroom in olive oil, then placed them on the greens, and topped the whole shebang with gorgonzola. Serve with asparagus on the side (boil in shallow water until you can pierce it with a fork), and a carrot.
Heaven. 

*I don't recommend the crumbles in the plastic tub - they've got extra ingredients to keep them crumbly. I get the Montforte brand at Sprouts. It's good and reasonably priced. It's messier to deal with, but tastes SO much better.

My Happiness Project Day 33: Surprise Homemade Dinner and Dessert

Well, I'm over a month into this project, and I must say that it's getting hard to new find individual things that make me happy. I am definitely happier all around, so it is working. However, I find that a lot of the things that make me happy in the moment, make me happy on a regular basis, so there are bound to be some repeats. Sunshine, spring, painting, friends, dogs, trees... I'm really trying not to repeat, though!

Today I got to a friend's house to walk his dog, and there were two cookies waiting for me with a note on the baggie saying to check the fridge. I opened the fridge, and there was some homemade yumminess waiting for me. This made me very happy indeed! Dinner, dessert, cash for dog walking, a lovely walk in the park, and getting to hang out with a cool pooch... yup, happiness. :)

My Happiness Project Day 31: Hair of the Dog

....or hair of a dog, at least. It was the wine dog that bit me last night, but I had a hair of the whiskey dog this (very late) morning - in the form of Irish coffee at Racine's.

Happy is having a yummy adult coffee - complete with copius amounts of whipped cream, while revisiting last night's shenanigans and comparing notes.

By the way, do you know where that term "hair of the dog" came from? According to Wikipedia, it referred to treating bites from rabid dogs by taking some of the hair from the dog and putting it on the bite wound. My issue with this is; how are you going to get the hair from the rabid dog?

In any case, here is a blast from the past: Nazareth with "Hair of the Dog" (why it's titled that, I'll never know...)