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Tag Archives: happiness

Happy December! So happy

13 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by Leah in Half Marathon

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

december, family, friends, fundraising, half marathon, happiness, inspiration, life

Hello everyone!!

It’s been a while, so let me fill you all in 🙂

I am currently in the middle of finals week, wow right?! This Thursday I’ll be finished with this fall semester, yee! My brother will be graduating from college (yay congrats bro!). I just had my big fundraiser for my half marathon, an ugly sweater party in downtown San Diego, which was a huge success! , I am more than halfway to my $1,500 goal, at around $900!

Basically in a nutshell, I am positively loving life. I feel so in control, so blissfully happy, I am just so happy. Even when people or things get me mad or upset, I bounce back so much faster. I feel so surrounded by amazing and loving people all the time. I have the most supportive friends and family in my life, I am so blessed. All of my relationships have been improving I think, and it makes me feel so good to be close to so many great people.

I am also loving my half marathon fundraising, running, team members, and the whole experience. I have networked with so many great and inspiring people, and have gotten SO good at taking on a leadership role and taking charge of something. I am much more confident in myself when talking in front of crowds and with strangers. I rock, if I do say so myself.

I just feel really wonderful.
I’m sorry I haven’t been posting hardly at all, no excuses…

But I’m happy to share my happiness with you now. I couldn’t ask for anything more in my life right now. Happy December to everyone, I’ll write again later this week I guarantee it!! 🙂

Oh happy days

08 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by Leah in thoughts

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

friends, happiness, inspiration, las vegas, life, love, marine corps, relationships, thoughts, USMC ball

Isn’t it great to feel happy when those around you are happy?

I have a friend who is sort of seeing a new girl and he has been gushing about her every chance he gets. He deserves someone really great and I couldn’t be happier for him right now. It just makes me smile when he lights up about his day and makes jolly facebook status updates about how good life is.

It’s a nice change from seeing some debbie downer post about how unfair/sucky/miserable life is. Because it’s not. Not in the grand scheme of things. Sure, we all have those days when everything goes totally 100% wrong and we just want to go to sleep to end the chaos of the bad day. It happens. And some days we feel like a million bucks and we see rainbows and the sky is bluer and we appreciate the breeze on our face. I like to see those days, and if I can’t see them, I’m quite happy to have a friend of mine feel it.

Our view at night!

A very cool shark

In the AM, a pretty sight!

I’m feeling really good lately. Las Vegas was a blast! We visited Ben’s family and had a wonderful night laughing with each other and I love his family and I love getting to know them more every time I see them. We got a great hotel room overlooking the strip and the beautiful Bellagio fountain. We had our own show every hour to watch! I loved it. We went to the Mandalay Bay shark reef aquarium and saw some really amazing fish, sharks, jellyfish, you name it. We both were really into it:) We walked around the strip and saw lots of interesting sights and people and shops. On Saturday night we went to the ball and had a really nice time. I love seeing all the Marines in their dress blues uniform, and all the girls dressed up. We ate and drank and cracked jokes and even danced a little bit. It was lovely.

A lovely weekend overall! We actually both had to work on Sunday afternoon so it seemed like Vegas was very far away by then, but we made it through and we used Monday as a much needed rest and relaxation day.

But life feels good. I still have some off days, and some days where I can’t explain why I feel down or just not myself. But mostly I feel great. Loved, happy, independent, well rounded, healthy, and content.

Aaaand, next week is Ben’s birthday, so we will have some celebrating to do!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Remember to really appreciate your wonderful happy days, and to be happy for a friend when they have theirs.

What’s my age again?

27 Tuesday Sep 2011

Posted by Leah in College Life, Happiness, thoughts

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

apartment living, college, cooking, happiness, youth

So it'll be a little crispy on the edges....

So…I need to learn to cook.

I know, I KNOW my mom will be reading this saying “I told you so Leah you stubborn girl, if only you’d spent a little more time in the kitchen with me and a little less in front of that computer screen.” Or something along those lines maybe. But yes, I have a few simple recipes I can make…a stir fry…chicken enchiladas…salad…cereal…ha okay so it’s a short list. I guess I have to try simple yet satisfying dishes and work my way up. I need to learn how to grocery shop efficiently and effectively as well. I don’t want to go to the store every day, but I can’t spend a fortune in one shopping visit. I guess I could, but then I feel so badly afterwards, buyers remorse even if it’s to feed myself!

Sigh. Living on your own gives you so many new doors to go through, some you’d rather just keep shut and locked to collect more dust, others you’ll go bounding through without hesitation.

I got flustered the other night because I realized I don’t know how to do everything as good as my mom can on my own. Actually, I can’t even do a 1/4 of the things she can, but then I thought hey, I’m only 19, she has had much more time on this planet to figure out how to do everything so great. I’ll get there! Baby steps. : ) And while being only 19 can sometimes make me feel quite young in comparison to my many friends who are 21+, I have to stop thinking like that. I guess when can’t have something, it seems so shiny and amazing and you want it now now now. And then once you’ve got it, maybe the shine goes away and you realize you were never really missing anything. I don’t know, just a thought. I’m sure lots of people would kill to be 19 again anyways, so I better embrace it. Maybe by the time I’m 21, I’ll know how to cook much better than my 23 year old friends! haha! Victory will be mine.

Well, off to bed now, more grand adventures and lessons to be learned soon I’m sure. : ) thanks your all of your support everyone!

Week 1: in the life of a college apartment dweller

25 Sunday Sep 2011

Posted by Leah in College Life, Happiness, thoughts

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

apartment living, college, funny, happiness, inspiration, life, relationships, thoughts

worries going down with the sunset : )

Hello my lovely and amazing followers! Updates are here! I have officially lived in my new apartment with my new roomies for a week! And I have to say, it is going pretty good. My room is all put together, minus a desk I want to find and get, some thumbtacks, and shelves. But it looks great I think! Also, I am beginning to get closer with my new roommates, who are so sweet and who always involve me in plans they make, aside from going out on the town which I am too young for, but no worries there, I’ll have my time! I digress. Anyway, they are very sweet, open, fun loving girls who are just as laid back as I am.

I went grocery shopping, filled my cupboards with my main staples to keep me going for the week, bought some more decorations/needs for my room. It has been a big change living in a new city, with new people, away from my comfort zone, but I feel so happy about it. Right now I’d say my life is exactly where I have wanted it to be for quite some time.

Right now me and my two roomies are all sitting around our kitchen table chatting and getting to know each other more, sharing stories, laughing, and having a nice little Sunday night. It still keeps feeling like all these new experiences are going to keep piling up, but I think for now everything is going to start slowing back to a normal everyday kind of pace : )

Right now in school, I’m learning all kinds of interesting new communications skills, whether it be public speaking, or video editing, I feel like I have definitely chosen the right field of study. I feel happy to go to school an learn in my classes and apply what I know.

Not too long ago I’d been feeling a little low as far as my self esteem was concerned. I was feeling unpretty, undesirable, and just overall not good enough. Not so much that I was depressed or anything, just a lack of confidence was bringing me down for reasons unknown to me. I always have had the most supportive and loving people in my life, and my family, friends, and boyfriend are no exception to that. I think it was due to the general unknown-ness of my life. I had no idea what my future was going to hold, with school or living situations or work, and it made me feel like everything was out of my control, and in turn I felt a lack of confidence in myself.

Nowadays however, I feel really truly great about myself. I have a solid plan, I know what’s going on in my life for at least the next few months to a year, I have a job I really like and make good money at, and it is all reflecting in my overall happy demeanor and outlook on life and on myself. I’m also signing up to train and run a half marathon in January! It’s for a great cause, I will have more info up once I get all signed up and I will explain all! So I will get in great shape, make new friends, and help a good cause. Life’s good. With me at peace with my inside self and now my outside, I couldn’t be happier!

Thanks again to all of you who follow me and give me great feedback and encouragement. I appreciate it immensely and look forward to reading more of your blogs and posts and responding back!  What’s new in your life? What ways do you have in coping with any low confidence issues? What inspires you?

Have a fantastic week everyone!

A big day!

15 Thursday Sep 2011

Posted by Leah in College Life, Happiness, thoughts

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

apartment, college, happiness, inspiration, life, moving, roommates

Hey everybody : )

Stack those boxes! It's moving day!

Sorry for the measly one post a week…I feel so lame. But it’s been crazy busy lately! That’s always my excuse…sigh. Well tonight I am reflecting on my life again. Tomorrow morning I’m moving into my new apartment (yay!) with two other roommates, in a great complex, awesome amenities, pretty much everything is great!

But I’m still feeling all kinds of emotions. Excited, scared, anxious, curious, expectant, hesitant… I lived on my own for a year in my schools dorms. I would hardly call that being on my own though, because of the constant other person living in the shoebox with you, and the meal plan that allows you to still delay learning how to cook, the always being surrounded by other peers and never feeling “lonely”. I think this will be the first time I am actually living on my own. So many new things! I have to do my own grocery shopping, which I’m really excited about.( I’ve been grabbing coupon books from my usual grocers hehe) I can work out at the gym at the complex! I can drive to school in five minutes. I can actually walk to the store and to starbucks!

But moving out and into a new city, means moving away from my comfort zone. I’m excited for it, but nervous. I’m moving away from my home town friends, and my boyfriend, my dad, my usual hangouts..I mean I’m not more than a half hour drive away, but it’s still not the same as hopping in the car and driving down the road to get to someone’s house in a matter of minutes.

But I like to think I will thrive being put in a new situation. I’m thrilled to be housing with two great roommates who I can get to know better and maybe even create a great friendship with. I can’t wait to gain some more independence in my life and become more confident on my own two feet and with my own self. I like the feeling of becoming more adult, even if it is just baby steps at a time. There is so much good to look forward to in it all, I shake my head that I was so worried about it before. Because there’s no point in looking at a prospective negative aspect of some situation, if it is just “prospective.” I won’t know until I just go for it, and until then I have the highest hopes possible.

So moving day tomorrow, but probably not much unpacking because I have to work in the afternoon, and all weekend. Monday will be my unpacking day, and I can’t wait to lay back in my newly put together room and open my windows and feel at home, in my new home.

I’ll keep ya’ll posted as the week goes by, happy weekend!!

My heart’s a stereo

31 Wednesday Aug 2011

Posted by Leah in Happiness, thoughts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

happiness, inspiration, life, love, maroon 5

So let’s talk about loooove, heh and life and happiness and how it all can come together so harmoniously we actually think we did something right in life. That’s how I’ve been feeling lately : )

So as many of you know, and many of you don’t know either, I made some big changes in my life over these past few months because I wanted more than anything to change the quality of my life. I’ve always been an all around pretty happy person, with a general positive and upbeat outlook on most things. Last year was different though. I was in a bad place and felt so alone, even though I was surrounded by people. I had my family supporting me and thousands of my peers surrounding me on a daily basis at school, and I still felt like I was so lonely and invisible. I tried to bring myself to be social and get out, meet new people and friends and not stay in my room watching netflix marathons to distract myself from my real feelings. But my efforts were in vain and I eventually spent all of my time by myself, wallowing in my own misery and throwing pity parties for myself on a daily basis. Not my best moments.

When I came back to California for the summer, it was as if the last year had been a dream, or a nightmare really. I felt alive again, reawakened and so happy. I saw that, no matter what anyone else thought of my decisions, at the end of the day it’s going to be me who is happy or unhappy, not those other people judging my decisions. And ever since I have been living with the sole purpose of doing what is best for me, and for my well being. I know that there are those who support me but don’t agree with me, and that’s okay. Life is like that. And we still have to love those around us even if they are making decisions we don’t necessarily care for. (unless we’re talking about hard drugs or alcohol or violence, then it’s time for an intervention).  And I have to say that I have not been this happy and this pleased with where my life is at in a very long time. Everything has fallen into place just the way the world wanted it to, and I am just going along enjoying the ride. My mom is always the woman with the plan, a five year plan and a ten year plan, and she is amazing at achieving all of her goals. But for now, my plan is to see what happens tomorrow and the next day and just keep living the way I want to, and we’ll see where I’m at next week : )

I also wanted to share this song with you (the title of this post). It’s just a catchy maroon 5 song but I like it, maybe you will too!

August 22nd 2011, new new new!

22 Monday Aug 2011

Posted by Leah in Happiness, thoughts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

happiness, inspiration, life, new, school

So, as this summer is coming to a close, and many changes have been made in my life, my blog will be taking a bit of a turn in a new direction! Sorry for any of you who follow and have been looking at the same blog posts for several months now, summertime was a big transition time for me, and I didn’t feel like I was going to be writing anything good during that time of flux. But now things are starting to get on a new path, new job, an internship!, a new school, and new outlooks on life and love and happiness. So hopefully the posts will be coming out at least once or twice a week again, it feels very good to get writing on this again. And I somehow still have a follower or two, and I thank those of you very much for sticking with me and this blog.

“Dreams are illustrations… from the book your soul is writing about you”

– Marsha Norman

Peanut Butter

26 Tuesday Apr 2011

Posted by Leah in Happiness, Random Cool Stuff, thoughts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cookies, cooking, dogs, happiness, inspiration, life, peanut butter

So today I made some peanut butter cookies from scratch. After I added as much of the peanut butter as I could, while making a mess of course, I gave my dog the spoon to lick. It was the funniest thing in the world to watch. She licked it so clean she could probably see her reflection, and then she kept smacking her lips and rolling her tongue over her nose over and over because it was so sticky, and she had a big dollop of it on her snout. I laughed for about 10 minutes while I watched her. It just lit up my day. And she just kept looking up at me wondering why I was giggling.

I guess I’ve just been thinking so much lately about what it means to be happy, how to pursue and achieve happiness, and how to make it last. And it’s obviously right in front of me, staring at me covered in peanut butter. Or my best friends back home skyping me and us laughing with each other so easily. Or some sweet text messages from my boyfriend that tell me I’m being thought of. It’s my mom showing me a silly and ridiculous youtube video and us laughing over it. I think maybe I’m searching too hard for it when it’s always right next to me.

I’m sure everyone’s life could be tweaked in some way or another, and we all wish we could get everything we wanted and that our worlds were perfect. They aren’t though, maybe that’s the fun in it, or the challenge. Or the simplicity of it. We all have to work with what we got, and not worry so much about what we don’t.

To a better life…

19 Tuesday Apr 2011

Posted by Leah in Happiness, thoughts

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

cool, happiness, inspiration, interesting, life, life changes, lifestyle, positivity, random, thoughts

So I stumbled upon this website today during lecture, I know, bad Leah. But this page I found really spoke to me and it has some great tips I think anyone could use. Me especially! Have a looksie 🙂

Caution: may result in lots of self evaluation 🙂

Stop taking so much notice of how you feel. How you feel is how you feel. It’ll pass soon. What you’re thinking is what you’re thinking. It’ll go too. Tell yourself that whatever you feel, you feel; whatever you think, you think. Since you can’t stop yourself thinking, or prevent emotions from arising in your mind, it makes no sense to be proud or ashamed of either. You didn’t cause them. Only your actions are directly under your control. They’re the only proper cause of pleasure or shame.

Let go of worrying. It often makes things worse. The more you think about something bad, the more likely it is to happen. When you’re hair-trigger primed to notice the first sign of trouble, you’ll surely find something close enough to convince yourself it’s come.

Ease up on the internal life commentary. If you want to be happy, stop telling yourself you’re miserable. People are always telling themselves how they feel, what they’re thinking, what others feel about them, what this or that event really means. Most of it’s imagination. The rest is equal parts lies and misunderstandings. You have only the most limited understanding of what others feel about you. Usually they’re no better informed on the subject; and they care about it far less than you do. You have no way of knowing what this or that event really means. Whatever you tell yourself will be make-believe.

Take no notice of your inner critic. Judging yourself is pointless. Judging others is half-witted. Whatever you achieve, someone else will always do better. However bad you are, others are worse. Since you can tell neither what’s best nor what’s worst, how can you place yourself correctly between them? Judging others is foolish since you cannot know all the facts, cannot create a reliable or objective scale, have no means of knowing whether your criteria match anyone else’s, and cannot have more than a limited and extremely partial view of the other person. Who cares about your opinion anyway?

Give up on feeling guilty. Guilt changes nothing. It may make you feel you’re accepting responsibility, but it can’t produce anything new in your life. If you feel guilty about something you’ve done, either do something to put it right or accept you screwed up and try not to do so again. Then let it go. If you’re feeling guilty about what someone else did, see a psychiatrist. That’s insane.

Stop being concerned what the rest of the world says about you. Nasty people can’t make you mad. Nice people can’t make you happy. Events or people are simply events or people. They can’t make you anything. You have to do that for yourself. Whatever emotions arise in you as a result of external events, they’re powerless until you pick them up and decide to act on them. Besides, most people are far too busy thinking about themselves (and worry what you are are thinking and saying about them) to be concerned about you.

Stop keeping score. Numbers are just numbers. They don’t have mystical powers. Because something is expressed as a number, a ratio or any other numerical pattern doesn’t mean it’s true. Plenty of lovingly calculated business indicators are irrelevant, gibberish, nonsensical, or just plain wrong. If you don’t understand it, or it’s telling you something bizarre, ignore it. There’s nothing scientific about relying on false data. Nor anything useful about charting your life by numbers that were silly in the first place.

Don’t be concerned that your life and career aren’t working out the way you planned. The closer you stick to any plan, the quicker you’ll go wrong. The world changes constantly. However carefully you analyzed the situation when you made the plan, if it’s more than a few days old, things will already be different. After a month, they’ll be very different. After a year, virtually nothing will be the same as it was when you started. Planning is only useful as a discipline to force people to think carefully about what they know and what they don’t. Once you start, throw the plan away and keep your eyes on reality.

Don’t let others use you to avoid being responsible for their own decisions. To hold yourself responsible for someone else’s success and happiness demeans them and proves you’ve lost the plot. It’s their life. They have to live it. You can’t do it for them; nor can you stop them from messing it up if they’re determined to do so. The job of a supervisor is to help and supervise. Only control-freaks and some others with a less serious mental disability fail to understand this.

Don’t worry about about your personality. You don’t really have one. Personality, like ego, is a concept invented by your mind. It doesn’t exist in the real world. Personality is a word for the general impression that you give through your words and actions. If your personality isn’t likeable today, don’t worry. You can always change it, so long as you allow yourself to do so. What fixes someone’s personality in one place is a determined effort on their part—usually through continually telling themselves they’re this or that kind of person and acting on what they say. If you don’t like the way you are, make yourself different. You’re the only person who’s standing in your way.

Found Here!

Surprises!

03 Sunday Apr 2011

Posted by Leah in Happiness, thoughts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

happiness, inspiration, lifestyle, positive, skiing, thoughts, utah

Greetings again! I’ve taken a brief hiatus from the blogging world, due to traveling, school, and a general lack of motivation to do a lot of unrequired writing outside of schoolwork. But it’s time to get back on the horse, or whatever.

Can I just say how much I love surprises? I really do. If I can keep a surprise for long enough to actually surprise someone, I feel so happy inside. Usually I get too excited and tell the secret, but lately it’s worked out very well. I also love being surprised.

So this morning when I woke up to find 10 inches of new snow on my deck, I was to say the least, shocked. It was 70 degrees the previous day, and I had gone out hiking with my dog and got a nice little sun tan as well. My first reaction was to roll back over in my bed and sleep the day away. But I got persuaded to hit the slopes with my family one last time before the resorts close next week. So I strapped on all my gear, feeling extra bulky compared to the day before when I was in sandals, shorts, and a tank top. I was sure it was going to be wet, heavy, concrete -like snow out on the hill. But I was so pleasantly surprised. One of the best days of skiing I’ve had in a long time. And to think, I had almost missed out on this perfect morning of fresh tracks and knee deep light fluffy powder?!

In other aspects of my life lately, I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised as I was this morning. I am planning things as if everything is going to work out the way I hope they do. The power of positive thinking has amazing results. My mom likes to think “checks in the mail, checks in the mail!”, and then pow, a check is in our mailbox! (well, sometimes..)

So..positivity : ) I am going to work on that.

More from the 30 day post coming soon as well!

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