How to Be Happy

(I read this article on WikiHow and really wanted to share it. It has such amazing advice and I hope that I can follow through and use this in my life.)
[also this is not the full article, just the points I wanted to share. To read the full article go HERE]

So happiness - isn't that the thing that all of us strive to find and keep? Nobody is happy all of the time, but some people are definitely more fulfilled than others. Studies on what makes people happy reveal that it doesn't have much to do with material goods or high achievement; it seems to whittle down to your outlook on life, and the quality of your relationships with the people around you.

Be optimistic. In the 1970s, researchers followed people who'd won the lottery and found that a year after they'd hit the jackpot, they were no happier than the people who didn't. They called it hedonic adaptation, which suggests that we each have a baseline level of happiness. No matter what happens, good or bad, the effect on our happiness is only temporary and we tend to rebound to our baseline level. Some people have a higher baseline happiness level than others, and that can be attributed in part to genetics, but it's also largely influenced by how you think. So while the remainder of this article will help boost your happiness, only improving your attitude towards life will increase your happiness permanently.

Follow your gut. In one study, two groups of people were asked to pick out a poster to take home. One group was asked to analyze their decision carefully, weighing the pros and cons, and the other group was told to listen to their gut. Two weeks later, the group that followed their gut was happier with their posters than the group that analyzed their decisions. Now, some of our decisions are more crucial than picking out posters, but by the time you're poring over your choice, the options you're weighing are probably very similar, and the difference will only temporarily affect your happiness. So next time you have a decision to make, and you're down to two or three options, just pick the one that feels right, and go with it.

Make enough money to meet your basic needs: food, shelter, and clothing. In the US, that magic number is $40,000 a year. Any money you make beyond that will have negligible effects on your happiness. Remember the lottery winners mentioned earlier? Oodles of money didn't make them any happier, and it won't make you any happier. Once you make enough money to support your basic needs, your happiness is not significantly affected by how much money you make, but by your level of optimism.
* Your comfort may increase with your salary, but comfort isn't what makes people happy. It makes people bored. That's why it's important to push beyond your comfort zone to fuel your growth as a person.
* Don't assume you're the exception, as in "Sure they didn't use their lottery money wisely, but if I won it, I'm spend it differently, and it'd definitely make me happier." Part of the reason many people are unhappy is because they don't think research-based advice about happiness applies to them, and they continue chasing more money and achievement and material goods in vain.

Stay close to friends and family. Or move to where other members are- so you can see them more. We live in a mobile society, where people follow jobs around the country and sometimes around the world. We do this because we think increases in salary will make us happier, but the fact is that our relationships with our friends and family have a far greater impact on our happiness than our jobs do. So next time you think about relocating, consider moving back to your childhood area of the country to spend time with your siblings and aging parents, before it is too late. Stop expecting your job to make you happy. Many people expect the right job or the right career to dramatically change their level of happiness, but happiness research makes it clear that your level of optimism and the quality of your relationships eclipse the satisfaction you gain from your job. If you have a positive outlook, you'll make the best of any job, and if you have good relationships with people, you won't depend on your job to give your life a greater sense of meaning. You'll find it in your interactions with the people you care about. Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't aspire towards a job that'll make you happier; it means you should understand that the capacity of your job to make you happy is quite small in comparison to you outlook on life and your relationships with people.

(In conclusion: Smile more and enjoy life, you only get one!)

XOXO

Camping @ Timothy Lake

After planning, lists, shopping, packing, repacking and much anticipation, we left for camping Friday June 26 at 5am.

The first stop was to meet up at Crystal and Mike’s house in Gresham, Oregon. From there we followed them up the highway on Mt Hood to Timothy Lake.

The view when we got there was ridiculously beautiful! I have been to Timothy Lake before but it was when I was small and didn’t remember much about it. We finally found a campsite after driving around in circles (only seeing reserved ones) and started unpacking [[the children]].



Tents got set up pretty quickly, while the kids were playing games and exploring. Some of the kids, both mine and Crystal’s, decided they were going to explore the Lake by themselves and took off [a few times]. While finding them, we all took in the amazing scenery and did a little exploring ourselves.


When we got back to camp the kids ate somewhat of a brunch and we all hung out for awhile. I don’t know who it was, but somebody noticed a giant beetle on our tent. I had never seen anything like it. He was huge!

Mike decided he needed to experiment. The beetle needed brain surgery. A good guess by Crystal, green stuff comes out when you stab it. LOL. And apparently beetles don’t care if you put a hole in their head, they keep fightin back. He was saved for later to have a proper fire burial.

After being spammed a million times since we pulled into the campsite, we took the kids swimming. The water was insanely cold, but it didn’t seem to bother the kids. [Mine would probably swim in a frozen lake if given the chance].

When they were done freezing to death, we headed back to camp to get changed and figure out our next adventure. Jason suggested a scavenger hunt, which the kids were excited about. Marrissa wrote the list while we all gave ideas for what to find.

I don’t remember all of the ideas suggested but some of them were really hilarious. [The things kids come up with] The scavenger hunt was somewhat a success and we found and saw some amazing things.

Back at camp it was dinner time [smores preferred by the children, but didn’t happen til later].When the little ones showed signs of being exhausted from the day, they put their layers of warmness on and headed to bed. Jason, Crystal, Mike and I hung out by the fire for awhile, drinking coffee and discussing “computer stuff”. The fire died down and the adults were exhausted, so we put a few layers on and headed to bed too.

Falsely assuming the blankets and clothing we wore would be enough to keep us warm, I spent most of the night tossing and turning and shivering; waking up constantly. In my sleepy, freezing daze even thought I wanted to go home because it was just so damn cold. But morning came and Mike made a fire; we started some coffee and all was right in the world. :)
After breakfast, we went on a walk. Along the way we found this log with a pile of sawdust in front of it. With a closer look we discovered there were little worker ants going in and coming out with a tiny piece of wood, dropping it to the ground; apparently making tunnels and a home for themselves. It was really interested and cool to watch.

We went on a small hike in search for wood, and then Crystal and her kids went to look for Mike [he was fishing with his brother].We found a good size piece of log and brought it back to camp then headed to the boat launch to meet up with our friends.

Mike being found, we headed back down the main trail to show him what we thought would be good crawdad hunting spots. Apparently they weren’t, but the kids had fun playing in the water and the dirt.

Sassy got tossed in and she was soooo pissed about it. Being the little princess she is, she doesn’t like going in the water. She then proceeded to roll in the dirt and get totally filthy trying to dry off.

Back at camp Crystal and I had a small nap while the kids played games. Later we had dinner and another round of smores.

After the kids were in their extra layering of jammies, they took turns telling their own versions of scary stories. [[More hilarious, then scary.]] The favorite being Marrissa’s story of the “one armed bear”.

The kids headed to bed and it was finally some quiet time for the adults. My favorite part of camping is the after dark, around the fire conversations. That night wasn’t as cold as the night before and we also put on extra layers, so I slept a little better that night.
The next day Mike’s parents and brother came up for fishing. After breakfast we sat and chatted with Mike’s mom by the boat launch while the kids swam and played. She is an awesome lady. It was so nice to just sit and chill for a few hours.
Anthony (Crystal’s boy) caught his first fish on the boat with the boys. (he actually caught 3). Mimi and Deven also got a ride in the boat.

It was then time to start packing up camp. We weren’t rushed though, just kind of hung out while getting stuff together. We were sad it was time to go, but showers and a real bed were in the future and definitely needed. The kids played a “cops and robbers” tag, running around being crazy. Marrissa and Anthony ran off and [[got married]] lol. Sun kissed, dirty, exhausted and all packed, we said our goodbyes to our awesome friends and headed out. The drive down the mountain was insanely beautiful, but the battery in my camera died, so I just had my phone to take pictures. [Doesn’t even begin to show the amazingness!]
In the end it was an absolutely amazing weekend and I couldn’t have asked for better people to share it with. Now, on to the planning of our next adventure! :)


(for more pictures of our weekend go to my art page here or
my myspace page here)

Golden Forest (1st in the Twitter Series)

Ahh I've been soo busy, it took me awhile to get the first painting in the series done. I also haven't had the chance to make a video, so I just took a picture of it. Sorry @manda_was_taken (twitter person getting the painting) it took so long!
So here it is!!

"Golden Forest"


The next in the series is going to be a collage. I think its going to be pretty fun to make. [using mod podge, magazine clippings and paint]

(will blog this weekend about our Oaks Park trip last weekend and Mother's day.....I know, I'm so behind)

xoxoxo

New Art Series

Today I felt like painting, but didn't have an idea of what to paint; so I twittered for ideas from others. Mostly just for some inspiration and/or to make a collage of different ideas. Well one person sent me an idea for a full painting, so I decided to work on that today. While I was painting I came up with the idea for my new series of paintings.
It's called the Twitter series. Pretty much, anyone can twitter me with something to paint or even draw and I'll do it. And in every painting (or drawing) there will be the Twitter bird hidden somewhere in it. The art will all be for sale. I'll also post videos of each piece when it's done.
I'm really excited about this new series and can't wait to see how it goes and all the different ideas people come up with.
The first painting "Golden Forest" will be given to the person who gave me the idea, as a thank you for giving me the inspiration for the new series.

xoxoxo

Apologies and Hiking Pics

I'm sorry I've been so horrible at keeping this frequent. My husband and I are building a rpg (role playing game) and it's taken a lot of my time, besides taking care of the household and the kids and everything else. It's most likely releasing this weekend after we finish and fix and adjust a few things. Then I'll have a little more time on my hands when I'm not updating and helping people. Anyways, enough with all that nonsense. Here's a few pictures from my hike the other day (that almost killed me, lol).

Gates vs. GM

For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on.

At a recent computer expo, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, 'If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.'

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this part):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash ... twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five time 's as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single 'This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation' warning light.

I love the next one!!!

7. The airbag system would ask 'Are you sure?' before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You'd have to press the 'Start' button to turn the engine off.

Some of my favorites of my Art

News

Things have been all over the place around here. We got an apartment at the beginning of February. It's small but I totally love it. I've turned into a clean freak! Not sure how it happened, but yeah, no messes! Everything needs to be in its place. Jason and I are building our own game right now. We really think it will do good. So far the people testing on it like it. So we'll have to see. We still have a lot of work to get done. It's spring break right now. Not doin much so far, just trying to get work done; but we are taking the kids to the beach on Thursday. (maybe Friday cause it looks like there's gonna be rain on Thursday) I've been pretty happy here. Haven't been this happy in a long time, but things have been going good and working out; not too much stress, bills are paid, no people around all the time, so it's really nice. We've finally got to just be a family. ( a somewhat normal one). I'm going to try and start posting here at least once a week. Maybe start taking more pictures and what not. Life goes by too fast, I need to keep track of it. :P

xoxoxo

Flood '09 in Castle Rock, Wa

In the last week we've had a ton of rain. On Wednesday 1/7, we had over 6 inches just in that day. We live right next to a river that was over its flood stage and also near a field that is known for flooding with just a little bit of rain. So the rain on Wednesday over did it all. The field as well as the high school across from the field completely flooded and covered the highway between the both of them. My family and I were evacuated Thursday at 2:30 in the morning. We were told to go to the expo center in the town 10 miles south, but we ended up going to my sister's in that town. We came home the next day, having to go 36 miles out of the way to get back; and our house was safe. The River didn't flood enough to get over the hill behind us. But it did flood enough to cause a ton of damage in this area. Here are some pictures of the aftermath of floods and mudslides. (some of them blurry cause they were taken with my phone). Mother Nature can be brutal!