happyish

After an especially stressful morning involving one of my dogs attacking the other dog (again), and the ensuing horrible decision-making process which I'm sure I'll get into here once I stop hating myself, I am focusing on trying to be peaceful.  Calm.  Zen.  In that spirit, this is a list of easily accessible things that make me happy, or at least prevent a seriously bad day from becoming stratospherically awful.

• A long hot shower with nice-smelling soap.  The more expensive the soap, the better.
  
• Broadway show stoppers, belted out shamelessly.  By me and only me.  I truly hate when other people sing show tunes, or pretty much anything else for that matter.  This would be hypocritical but for the fact that I only sing at home, alone, with the shades drawn.
• Essential oils in the laundry.  We use some very virtuous, additive-free, earthy-friendly laundry detergent, and sometimes it leaves our clothes smelling a bit disappointing.  Some lavender essential oil in the fabric softener dispenser solves that problem and also makes my whole garage smell nice, almost like a place that doesn't harbor colonies of vermin.
• Tea.
• Take out.
• New fabric or yarn.  It's amazing how much distraction you can buy for under $20.
  
• Long walks.  Preferably by my own damn self, thank you very much, but my husband and kid are okay too.
  
• Organizing my closet.
• Making something.  Dinner, a sweater, some coasters.  I think it's a very primitive response to the mystery of creating something out of nothing, but making stuff usually takes the edge of a bad mood for me.  Of course the correlative is that when a project doesn't work out, I feel rotten.

That's enough to work with.  Now I'm going to make some tea and sing flamboyantly.