Your Smile On Fire

Another Project Self post.

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, to make a list of one hundred things that make me happy, and I encourage you all to do the same. (And if you do on your blog, please comment/link to it so I can read it!) I think a lot of times we get so preoccupied in life, so caught up in the negative or humdrum things, that we forget to notice the little things that make us really happy. And I don’t know about you, but it’s the seemingly insignificant things in life that put a smile on my face. An email from a friend, a glass of iced tea, watching The Office on DVD. That sort of stuff.

So here’s my list.

One Hundred Things That Make The Jordyn Happy:

1. Iced tea, also known as the miracle drink.
2. Buying CDs and listening to them.
3. Buying books and reading them.
4. Truly awesome music, and more often than not it’s country.
5. My little sister.
6. The way Michelle is always there for me even when we don’t see eye to eye.
7. Coffeehouses, even though I don’t drink coffee.
8. Get Smart.
9. The game that has no name but has been around in my household forever. The music one, where you have to say the artist before anyone else does.
10. Wonderful, cute, cozy t-shirts. They make me feel comfortable.
11. My stuffed doggy, Pongo.
12. Writing in my paper journals.
13. Bloggeryness.
14. Finding beautiful and memorable quotes.
15. Discovering a new song that makes my heart happy. (The latest is Heidi Newfeild’s Johnny and June.)
16. Psychology Today.
17. Getting positive feedback on my writing.
18. The act of writing, the feeling of fingers on a keyboard or a pen on a page.
19. High fives.
20. Bubba Shot the Jukebox.
21. Phone calls with Sarah.
22. Letters from Granma.
23. My friendship with Erika, which grew after bonding over boy troubles and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
24. Realizing I am not the only one.
25. Jim and Pam and the rest of The Office.
26. Getting with the four.
27. Recommending books or music to people and having them enjoy them. (I am a master of the book recommends.)
28. Talking to Ash, who is one of those people who is just so sweet and caring and awesome.
29. Being able to have an intelligent, interesting discussion with someone who is has a different opinion than I.
30. Making progress with whatever novel I’m currently working on.
31. Inside jokes.
32. People close to me being happy.
33. When it snows.
34. When it rains
35. The family - immediate and extended.
36. Getting mail.
37. Memories, which are, yes, bittersweet, but make me happy in spite of that fact.
38. Feeling like something I wrote is actually good, being proud of it.
39. Kids.
40. Boardwalks, carnivals, fairs.
41. Singing in my car when I’m alone. It’s the only time I can’t embarrass myself singing and even then it’s doubtful.
42. Having fun playing board games with groups of people.
43. Laughing over stupid stuff.
44. Praying.
45. Jones soda. (Yes, I went straight from “praying” to “Jones soda.”)
46. Food Network, especially Unwrapped, Ace of Cakes, and Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.
47. Finding favorites on flickr.
48. Honest apologies, even the kind that come late.
49. Beauty in the everyday.
50. Candid pictures that capture real moments.
51. My name.
52. Bookstores.
53. Bubbles.
54. Trying on hats and sunglasses.
55. Lip gloss, as long as it smells good. (I also love Bath & Body Works.)
56. Doodling hearts and song lyrics in the margins of my pages.
57. Notebooks.
58. Italian cream sodas.
59. Nerds, both the candy and the people.
60. Corny jokes.
61. Beloved characters like Curious George, Charlie Brown, Goofy, and Tinkerbell.
62. Beauty and the Beast, especially the scene with Belle walking through town with her nose in a book. That was honestly what inspired me to learn to read and walk at the same time.
63. Radiator Springs.
64. The time capsule, which for some reason I keep calling the TIME MACHINE.
65. Jammies.
66. Wacky socks.
67. Cute love stories. (I suggest: Scrambled Eggs at Midnight.)
68. Too many books to name.
69. Too many songs to name.
70. The moon and the stars.
71. Airplanes, airports, aviation, flying.
72. Funny commercials.
73. Carousels.
74. Colorfulness. Green, blue, yellow, red, brown, all of the above.
75. You’ve Got Mail.
76. Just in general, friends far and near.
77. Getting that zoom feeling, which I tried to explain to someone once but failed miserably.
78. Hugs.
79. Feeling like maybe I can handle growing up.
80. Knowing that Jehovah God is there and that he cares about me.
81. Riding in cars with people. (Just not always when I’m the one driving.)
82. Exploring other places.
83. Trying.
84. Brotherhood 2.0 and Nerdfighters.
85. My grandparents’ house.
86. Fireworks.
87. Spontaneous laughter.
88. Feeling like I’m bonding with someone else, cheesy as that sounds.
89. Confidence.
90. My shiny orange cellphone (and writing myself notes on it).
91. People who know how to spell and when people write phone numbers like so: (000) 555-1234
92. Disney-Pixar Monopoly.
93. Finding Red in bookstores.
94. Giving people nonsense nicknames.
95. When people I don’t know smile at me or say hello.
96. Song lyrics. (Yes, I know a lot of these things relate to music.)
97. Randominity.
98. Making up words.
99. The numbers 99, 7, 86, 101, and 18.
100. So much more.