life – Yards of Happiness

Choosing Joy

I’ve had one of those weeks where a perfect storm of things left me feeling like I had a rain cloud over my head all week. Part of it was that my husband was out of the country for work and that always seems to throw me off a bit. And the other part was just life stuff: work craziness, being tired and feeling a little overwhelmed. I hate feeling overwhelmed. I like to be in control.
Commute
This morning I was going to drive to work and I decided I was too tired and over it. I just wanted to sit and knit. So I took the Metro to work. I got to sit and work on a new project for 30 uninterrupted minutes and I started to feel that acidity I’d been holding on to all week melt away (added bonus, my husband got back last night so I slept like a log for the first time in a week). A young man even told me I had a great butt – not in those exact terms LOL (I was wearing new jeans) but it was still a compliment. Of course on my walk to my office from the train station a bird pooped on my head but you know what? It could’ve been worse AND it is considered good luck. Perhaps my tide is turning.

I realized in that moment when I shrugged off being pooped on I was deciding to choose joy today. It isn’t always the easiest thing to do but sometimes you just have to or the acidity will swallow you whole. So happy Friday to you. I hope you have a joy filled weekend.

Another Year

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh

DanaandKendell-55 — Photo by **Amira Maxwell Photography**

Today is my 39th birthday. It seems so weird to say that I’m 39 but hey, I’m happy to see another birthday. Instead of being sad about getting another year older I’m happy to get to another year of more of what brings me happiness and joy. I have a loving husband, two dogs that make every day a happy day, two sisters and a mother I love to spend time with and a ton of great friends (in person and online).

So here’s to another year of getting older, wiser, happier and spreading that happiness around.

August 30, 2017August 30, 2017 by IamDWJ Categories: Knitting, Things That Bring Me JoyTags: #yardsofhappiness, birthdays, joy, life 32 Comments

We Barked at the Park

I asked you guys for your prayers last week and I think they worked! To start of the week for my husband’s birthday I got us tickets to the Washington Nationals game for Bark at the Park, where you can bring your dogs with you to the game. And the girls were really good!
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We’ve wanted to try this for a while but where nervous because Cher isn’t always the friendliest (see her staring at the dog in this pic LOL) but once we got her acclimated and she knew she was with us and was okay she was great. Jellybean we’ve learned that as long as you’re willing to hold her she’ll be quiet as a mouse. And if you’re wondering how this was set-up, at the Nats stadium (despite not being a baseball fan I can appreciate how nice this stadium is) they have a dog only section that was covered with shade and had family picnic tables in the back. In the same area they brought in grass so the dogs could have potty breaks. Since you couldn’t take them with you to the concession stands if you needed help they had sitters who would keep your dog while you grabbed food. And when you bought tickets each dog got their own seat so we had 4 seats between us so we had a bit of a buffer between the other dogs in our row.
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We kept cracking up because Cher kept sitting in Kendell’s lap looking out at the game like she was really watching it. She seemed really into baseball. Jellybean…she was into taking a nap on my lap.

It was a gorgeous day and I even caught a bit of a rainbow in the sky. We were seated under cover and there was a great breeze flowing through. Cher would just sway in Kendell’s lap and soak up the cool breeze, it was so great. In the beginning the dogs seemed a little warm so I decided a good treat to cool them down would be some vanilla custard from Shake Shack.
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As you can see it was a hit. LOL I’ve never seen Jellybean eat so fast and furiously in the 10 months we’ve had her. She bypassed the spoon and just dove in head first and Cher copied.

You can also tell Kendell had a great time as he started to goof off with Cher and had her wearing his baseball cap. He was so happy that she did so well we’re thinking about going again in September! And since I find baseball pretty boring it was nice to have them along to distract and entertain me. Otherwise I just knit at games.
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Unfortunately the Nationals were getting beaten pretty badly so by the time we made it to the 7th inning stretch Kendell was ready to go but I think the girls would’ve done fine making it to the end. I think a lot of the baseball teams do a Bark in the Park or Pups in the Park so just google it or check out the special events section of your team’s page to find tickets to go too. It was a lot of fun and we met some really awesome dog people too.