What is happiness?

I've been asked tonight if I am happy.......told that I don't sound very happy.....it's a bit of a blow, to be honest. I don't know what the right answer to the question is, and I don't even know if there is a right answer. So I decided to think about what makes me happy, and here are some random thoughts about it, in no particular order:

• Sunshine
• My family
• Being tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle!
• Listening to Classic FM
• Reading
• Being up to date with things and organised
• A tidy house
• Having time to listen to people and to God
• A long hot bath
• My chooks having a dust bath...........

I could go on, and on. The world is conspiring against me right now to stop a lot of those things happening, and I need to work out how to make them happen again. Let's look at them slowly:

• The sunshine - well, it has rained a lot lately...can't do much about that - can't afford to move to California!
• My family - yep, that one is doing OK, they are all here, well and healthy (or as healthy as they are likely to get in the FH's case - foot is still swollen, cough is improving)
• Bed with the hot bottle - I get that one some nights if I remember. The trouble with that one is that I am so tired when I get to go to bed that I have no time to lay there and enjoy the feeling before I fall asleep!!
  
• Classic FM - must sort the radio out in my car so it works again. In the house, I get to listen to the radio more during the day when the girls are at school, so I should get a decent fix tomorrow.
• Reading - mmmmm, time constraints. Reading is done in snatches, sometimes only in the smallest room!!!
• Up to date and organised - last week was manic so I am hoping to get somewhere with this one this week.
• A tidy house........a little boy commented to me yesterday that I should go and look at his room because he had tidied up and so it might give me some ideas. Apparently I am now notorious for my untidiness, so bad that I need to take lessons from an 8 year old. ;-) I don't think it is that bad, really, but I will try harder this week!
• Time to listen to people and to God - must try harder. The FH said he would take a photo of me the other day as it has been so busy this week that he had forgotten what I looked like.
  
• Long hot baths - I have had a couple this week - bliss!
• The chooks haven't a hope of a dust bath for months as they have just got mud, mud and more mud BUT I gave them lovely shavings and cut straw in their houses and they bathed in that instead and absolutely LOVED it. They are due for clean bedding again tomorrow so I will be able to watch them again.

There are things which are pre-occupying me at the moment - the amount of stuff I have to get my head around for the Chair of Governors role is mind-blowing, there seem to be medical appointments each week for someone (not me, thank goodness) to taxi people around to, gym needs some organising as we are currently putting together the arrangements for the Christmas party and thinking about how to get everyone who needs to go to Ipswich on the 27th, and I was in Bedford today for a 5 hour course on the role and responsibilities of the Welfare Officer in the club, and then there are a couple of girls here who just don't seem to want to go to bed!!!!

I am happy with my lot, with my plans, with my situation in life right now. I am not a bundle of laughs right now, I admit, but I never have been. I feel positive about life, positive about the future, and not unduly worried about anything - so it's all good, as the EFG would say!