Mazilique inspired me to make my top 10 rules for this season:
1. Sleep in as long as I can, especially during weekend days
2. Reading good books, with thick socks on, a nice warm blanket and my favorite tea (at the moment green tea with jasmine)
3. Restart knitting, so many gifts to finish till Xmas
4. Making plans for my Scotland trip in October and maybe if I am lucky a Canary Island visit in November
5. Preparing the Xmas shopping list
6. Baking - from apple pie to various trifles
7. Going to the sauna and get warm oil massages
8. Wearing comfy dresses and thick stockings
9. Jeans, boots and leather jacket - perfect autumn combo!
10. Planning my birthday :)
After 5 sleepless nights I thought that one massage would do the trick to get me in a stage which will enable me to rest. Luckily my colleague knows a great place in Shanghai and there was Zhang Li, a small Chinese lady with hands like steel. She started to ask many questions - where are we from, how come we ended up there, if I have children ... All in Chinese of course and my colleague did not get much relaxation, I am sure. I also asked her if she has children and she was so happy, she told me she had a daughter, 17 years old and a son, 15 years old. I was so surprised, she looked so young, but in the end she turned to be 34 years old! She was born in Anhui and came to Shanghai for a better life. She works in a 12 hours shift, day after day. She actually is busy for 7 to 8 hours, and her works is really intensive. I was impressed, she did a wonderful job and I hope that I will be tired enough tonight ...
And when I got out look who was waiting? She woke up just after I shot this picture, quite friendly!
The ultimate goal on the road towards happiness, to reach a zen level. This year the A - Z Challenge had as theme a happiness project, during which I tried to collect at least one item which makes me happy. It had proven to be quite a challenge, literally, since I had quite a tough personal period - deaths in the family, in my friends circle as well as quite a turmoil in my attempt to identify what I want to do in the near future. On the other hand, the fact that I stayed focused and tried to write on a daily basis (even if I had moments during which I could not really concentrate) proved that I do find lovely things around me which make me smile. I wish you all a happy day, I might return to my blogging silence for a while, still trying to figure out where to go next ... And hey, I made it :)
My experience with yoga is not necessarly the best, somehow I never managed to relax and to get into the exercise. Some told me that it is up to the teacher to emerse you into the meditation, but I guess I never found the right one. Still I believe that via yoga you can reach a level of happiness which other activities do not allow. Do you remember the movie Eat, Love, Pray? I still envy themain character for her achivement.
It was really hard to find a word starting with X which defines something which brings happiness, nevertheless I stumbled upon Xanthas which is a very unusual name which stands for:
It gives you the desire to understand and help others with their problems but, at the same time, you can become too involved and worrying as the result.
This name creates a pleasant, easy-going, and responsible nature.
You are good natured and affectionate and enjoy home and family life.
You tend to avoid issues, however, and put off until tomorrow decisions that should be made today.
Sounds like someone who may find happy moments every day! I cannot believe the challenge is almost over, wow!
I have found the following picture on one my friend's Facebook page (thank you D.) and I thought it sums up a lovely happy day plus one item, namely writing. Despite the fact that my inspiration is not what is used to be, I still enjoy writing quite a lot, letting words flow on a piece of paper or on the computer.
Some of us are gifted with musical talent, some can paint, others can dance like there is no tomorrow. Me on the other hand have not so many creative sides, but still I can draw (I love to use black pencils) and I can knit. OK, now you are allowed to smile, but just a bit! Still knitting makes me happy, imagine me sitting in a comfy armchair, sipping a lovely jasmin tea, enjoying the silent winter afternoon, perfect! But all in all I am more analytical and social, these are my strong traits, as described below. What about you?
"A story is not like a road to follow … it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you."
by Alice Munro
