Happiness is...

A special thanks to my good friend Brittney of Back to the Quarry for awarding me this honor. Her and her husband's blog kept me grounded in some of the more thought-provoking and humorous areas of American life during my recent travels. And, they're expecting their first child, a boy, who will be blessed beyond measure to have such wonderful parents.

As a requirement of receiving this honor, I'm now supposed to list 10 things that make me happy.

Ten: Painting. I'm not super amazing or anything, but I really do enjoy it.
Nine: Finishing the required reading for a class. This is actually an I-know-it-will-make-me-happy-when-it-happens item, but I'm going to post it anyway.
Eight: Watching my two-year-old niece solve my Rubik's Cube better than me. No, it's not solved yet, but she helped get some pieces in the right spots, and she wasn't even looking.
Seven: Cereal. And Milk.
Six: Two words. "Hold me."
Five: Hobby Lobby
Four: Listening to a hundred people belt out "I'll Fly Away" while someone in the back is brave enough to start slapping his knee.
Three: My cat trying to sit on the keyboard while I type.
Two: Not dropping the conversation with my mom mid-sentence because the internet connection went out. And being able to see AND touch my family.
One: Grace.

I could keep going, but for the purposes of this exercise, I'll just pass it on. To those who make me happy (you can post on facebook, too...)

Kelly of "Cupcakes"
Heath of "Rice"
Parker of "Paved"
Laura of "Mom"
Jennifer of "almost Hart"
Em of "Joy"
Amanda of "Beloved"
Joel and Jay of "Three Amigos"
Germaine of "M to the 6"
Olivia of "Journey" (don't stop--believing...)
Aunt Lynda of "and Leonard"

I know most of you don't really read this anymore, and if someone already asked you to post this, you don't have to repeat it.

I want to write something clever here, but I just can't think of anything.