I Couldn't Help Myself...I HAD to Be Happy!

~Between storms there were spots of sunshine. I took my camera outside and snapped shots of things around our home that made me happy, I couldn't help myself, they made me be happy!How could the pretty and dainty bleeding hearts ( above ) all in a row not make you smile? "Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys.If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it." Fyodor Dostoevsky ~I was surprised one late afternoon a week or so ago to see a Wood Duck fly into the hollowed top of this Cedar snag that has been here near the edge of our pond since we moved in, and before we built our home, 20 years ago. I have since observed the Wood Duck fly swiftly to this snag and disappear into it several times. I am hoping to see the ducklings emerge and throw themselves out of this snag to begin their journey of life out of the hole in the snag. This too makes me so happy."If you want to be happy, be." Leo Tolstoy ~I call this one of the 'secret places' here at Cedar Pond. It is in the wet and marshy places between our home and that of Hubby's sister and her husband. It is so dark and wet and filled with intertwined roots and small trees we rarely venture in, but it is beautiful in its' own way and I have observed wild ducks and my ducks happily paddling in the muck and quite a few Ruffed Grouse, along with many native small birds. Tonight my Hubby and I observed a Spotted Owl perched above this area. This makes us both very happy!"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Abraham Lincoln ~One of our many rhododendrons in bloom."We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have." Frederick Keonig ~ Little blue-eyed, broken, Candy Cat who does not seem to realize she is not all the average cat is, the sight of her soaking up sunshine by the rhododendron makes me happy."Now and then it is good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy."Guilaume Apollinaire ~White Bleeding Hearts, growing by our front porch!"If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator.He will not be striving for it as a goal in itself. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours of the day." W. Beran Wolfe

"Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens." Douglas Jerrold ~So don't worry, be happy!~