What I Love… A compilation of things from Oahu to Portland to Salt Lake City

It’s been busy couple of months and I have not had time to sit down and write about the things I love, but here are a few that will guarantee a smile and even a laugh – in random order:

1. Go to a warehouse filled with trampolines and jump your little heart out. I not only worked on my front flip into a giant pile of soft blocks, but I managed to dance to Santagold while jumping in the air. This is very challenging but very rewarding. Dodgeball on trampolines is fun and I couldn’t stop laughing when I fell. Racing on trampolines can be fun too; just as my friend fell, I looked back to see what was happening and then I fell. We’re special and I couldn’t stop laughing. Thanks B for taking us, it was a blast.

2. Go to Hawaii. I feel like I should write an entire blog about this one, but I will save that for later.

3. Surf. It’s fun and I stood up on my first day. My instructor was adorable and we had a lot of fun. My arms were exhausted afterwards. It was fun to be out there in the waves with all the other surfers. They all knew each other and loved the sport. All the different instructors were giving their students and other students tips. They were all just having fun. Even a surfing legend, Buttons, gave me pointers.

4. Sea kayak on a windy day. I went with a guide though and was glad that I did because the waves were 3 to 4 feet at times. Afterwards, it felt like I ran a marathon and I was pretty proud of myself.

5. Go on a trip with your mom alone. As much as I wished that my sisters could have come with my mom and me on our trip to Hawaii, I was glad that I got to go on a trip alone with her. We had a blast and I feel that I got to know things about her that I never knew before.

6. Salsa dance.

7. Brunch at Equinox . This is a cute little restaurant near Mississippi St. in Portland. The food was amazing and the company was even better.

8. Go to a dueling piano bar. I have always wanted to go and my friends indulged me this past Saturday and we went to Keys on Main in Salt Lake City, UT. It was silly, but fun.

9. Go to Blue Plate Diner in SLC. It reminded me of one of my favorite brunch spots in Portland, Stepping Stone, and made me a little homesick.

10. Stop by Epic brewery in SLC. They won’t let you taste the beer there, state regulation forbids it (oh Utah!), but you don’t need to. I have yet to try one that I didn’t like.

11. Go to High West Distillery in Park City, UT. It’s the only Whiskey distillery in Utah. The food was great and the whiskey even better. It has a country, barn atmosphere and I fell in love with their frosted, blue glass water bottles that I just had to buy. Their gift store made a killing off of us. I still want to go back for one of their vintage, metal signs.

12. Find a thinking spot and go and plot and plan your life. I mentioned mine earlier, but every time I go, I love it even more. I feel like I don’t have to worry about anything except just being there and breathing. I’ve come up with some brilliant schemes including going back to school and more creative ideas for my writing and my jewelry.

What I Love… The Happy Movie

I saw an incredible documentary this week which made me think a lot about my life, my relationships and my attitude.  This movie was called Happy. At the beginning it tells us that 50% of our happiness is determined by our genetics and that only 10% comes from things like our job and material goods. But what about the other 40%? Well those are things which we choose to do to make ourselves happy. That is a lot of happiness we create! What sorts of things did they recommend: exercise, socializing, trying new things, helping others and collaboration. Apparently, we are hard wired to enjoy collaboration as it was essential to ensure survival thousands of years ago.

After hearing these things, I realized when I am the most unhappy I am doing the same things over and over again, not getting out and socializing with people, and not exercising. These are such easy, small fixes. It’s easy to pick up the phone and call a friend to grab coffee. It’s easy to get up an extra half hour early to go for a run (in my case, not so easy sometimes, but I’m really starting to love mornings and will be incorporating that into my life). Most of these things are even free or can be inexpensive.

I was not too surprised that change could actually increases happiness. I think many of us are change averse, including me, even though, change can bring new challenges, new opportunities for growth, and new found passions and even friends. Change is not bad, it is good for us. I do know that I love trying new things because I can’t help but smile when I do and usually can laugh at myself if I’m not that great. The hard part for me is getting motivated to get out and try new things. Why is that I wonder? I think sometimes I’m afraid of failure or not being good at something, but I’m going to commit to myself to not allow that to hold me back when I want to do something. Nobody is awesome when they try something new for the first time. It’s all a learning process. I know that when I try new things, I am happier and I end up enjoying it.

This movie even gave me ideas on how I want to build stronger, healthier, happier relationships with my family and someday, in the future, whoever I end up with. I think instead of just spending time with them, which is always nice, I’m going to ensure that there is a little change involved to our routines, a little more collaborative projects, a little more fun and play. I’m already thinking about starting a blog with my sisters, something they have agreed to but we haven’t done just yet. I think there is a lot to say about having individual success, but I find it very rewarding when that success includes more people.

With winter just around the corner, I have this fear that when I start hibernating, as I always do once the winter brings the cold, cloudy rainy days, that I’m going to become unhappy and moody again. One of the most important lessons I learned this year, is that I can’t rely on others to make me happy. I bring my own happiness and that is why I have had the summer of my life. Not only did I surround myself with people that I love and things that I love, but I made sure to do the little things like laying in the sun, writing, or meditating. I might have done some of those alone, but they made me much happier and pleasant to be around.

One of my favorite quotes is “Funny thing about joy, is that you only really find it when you are too busy having fun to go looking for it.” I don’t know who said it, but it was on a birthday card my mother gave to me and I proudly display that card as a reminder that I create my happiness.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone – even if you are already happy. For more information about this movie, check out their website at: http://www.thehappymovie.com/film/

What I Love… My Retro Camera App

A few days ago I took a road trip to the Redwoods and it was amazing. While I will write another blog about it later, I do want to share what I loved down there was my camera phone. I’m not the best photographer by any means and I only had my phone to take pictures. I couldn’t capture the beauty of the Redwoods and the Oregon coast on our drive back, but I had fun letting my Retro Cam app on my phone try. I went a little wild, but I had so much fun playing with it. Here are some of my favorite images…

What I Love… Rapper Kaka Sungra – aka Rabbit

Something I have always wanted to do, but haven’t managed to accomplish yet, is to travel the world. Lately, I keep wondering what is holding me back, besides funding, which I don’t have at the moment. I realize that funding is just a detail and if I put my mind to it, I can make it happen, hopefully sooner than later, I already have a few ideas. While I try to figure that part out, I  have been thinking about all the places I would like to go: Egypt, New Zealand, South Africa, Ethiopia, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Italy, France, England, Ireland, and I realize the list just keeps growing. Obviously, I won’t be making an around the world trip anytime soon, but that doesn’t stop me from dreaming. Walking through the Los Angeles airport last week, I stopped at one of the small gift shops/convenient stores while my co-worker purchased a bottle of water. Immediately a magazine caught my eye, AFAR. I had never heard of this travel magazine before, but was intrigued by the magazine title “Travel Deeper – 9 Unusual Destinations”. I grabbed the magazine and took it to the cash register to make my purchase.

I will say that the flight home was one of the shortest two hour flights I had ever experienced. I ended up transfixed on the different articles from the colorful and vibrant Moroccan markets, to the allure of the upcoming Fort Greene neighborhood in Brooklyn, to the New England seaport Portland, Maine, a place that I’ve never been, but already have a strange connection with. Although slight and a little silly it may be, there was an image from the coastline that was the same as on a puzzle I received, a random Christmas gift from an old property manager, that I tried to complete not too long ago, but didn’t because puzzles trouble my impatient soul. I took it as a sign that I must visit there someday. I was so lost in the magazine, I was shocked when the captain came over the intercom to announce that we were descending into Portland.

The article that intrigued me the most was written by one of the SNL contributors, a member of the Lonely Island comedy trio – Jorma Taccone. Try getting the song “I’m on a boat” out of your head after listening to it, it’s nearly impossible. I still have it stuck in my head. You can thank Jorma for that! The article was about him traveling across the world to Nairobi to write an article and to make a music video. His article made me want to visit Kenya and even made me laugh- something I’ve been trying to do more of. After  spending a few short hours in Nairobi and asking around for a local artist, he met Kaka Sungra, aka Rabbit, a well known rapper.

Here is the video that Jorma and Rabbit made together: http://www.afar.com/posts/p-for-every-issue-of-afar-we-spin-the-globe-and-send-a-writer-to-a-random-destination?spt=SL&kme=Visits+Short+Link

What I loved most about this article and this rapper, is that the world may be large, but we have this amazing gift, the internet, that makes it possible for us to connect with others on the opposite side of the world and even to listen to a song written by a rapper from Nairobi! To see how others live in such different places under such dire circumstances and realize that they still have the same worries and concerns including gossiping – check out Rabbit’s rap about it on youtube. That they have such different circumstances, astounds me and I am in awe of this world we live in. I am determined to travel more to see these places.

I will also say that I now have a small crush on one of the Lonely Island members, just don’t tell him.