Things to Be Happy About

• Clean sheets
• Big dogs
• Rocking chairs
• Standing in the ocean
• Warm towels
• Staying in bed on a cold morning
• Waking up in a bed with a woman
• Working in the kitchen
• A mild sunburn
• Banana pudding
• Green-ghost-poop-salad at a pot-luck dinner
• Hard boiled eggs
• Finding money in a jacket you haven't worn since last winter
• When the leaves turn in the fall
• When the leaves start to put on in the spring
• Those little brown/green lizards that live on my porch(Anolis carolinensis)
• Rolling over into the warm spot someone else leaves in your bed
• The beautiful colors of chemistry experiments
• Constellations, and a night dark enough to see them
• Exciting concepts in science
• The clean feeling, right after you turn off the shower
• The smell of a woman's hair
• When the smell of something tasty lingers in my appartment, long after I've cooked it
• Feeding other people
• The New Moon
• Hot soup
• Recognizing a city from thirty-thousand feet above it
• Staying up all night, talking to someone you love
• Empty cinemas
• Waking up when someone has already made coffee
• Wool socks
• The first day in the fall when there is a bit of a chill in the air at dusk
• Irises
• When the Japanese Magnolia trees bloom
• Beer battered, deep fried _______, on a stick
• A perfectly cooked egg
• Fresh coffee
• The sound rain makes on the roof. . . when you're in bed.
• A spotlessly clean countertop
• Fresh baked bread
• The view of fresh fallen snow, first thing in the morning
• Opening a brand new jar of peanut-butter
• The cool side of the pillow
• Porch swings
• Puppy-dogs
• Big maps
• Playing all seven letters at once
• Listening to A Prairie Home Companion as a group activity
• Capturing a small delicate creature somewhere that it doesn't belong and putting it safely back where it does.
• Making a game of shuffling across the carpet, in your socks, and shocking each other
• Bending a stream of water with static charge
• A brand new volume of your favorite magazine
• Pickled okra
• The really satisfied, exhausted feeling that follows a day at the beach
• Knowing you said exactly the right thing, at exactly the right time
• The embrace of a woman
• Stretching
• The subtle soreness after a good workout
• Ginger Ale
• Children's books
• Knowing you finally found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with
• Crying in church
• Drinking beer and talking about Jesus
• Being in the grocery store with a lady
• Chopsticks
• Granny Smith apples
• Making breakfast for someone you love
• Measuring a melting point in the lab
• Crepe Myrtle trees
• Laughing babies
• Snuggling a sleepy baby/toddler/child
• A wife who reminds you she’s staying with you even though things seem kinda rough
• A hot bed of coals in a kettle grill
• A hot bed of coals in a fireplace
• Using the right tool for the job
• Nice low bass parts
• Providing a meal for friends
• Playing host to people you love
• Finding something which was lost
• Catching up with old friends
• Splitting firewood
• Spicy soup

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Duncan K. Breland