grateful and happy

Happiness is really my true goal in life and I have a great new tool to help me -gratefulness.

I have written about happiness before and thought so much about pursuing happiness or finding happiness that it sometimes seemed like something outside myself that I strived to acheive like winning an award.

I have recently read some different thoughts on happiness that I found useful. The zen philosophy is that we must experience both happiness and misery in order to fully appreciate happiness . I have also read that happiness is always within us and that all we need to do is self accualization to find peace and contentment. I believe both of these ideas have merit .For a while in the evening I spent time thinking of three things that happened during the day that made me happy. Recently I started thinking of things I was grateful for.This idea works in the morning and or anytime during the day to give me a mental pick-me-up or happiness boost.
Periodically I think about so many things I have in life to be grateful for. This attitude always lifts my spirit brings happiness and amazes me at what a blessed life I live. I am so grateful for my wonderful family my good health and beautiful home. These thoughts give me internal power and strength to pursue my dreams. I was also born with many great gifts to be grateful for. The love of learning, love of music, art,literature, history and so many other interests. Being grateful has become a useful paneca for the stresses that come with everyday existence. Now I make a deeper more comitted effort to improving my attitudes and daily habbits . The result is a quantitatively better fuller happier life.

Hope some of these thoughts will inspire to happiness.

Salad season

I'm pretty excited about all the new salads I have been creating. Yes almost every night I am in the kitchen whipping up a salad with a new twist. Tonights salad was another big hit.
Recipe: Summer salad (fat free dressing)
big bunch of baby spring mix
several splashes of white wine vinegar
several spashes of pomegranate juice
a hand full of each
1- sliced red onion
2-sliced strawberries
3-sliced canalope
4-walnut pieces
season salt to taste
I have also started making my own granola since it only takes minutes to make and I can control the ingredients and save money at the same time.
Recipe: Sugar free Tasty Granola
4 cups oatmeal
1/4 cup grape seed oil
1/3 cup natural apple sauce
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
optional-raisins, any dried fruit, nuts, seeds, or coconut
mix together in big bowl then spread out onto baking sheet with a liner
bake at 3:50 for 15 minutes
let cool and eat YUMMY
Hope you try some of these ideas and enjoy them.

heart health

This February I went to the doctor to get back on my thyroid medication. He also checked my blood pressure and cholesterol. I knew I was over weight so I was not surprised when the test results showed my cholesterol was high . Now I am working to get my LDL down and my HDL up. I think it is a little more complicated to bring my good cholesterol up. My plan is to eat fats from vegetarian sources. Some good fat sources I have found are avocados, seeds, nuts, and flax. I love natural peanut butter and guacamole so eating this way is not a hardship. I have also cut way back on cheese and meat.I started taking fish oil ,red rice yeast and coq10 vitamin supplements and lost 10 pounds. I really want to be healthy and know that weight lose and exercise are the most important keys to good health.This is my new health plan for now. These practices may need some future tweaking but i am feeling happier and healthier already.