It starts inside first

Don't wish me happiness

I don't expect to be happy all the time...

It's gotten beyond that somehow.

Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor.

I will need them all.” 

― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

I have been re-reading this precious book by Anne Morrow Lindbergh "Gift from the Sea" - I have it on my Kindle. It is beautifully written and worth revisiting. The author is a mother of five, a writer who lives a very normal busy modern life but who escapes for two weeks on her own to an island and a beach cottage. The meditations on life she writes are wonderful.

One of the things I loved when I re-read it was the way the 'emptiness' of the beach enabled her to see each person, each shell, with new eyes. How little our lives give room enough for us to separate one activity from the next, one personal encounter from another! That is why it is so precious to make a moment to stop, drink a lovely herbal tea in a pretty cup in a warm room on a cold winter morning, and just give myself the space to think.

Another resource I have beside me today is this free resource over at Zen Habits. The Little Book of Contentment is worth the read! We printed it out so we could refer to it again and again..

"All the raw materials we need for happiness is inside of us. The good things we can appreciate to be happy -they are always with us, always there. Noticing and appreciating the goodness in anything causes us to be happy about living. And the more we notice and appreciate about our lives, (and ourselves) the happier we are." 

Roses from an old bush which was here when we bought the house. We moved it from its original location but it survived and still provides us with lovely blooms which last and last. 

Lovely Japanese fabrics inspiring me to start yet another quilt. The book is  "Material Obsession" and I am thinking those large applique flowers would show off the lovely fabrics. My friend gave me some of these and she does applique so it would link the gift and the giver nicely too!

One of the music related blocks I am currently working on. Will be a 'quilt as you go" method. 

 Whilst I am quilting today I will be listening to podcasts of radio programs.

This is one which is most appropriate:
Leunig's view on happiness: seek and you shan't find. Leunig is one of the most profound thinkers of our time, a cartoonist whose pyjama clad explorers and ducks never fail to have something to say to us.

My cat Dora silhouetted against the morning light. She sits quietly here each morning, watching what goes on outside, before finding the warmest spot in the house to go to sleep! 

I am looking forward to filling today with some lovely happy things. How about you?