Happy Places - Those Moments that Make Everything Better

The wonderful Ray tagged me a while ago to share my Happy Places. I am also stealing her idea of adding a cute word cloud.

Happy Places - those places that are all yours - those moments that evoke warm feelings, feelings of safety, contentment.

As crazy as it sounds, and as much as I hate it - my morning workout. Every morning when that alarm goes off, I move about the house with a sense of dread. I unwillingly put on my gym clothes and lug all my baggage into the car. But once I am in the middle of the workout, my mind is clear, my music is driving me, I am emotionally cleansed - ready to start the day.

Speaking of which - music. Music takes me away from the reality of life. It is my constant companion - in traffic, at the gym, at my desk, while cooking. No matter how tedious an activity may be, or how annoying the world is around me, once my music is on, I take life to that other place - that happy place - where noone else can get in, where it is a population of one.

Coffee time. I mean, like duh. While weekday coffee time is usually punctuated by emails from someone wanting something now now now, or by meetings, real coffee time - where I can sit and leisurely sit with my cup, and maybe a biscotti, cookie or cheese puff - is happy time. It does not matter whether it is in a coffee shop setting where I am surrounded by life - by love, creativity, gossip, solitude - or on the balcony with just my tablet or my Kindle. Coffee time - where the warmth and goodness of ground beans, mixed with hot water, hot milk and honey just makes everything better.

Today's coffee time - Coffee and Toffee Crunch Biscotti - coffee time. Bliss.

My iced green tea is my new happy place as well, particularly in recent days with the intense heat.

Coming home from work and taking off the trappings of a long day. There is nothing quite like getting home after 12 hours at the office, 2 hours in traffic and just taking off all the junk that comes with that, taking a shower and slipping into my favourite plain black maxi dress. Bliss. It is truly amazing how heavy a necklace feels at the end of a work day, how tight and unbearable shoes feel, compared to just wearing a slip dress and stepping through the house with bare feet. It's indescribable really, how that feels.

Cooking also revives my spirit. Something about creating something out of nothing does that. My kitchen is like church! I worship regularly.

Aunty time. Seeing the different moods and reactions of a 4 year old and a 1 year old - extraordinary. From the 4 year old whose little eyes become wide as saucers when you say certain words like trucks, ice cream or pizza, to the 1 year old who is mastering her walking and running skills every day and is discovering new experiences daily.

These are just a few of my happy places. As I said before, maybe my life is not as exciting as others', but it is mine and I am content.

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Be Fair. Please don't Share. - The Social Media Privacy Question

Photo credit: The Daily Mail

A very contentious issue came up this week. I already had a bit of a rant about how much we share at the risk of being socially anti-social. The question this week was what do we share, particularly as it relates to privacy, and drilling down even more, other people's privacy.

In this social media age where it seems to be open season for sharing, you have people sharing the most intimate details of life via Facebook updates, and photos on Facebook and Instagram. The problem is, it's sometimes not details about their life, but about yours.

New baby? Oh, let's post about your new baby - from when it was born, to the first photos.
Just got married? Let me share your photos, your vows, your buffet table.

I mean, is there a limit to how far we go with the sharing? I have no problem with those who wish to share their breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight snack with their 600-strong network. I do have a problem with those who feel sharing my special moments with that same 600-strong network is cool.

Now it's different folks for different strokes. There are those who have no problem with you taking photos of their wedding or children and sharing them everywhere, and that's fine. There are also those who feel like these are private moments that they wish to keep within the confines of cherished personal memories in a closed network of friends and family - whether they choose to keep that network offline, or online. There are some who will argue that you cannot stop persons from taking photos and sharing them on Facebook. My counter argument is, if I invite you to share in a special moment that I would like to keep private and bound to those closest to me, and I ask you politely to not share those moments with your online network, and you do, then I would have to strongly re-evaluate my relationship with you.

A super cute way of being very firm with
your guests about what they do at your wedding

A couple invites you to a wedding because in the most ideal of situations, they consider you a friend and someone special enough to share in their special day. They invited YOU - not you and your 600-strong Facebook network. Children I feel are particularly off limits because people guard them so closely. I have not even shared my niece's photos with friends since my brother has not done so with his friends. I am not "bes'" aunty and I respect the parents' decision to keep their little girl from the interwebs. I have shared her cuteness with friends one-on-one via email or instant messaging but that's aunty pride, and not a desire to overshare.

People need to respect other people's privacy especially if it is explicity requested. If your own life is so sad that you have to share everything from other people's lives to get "likes" and "comments", well...

What's worse and as I indicated in that other post, you lose the special moments when you are glued to the screen of the phone, trying to get the best angles etc. Just live life. Just enjoy the moments for what they are worth.

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