Happiness is the last few steps of a race

70 degree weather on Thanksgiving Day! Yippee!! (That's my FAVORITE kind of weather and I'm so excited to be getting it in November!)

This morning I ran the Louisville Turkey Trot..  Love that race..  It's free. It's for a good cause (they collect canned goods and winter coats). It's not at all competitive.. It would be hard to run fast even if I wanted to because of all the dogs and strollers (providing me with the sought after excuse to stop and walk whenever I wanted.) Even better, there are no race times recorded on the Internet, so I had no worries about a disappointing finish time recorded for eternity.

The annual Turkey Trot is just a great reason to get out, enjoy the scenery, beautiful weather, get some exercise and be grateful for life before indulging in the more gluttonous traditions that we all know and love. (I'll be saving all that for tomorrow since my kids are with their Dad today, but that's fine..  No bitterness about that at all.  Actually, seriously, since I'm 14 years post divorce and I do see my kids and grandkids all the time, I really have gotten past the holiday pity parties..  But I admit, 'sharing family time' around holidays has always been a sore spot for me and I still feel slightly miffed that I'm alone today.)

Last year, my blogs were focused on Happiness. I was inspired by Neil Pasricha's blog, 1000awesomethings in which he wrote daily about many of the simple things in life that bring us joy.

This year I hardly blogged at all... not because I wasn't happy...  like most people, I had my happy days and my not-so-happy days. But I already do quite a bit of writing for work-related projects and spend a LOT of time on the computer, so personal blogging was put on the back burner.

Another reason I haven't been doing my "Happy Blog Posts" (or my many other 'Happiness Projects' like 'Happy Picture a Day') is because I've heard quite a few negative-like comments... not specifically about my posts, but just stuff like..  "Everyone is so 'fake' on Facebook trying to portray their 'happiness'" and that just makes other people feel bad...   There's also the "Only people who are unhappy are talking about happiness" sentiment or  (and I agree with this one) it's better to be LIVING life fully than to be writing about living life fully.  What's really the point of blogging about it? Those negative comments imply those of us who do blog about happiness are just trying to impress others with how happy we are.. 

Well, despite all of that, I'm planning on getting back to my once-a-week personal blog post routine. These will probably be related to happiness, gratitude, and other positive themes.  But for all the Debbie Downers out there that poo-poo on Happiness blogging, I'll tell you that my intent is not to imply I'm always happy and certainly not to gloat about my life.

The biggest reason that I want to get back to my weekly Happiness blog post is that happiness is best shared..  And, yeah, as great as this morning's run was, I didn't have anyone to share it with. If I have a weekly blog goal, it will help remind me to have those fun experiences... preferably with other people, but even if I'm alone, I'll be able to share with the virtual world.

I'll officially plan to start my weekly blogging again in January, but thought I'd kick start today with my Turkey Trot Happiness clip. 

Happy Thanksgiving!