Happiness... Day 17

3 Things I am grateful for:

1. The kid in me. I love dressing up in costumes, painting my face and being silly. The fact that I am turning 40 this year is not stopping me from releasing the kid cooped up inside. That kid yearns to be set free from time to time and I take every opportunity I get to give her some space and freedom. I am thankful that she is still there lurking in the background not willing to give up on me. It makes life so much more fun and light. One of my favorite cartoons is Rose is Rose I feel I relate to her and she inspires me to accept me the way I am.She is sometimes grumpy and at other happy but one thing that draws me to her is that she is a kid at heart. 

2. A sense of humor. Without one, life would be so serious and dry. I am not talking about sarcasm because that is not always funny and it is so patronizing sometimes that it ticks me off especially if trust and love were not set as a base yet. I am talking about humor and having one helps me release the stresses of the day, brings people together, builds bonds, boosts my energy and improves my health. Humor is so infectious... when I see someone genuinely laughing out loud, I instantly smile and feel happy. It reminds me to take a breath and take in the calming sound of laughter especially if the owner was a child.

3. A shower. After yesterday's blue day (check Journal Entry below) I came to appreciate showers. I had to wash the blue flaky paint at a sink and THAT was so uncomfortable especially that I had to clean the whole bathroom afterwards. With a shower, I do not have to think about space... I am not as restricted and besides the water goes one way usually... into the drain.

Journal Entry

Yesterday was such a fun day. Yes, I painted myself blue ... as blue as a smurf is. It was House Spirit day at my school where different houses compete in races against each other, dance, chant and play music. To join in the spirit of it all, another teacher, some students and I painted ourselves blue. The chosen characters were smurfs as opposed to the Nari People from Avatar last year. 

It was so much fun painting myself being helped by my husband, who is in the same house. I filled my white hat with newspapers and plopped it on my head. At first I did not paint my ears and covered them with the hat until I got hot and remembered that smurfs actually showed there ears. I hesitantly painted my ears as I knew it would be difficult to get all the blue out but it actually looked better than before.

Despite the fact that the paint dried up, began to flake and itch, I enjoyed people's laughter, giggles and questions. My office mates had a kick out of it as they never thought I would be up to doing such a thing. At one point, while I was moving towards my husband's office to get more paint, there were a few visitors walking around checking out the school. They were so amused and informed me that they had seen another tall smurf running around the building somewhere. I asked many students which smurf they thought I represented, some said Happy and one said clumsy; he received a gentle slap on the arm. 

I went to see my son in Year 1 so he could see me blue and his classmates went wild asking me all sorts of questions. A few asked who I really was. I said that I was a smurf but that did not satisfy them and asked again who I was and when I answered that I was my son's mother, they still were not happy with that answer. Hahaha!

When I washed the crumbly dry paint off in the bathroom and came out dressed in my original skin color, some students were surprised to see me out of character. My school head looked at me and asked if I was at school in the morning. This was after he burst out laughing when he spotted the smurf me not thirty minutes before.