Heather Christena Schmidt

There are very few things in this world that make me happy. I’m not talking about people – there are people that make me happy. And ideas that make me happy, but really I’m talking about things. You know so much about the way we live our lives now is dependent on the things we have, and I believe that in a terribly materialistic world our happiness is dependent on how much stuff we have. Anyway, I don’t want to get too philosophical tonight except to say that I am not a materialist so rarely find happiness in my possessions. I have stuff because I need it or it makes my life a little easier. That’s about it … usually …

A few things, though, make me pretty happy to have. Just last week I was talking about reasons I should be on hoarders – those things make me happy that I hoard in mass quantities for seemingly illogical reasons. Notebooks. Chapsticks. Highlighters. Sweaters. Those types of things. Then there are things that I do not hoard but that also having make me happy. Today, I happened to experience quite a few of them and for these things, this bitch was made happy today.

New Shoes

Holy mother of God, do shoes make me happy. Today I went shoe shopping and I believe I had a shoegasm in the middle of the store. “Ooohhhh!” I moaned ecstatically as I tried on a new pair of Nine West brown leather boots with a zipper up the side. Amazing and half off, those made me happy. I also bought a new pair of Fergie’s flats collection – they are the classiest black and grey cloth-covered flats I have ever owned. New shoes make me happier than just about anything out there.

Mexican food

Before moving to California, I believe I could count on one hand the number of times I had authentic Mexican food. So obviously, for the last ten years since moving here I have been making up for it. I don’t eat all the crappy, heavy, fatty Mexican food either – I am perfectly fine with a light taco and some rice, or just baked chips with salsa. It’s the spice that makes me happy. It’s the “this is so hot I’m crying and my nose is running”-experience of shoveling bucket loads of salsa down my throat. Sometimes I think I could just drink the shit. Today I had some salsa and chips and it was like a party in my mouth.

Yarn

Knitting is a really new hobby I have taken up and I cannot get enough of it. It has been since about last November that I started, and it was simply a matter of someone putting needles and yarn in my hand and saying “GO!” I haven’t been able to stop since. I love doing it – mainly because it is relaxing, is a way to escape, and is something creative that I can do even when I cannot get anything else done because Good Luck Charlie is blaring in surround sound. But what makes me really really happy about knitting is all the yarn. I love it – it’s so soft and colorful and warm. Today I had to pick up some more for my completely insane knitting project of making a scarf or hat for all of my family members (insane because I am doing all of them in just under four weeks). And, of course, I bought way more than I actually needed.

Books

Another thing that I love doing is reading, and I don’t mean reading happy pappy crap – I mean good reading. Classics. Literary genius. Humor that is actually funny, not merely trying to be. I love words and reading so much, which is why I have always wanted to become a writer. I will never read the Harry Potter series. Nor Hunger Games. Nor Twilight. But there are so many books out there that I have yet to experience and I hope I have an opportunity to. Last year, I made myself super happy by setting a goal for the number of books I wanted to read in the year (forty), and I actually achieved it. This year I’m trying for fifty – accomplishing this will of course result in something similar to my shoegasm cited above. My point, though, is that not only does the act of reading make me happy, but buying new books is something I cannot stop myself from doing. Today I got two new books in the mail that I had ordered about a week ago: Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’ and Annie Dillard’s ‘An American Childhood.’ As soon as I am done with this blog, I am starting them both.

I’m sure tomorrow I will be back to snarky and bitchy and being completely miserable. For today, though, I’m basking in the afterglow of my shoe, salsa, yarn, and book-gasms.