Aromatherapy and the Search for Quan

Have you ever noticed how certain smells can make you happy or bring back happy memories? I am a very scent driven person. I think if I couldn't smell my food, I wouldn't want to eat it. Making something smell delicious is half the battle when cooking.

I also like to change my perfume scent with the seasons of the year. I don't understand women who wear nothing but Chanel No. 5 all their lives. I like Chanel, don't get me wrong, but No. 5 smells like old lady to me. I prefer Coco or Chance. My favorite scent to wear lately is Light Blue by Dolce and Gabanna - it's citrusy - very light and full of summer. I also like Sunflowers, another summery scent.

Certain scents trigger memories - like the smell of new mown grass and honeysuckle always reminds me of home when I was a little girl. My husband smells like sunshine and salt water.

Believe it or not fresh laundry always makes me happy too, not just because I have successfully climbed Mount Washmore ( hey, I do have a family of four!) but because everything smells so fresh and clean. It's a wonderful feeling.

Today I am going to mop my floors. Clean wood always gives me that fresh feeling too. A clean slate - what a wonderful feeling!

I love to burn candles. I guess my favorite scent on the planet is Lilacs. It reminds me of my Dad - he had wild lilacs all around his house and they remind me of my brother because they were his favorite flower. Lilacs - so purple and fresh. I think Heaven must smell like Lilacs.

Is there a smell that makes you feel happy or brings back positive memories from your life? I think I am off to burn some Yankee Candle Lilac and Lemon and think of happier times.

Forgiveness and the Search for Quan

It's hard to believe that a week has passed. It's been a crazy week here with almost everyone in my house sick. Seasonal asthma sucks.

Last weekend my husband and I had an argument, all over the mulch if you can believe that. No, I guess it wasn't really over the mulch but rather our communication skills with one another. In the course of the argument, things came up - on both sides - from our past together.

I realized then that these events from our past - while I had put the hurt of these past incidents on the back burner, I had neither forgotten or forgiven them. To be sure, these were large events in our lives, but they did happen almost 4 years ago or more. Why was I holding on to that hurt? And how did it impact our relationship together?

Holding on to past hurts is like a festering wound, and this one was in my heart. I never took the splinter out to let the wound heal but rather, nursed the pain and resentment that the pain had caused. Sure, it was buried good and deep and on most days, no one would even know it was there but it was there.... infecting all the positives in my life and even impacting my ability to connect with my husband on a deeply emotional level. Why, you ask ? Because I didn't trust him not to do it again. So I waited, nursing the pain and the hurt, licking my wounds in the dark where I thought no one could see.

Here's the thing though, that anger and resentment - it's like a cancer and the person that it hurts the most is you. I realized that to truly move on in my relationship, I had to decide if I could really forgive those past hurts and truly put them in the past where they belonged. Ultimately, I believe that I can do that and that I have done that. Sometimes arguments are healthy in a relationship as long as you aren't doing it all the time and as long as what needs to be aired is actually being aired.

I trust that my husband wouldn't hurt me for anything in the world, sometimes he just isn't an effective communicator and he doesn't know any better, but I can honestly say he is trying. As for me, I pulled the splinter out of my heart because I want my heart to be whole and healthy so that I can truly share it with my family and friends.

I honestly believe that in order to be truly happy, you have to be willing to risk your heart and forgive those that may have hurt you. You even have to forgive yourself. It's a process, but it's definitely worth it.

Love suffers long and is kind: love does not envy; love does not parade itself; it is not puffed up; does not behave rudely,does ont seek it's own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in injury but rejoices in the truth,bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. True love never dies.

Sunday Feature - The Search for Quan

Did you see that movie Jerry McGuire? I love that movie. I hate Tom Cruise, but I still love that movie. The idea of Quan comes from there - it is an idea espoused by Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character that means a complete happiness. Perfection. A friend of mine started doing a weekly feature on her blog about cooking and that gave me an idea. I am going to do a weekly feature too. The Sunday search for Quan. Who's with me? I want to be my own ambassador of Quan.

I started a month ago with my World According to Snowflake, though I just didn't know then that I was on a larger quest. What makes me happy? This is going to be a weekly query and maybe, just maybe, some of the things that work for me will also work for you.

One thing I know is true - happiness is a state of mind. Things can not give it to you ( though they can make life easier) Money can't buy it, no matter how much money you have ( though like the above statement, having enough money for necessities also makes life easier.) Finally, and I think this is most important, no one else can make you happy. You have to be happy with yourself before you can be happy with someone else.

The most simplistic advice I have is that happiness is a decision. We all have a choice every day. My mother always told me to find the joy in everyday. I really try to do that. Today spending one on one time with my oldest daughter brought me joy. The sense of purpose that going to school or working with the children at the school gives me is something that has also enhanced my daily joy factor. I love the way my blanket smells just out of the wash and these are just a few things that bring me joy - small, every day things.

The biggest thing that I have done in my life lately that I know has increased my happiness factor? I have limited how much news that I watch. It's never good news. The world is coming to an end every night, or some baby was killed by their mother, it's always something tragic. I remember when I was watching the news, I would step out of my house, look up at the sky and expect to see it falling. I always wondered why it wasn't? I do stay informed. I read the news - online for a large variety of sources, but I don't watch the news anymore and it has definitely been a change for the better as far as my state of mind is concerned.

Turn in next weekend to join me in my continued search for Quan.