Five things that make you feel good

Having discovered memes recently (being a bit new to the blogosphere), I've now stumbled upon another one, started by the lovely Scottish Mum. The idea is to celebrate ourselves as hard working mums and focus on the warm and fuzzy, the positives and come up with a happy list! Off limits are the techy-geeky things that we know we like (Twitter, blogging, etc.) and to focus on the things that lift our spirits. Oh, and go put your blog URL into the linky at the end of my list.

Five things that make me feel good...

1. Chocolate.
Perhaps chocolate could be seen as a little predictable by some, but tough: it does make me happy. I am fussy though. On the whole, chocolate should just be chocolate (unless we're venturing into the realms of truffles, which are a whole different ball game). Don't waste space where chocolate should be by mixing in nuts, raisins or wafer. Don't even get me started on Maltesers - why on earth do they fill perfectly good chocolate space with that horrible biscuit?! Dairy Milk is good, as is practically anything from Hotel Chocolat. Hot Chocolate, for the record, is an imposter and simply doesn't make the grade. I'd rather have a cup of tea.

2. Music.
That's probably a bit generic. There are some songs or pieces of music that just "do it". Some give that warm fuzzy feeling - check out Concrete Blonde's Bloodletting for example (which no doubt gives away my goth teenage years). Some leave you with goosebumps, hairs standing up on your arms: the Janacek Sinfonietta is one of those for me. There are many others, perhaps a future blog post to show the playlist to my life so far...?

3. Achieving.
I write lists. I need to get to the end of each day and feel as though I have "achieved", and go into a mini-meltdown in the evening if I feel as though I haven't. The only way for me to deal with this is to write down all the things I'm trying to get done over the next day/week/month and draw a satisfying line through each task as it is completed - that way I can look back at the end of the day and get that warm fuzzy feeling that means I "achieved". I'm a stickler, though: I wrapped a parcel a few days ago, wrote the address and affixed stamps, but didn't allow myself to cross it off the list until it had gone in the post box this afternoon.

4. Order.
Together with number 3, this is going to make me look a little OCD. I like things in their place, preferably in a logical order. With books that's alphabetical by surname. With CDs it's alphabetical by band name but grouped by genre. I really hate it when a CD is put back in the wrong case. Father Badger has the opposite approach to me: if he can't see something then it has been put away, truly "out of sight, out of mind". This leads to me either not being able to find what I'm looking for (because it's been squirelled away in the least logical of hiding places) or making surprise discoveries of things I hadn't been able to locate (e.g. the missing dinner plate of a set in a carrier bag in the cleaning cupboard - no idea why). It messes with my mind and I will need therapy.

5. Father Badger and Baby Badger.
I know, how soppy! Both of them have the ability to drive me insane, but when Father Badger hasn't been hiding spare cutlery in the junk drawer, and Baby Badger is happy playing and gives me a gummy (with three teeth) grin, I am truly happy. I can't imagine my life without either of them and I'm a very lucky girl.

Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net