Happy

The world is so full of a number of things,

I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

I love all of the poems from A Child's Garden of Verses, but this two-line rhyme is perhaps my favourite. It captures the childish joy in little discoveries and everyday things, and the odd phrasing - "a number of things" - makes me think of those times when one is completely and utterly happy due to several unconnecded things.

Today I woke up indecisive about what to do with my Saturday. Normally, on a Saturday, I would sit at the computer all day doing 'this and that' - writing, message boards, various other stuff. I wasn't in the mood for that today, but I wasn't in the mood for sorting boxes either. After pondering for a while I decided that I was going to do two decisive things: phone up the credit institution that holds the debt I need to pay off, get the exact payout amount, and pay it online; and second, go buy the printer I've been dying to get.

The first went very smoothly and I paid out nearly $2900 to completely settle the debt from buying this computer and a few other things back in 2005. I also got them to put a note on my account to say that I want it closed when they receive the payout amount. I should get a letter next week to say that this has been done. This will leave me with an extra $90/month, which will come in handy.

The second, buying the printer, involved lots of ringing around, and it turned out that I couldn't get what I wanted in Big Country Town, so I wound up driving in to a large retail centre on the edge of Perth, about an hour and a half from Little Country Town.

It was on the way to Perth that the poem above popped into my head. It was a cool, mostly sunny day today, and the drive to Perth was glorious. My car is lovely to drive, and I had awesome CDs I'd burned playing, and the countryside . . . it's the middle of winter and everything is green and growing. The farms are a tapestry of soft green pastures, lush green wheatfields, and spectacular fields of bright yellow where the canola crops are busy flowering. These dotted about with the sage, tan and brown of the salmon gums and mulga bushes, and streaked with the rich rust red of the dirt and the glittering ribbons where creeks are flowing. And over it all are scattered herds of sheep, complete with bouncing and bleating lambs. I felt full of life and truly blessed just to be able to drive through such a landscape.

Back to the story lol. I got a fantastic Canon printer-scanner for $140 - it prints photo quality and can take photo paper, and the scanner is much better than the three year old one I already had. And it's shiny :-D I'm going to donate my old scanner to the school where I work. My old printer was dead so there's nothing I can do with that!

While I was at the 'real' shops I took the opportunity to pick up a few other things on my wish list or need list. The 'need' list stuff was boring, but from my wish list I got front car seat covers (really cute ones, black with a frangipani design, I know it's trendy but I loved frangipanis before they were the latest thing :-P). I also popped into JB-HiFi which was nextdoor to the shop where I got my printer, because I wanted the DVD of "The Sound of Music" and hadn't been able to find it elsewhere. After picking up that, I wandered into the music section, spotted the Soundtracks rack, and in a split second had picked up the soundtracks to "Labyrinth" and "Love Actually" - two soundtracks that a) I've wanted for years, b) aren't available in many stores, and c) aren't available on iTunes. I was stoked. And to top it all off . . . they were all on special!

I would also like to mention that I went to the city and back without being the least bit tempted by any food I wasn't supposed to eat. Go me!

I'm feeling pretty good today!

Weigh in tomorrow . . . I'm sure I've lost weight, and I can't wait to see how much!