Good fortune shies away from gloom. Keep your spirits up. Good things will come to you and you will come to good things. - Glorie Abelhas

It always makes me sad to see missing posters for family pets.  One of my biggest fears is that Forest or Gump could one day go missing, and so my heart always breaks whenever I see that another person or family is living my fear.  Recently there's been a ton of missing posters for a family dog named Buddy hanging around my town, and there's a sign on our mailbox right now for a missing black and white cat.  It just breaks my heart to think about those poor animals.

So, obviously it makes me happy to hear about a story where the family and their pet is reunited.  Today I read an article in the Toronto Star about a cat that was found after being missing for five years, 2 500 km away from its home.  Reading the article made my heart smile, and I hope that Buddy and the black and white cat are just as lucky.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1054908--cat-that-went-missing-5-years-ago-found-2-500-kilometres-away?bn=1

Laughter is an orgasm triggered by the intercourse of sense and nonsense. - Author Unknown

Today my heart smiled when a friend that I haven't spoken to in two years asked me to go onto Skype and chat, which resulted in lots of laughter!  It was such an unexpected surprise and a great chat.  I will be going to sleep with a smiling heart!

Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy. - Cynthia Nelms

I just have to say, I LOVE this quote.  This is the first time I've read it, but I think it's incredibly true and is how I try to live life sometimes.  In fact, I remember having a conversation with someone recently where I was trying to drill this into him.  But that story doesn't belong in this blog!

Today my heart smiled when I found out that my amazing cousin gave birth to her beautiful baby girl!  I know that her and her husband will be amazing parents to Olivia Grace, and I hope that she has a long lifetime of smiling heart moments.

Normally I wouldn't try to overshadow the news of the birth of a baby, but I have been preparing to update my blog with this picture for three days now, so I kind of have to do this (technically I could pretend that I didn't finish my project until tomorrow and update this then, but that would be lying).  For some strange reason on Thursday night I decided that I was going to crochet little Halloween ornaments, found a bunch of patterns, and went to work!  My heart smiled when I put the finishing touches on the last little guy and posed them all for a picture to share with you.

A thank you goes out to Lisa for letting me use her little deck garden.

Carry laughter with you wherever you go. - Hugh Sidey

I'm not a huge shopper, but when I do buy things, I buy lots of things!

Today my heart smiled when I went to not one store, but two stores I love and found out that they had sales!  So I now have lots of body lotions and lots of books (which I already had, but there was a sale on, so buying more is understandable).  For those curious folks out there, book wise, I bought Game of Thrones, Book of Negroes, Virgil and Beatrice, and East of Eden.  All books I've wanted to buy for a while, and all books I've been hearing good things about!  My heart will probably smile again when I crack their spines.

The best things in life are unexpected - because there were no expectations. - Eli Khamarov, Surviving on Planet Reebok

I love buying gifts.  Christmas is my all time favourite holiday because I love buying gifts for everyone.  I just love thinking about what will make people happy and excited.  What just screams, "I need to buy this for [insert name]," but that they probably wouldn't buy for themselves?  I just love it!

So today was my cousin's daughter's first birthday, and for years, even before she was born, we knew what we would give this cousin's daughter one day for her birthday.  When I was born, my cousin's mother gave me a doll cradle that was made for my cousin by her grandfather.  By the time I had entered the picture, my cousin was no longer playing with dolls, so it was handed down to me, and then my sister.  Even after my sister stopped playing with dolls, we had to keep this cradle just in case, one day, my cousin had a baby girl.

To be able to finally wrap the cradle (more like put it in a huge bag), give it to her, and see her reaction... priceless.  My heart smiled when I realized just how much this gift meant.

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations. - Edward de Bono, Observer, 12 June 1977

I had a really stressful day yesterday and just felt all tense all day.  When bedtime finally rolled around, I was carrying Forest to bed when she started growling at me.  Forest growling at me is nothing new, and is in fact a bit of a family joke.  But what I really love is when Forest makes this noise that I can't really describe, but I do like to mimic.  The best example I can come up with is this (it's not the best quality youtube video, but it's the best I could find to show this):

Anyway, when Forest started growling, I started making that noise, and then Forest looked at me, stopped growling, and returned the noise right back at me.  It made my heart smile to have Forest respond to my "Ffft Ffft Ffft-ing."  (She's now sitting on my lap purring, but she wasn't too happy when I played the clip from Aristocats).

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come. - Chinese Proverb

I've been having a rough couple of days.  I've just been going through the blahs, and it's really starting to get frustrating.  I've been doing everything I can to not let them get me down, but it's still not really all that fun.  But just a couple minutes ago I came across a moment that really reminded me about why I started this blog to begin with.  Sometimes we have bad days, but that doesn't mean those days completely lack small, little moments, that bring a smile to our heart.  It doesn't necessarily make the bad day turn into a good day, but we should still recognize those moments.

A little bit of background on why this moment made my heart smile.  I have two cats, Forest and Gump.  Forest hates Gump, and Gump is always annoying/play attacking Forest.  So our family lacks cute pictures of the two cats cuddling together like you see in calendars and those animal emails.  On top of that, Gump seems to hate my new room lay out since I moved my furniture from school back home.  He used to always sleep on my bedroom floor, but now he doesn't.  In fact, the only proof I have of him sleeping in my room is a picture that my sister took with her phone when I was in Swaziland.  Because apparently my room is ok for him when I'm not on the same continent as him.

So, with all of that in mind, my heart smiled when I ran into my room to quickly grab something and saw this:

As soon as I saw this, I quickly ran downstairs to grab my camera which incidentally was already in my bedroom.  So I ran back upstairs, found it, took this picture, and then lay down on the far side of my bed with my head closest to Forest (because Gump doesn't always like being touched, so I decided to not push my luck and cuddled with Forest) and rested for about five minutes before Gump got up and left us.  And my heart was smiling the whole time.