Ultimate Blog Challenge - Anything that makes me happy I'm doing it

Welcome back to another round of the Ultimate Blog Challenge - a month of daily blogging. 

But first of all, Hello!

If you're new here, I'm Tamara, a Swiss part-time working Hockey Mom who blogs, likes to travel and explore life.

If you're a regular you noticed that I have been doing this before. It's my sixth time around where the UBC is concerned. Here's what I have been doing for the previous challenges:

November 2021: How it all began

January 2022: I combined 20 Days of Chill with UBC, here's an example post When I was a kid

April 2022: I combined Blogging from A - Z with UBC and wrote about all things Coffee

July 2022: I wrote a series of posts about aspects of motherhood, like what to even expect from your role. 

April 2023: Again, I combined Blogging from A - Z with UBC and told you guys about my (travel) mishaps. 

So it's July 2023, and I have a couple of unrelated topics I want to write about. This should be interesting. I'd like to start off with this quote that resonated with me:

I have no idea how I came upon following this Instagrammer, but I truly feel I couldn't have put it better myself.

Just the other day I asked myself the question: 

How come I am able to enjoy the little (and of course the big) things so intensely? 

The sun is shining and the birds are chirping: I'm happy.

It's raining (OK, it's raining after a three weeks' drought): I'm happy.

A favourite song is being played on the radio: I'm happy.

We go out for dinner: I'm happy.

On the other hand you could ask, why the hell should these things not make me happy? It's just that lately I've been experiencing them even more consciously, if this makes sense. I do have a possible explanation. Actually, two:

• Last fall and early this year I had to go from part-time to full-time at work. My coworker had back surgery, and her recovery took longer than expected. Now October through March is my busiest time anyway - because of hockey season. So not only did I have to do my own work, I covered for my colleague the best I could do - did I mention we acquired a new company that is located in a culturally different part in Switzerland as of January 1, 2023? Apart from the office, there was my teenage son who needed to be taken to and from practice and games three to four times a week. Plus the laundry, the groceries, the meals and other domestic responsibilities... I was busy to say the least.

• In February I got sick. To this day I don't know what it was. Some virus, probably. Covid? Maybe. The actual symptoms were not too bad, even though bad enough to miss one of Colin's games. After about three days I went tried to go back to work. I was super weak and fatigued though. I felt like after lunch I wanted to go home and take a long nap. Housework was wearing me out completely. Our house consists in a garage/basement, where the laundry room is, a ground floor with kitchen and living room, an upper floor with bedrooms and a renovated attic that is our movie room, These flights of stairs were killing me. I had to gather my strength after carrying the laundry basked down, and the thought of coming back to transfer the clothes from the washer to the dryer, and then having to come back again to remove them from the dryer and walking back up gave me anxiety. 

It took me several weeks to recover. As I was going to bed early and taking breaks often, I pledged to fully enjoy spring once I hoped to be back to normal.

I was, and I did.

I chased magnolia, apricot, cherry and apple blossoms, visited alpacas, picturesque towns baroque cities and snow capped mountains.

With this invitation to do more of what makes you happy, I let you go about your day!

Well, not without answering my question; what is it that makes you happy?

Let me know down below :-)