Green Bird of Happiness

image from tibchris' flickr stream

Yesterday I bought a domain name: greenbirdofhappiness.com. Actually, I bought two. The second is thegreenbirdofhappiness.com. Why? Well, it goes like this. I initially started this blog with the intention of reconnecting to the things that made me happy. Even though most of that progression hasn't hit these virtual pages, I feel pretty happy with my progress and I feel tapped in to that part of myself again.

I've also been trying to figure out if there's something more I could be doing professionally. I feel like there is, but I don't quite know what that means yet. It could be something on the side, it could be something that morphs and changes, but I've been struggling with how to start and felt for a long time like I had to have some sort of solid game plan with charts and goals and pie charts all mapped out. I think I was tripping myself up and getting stuck on all of those "things" rather than the "it" of what I wanted to do. I don't know that I've completely figured this out, but there are definitely some ideas that I want to explore further and see what comes of them. With all of this, I wanted a place to share the work (whatever that might be), and "reclaimingthehappy" wasn't sitting right with me. It spoke more to my initial goal rather than to my future intent.

So why green bird of happiness?  Well, I HAVE decided that I want happiness, joy and creation to be central to whatever I do. The past few years finding and keeping happiness has been a bit of a struggle, but I have found that I have to state what I want in order to get it and then I have to do things in order to make it happen.  Simple enough, right? It hasn't always been the case.  So, I want to be happy.  I want to do things that make me happy, be around and inspired by people, places and things that make me happy.  This is my intent and I really liked having that intent be part of the name.

Green Bird.  This one came around in a very weird sorta way.  So about 12-13 years (gee, that makes me feel old) ago I was really into painting little birds.  They were blue birds.  I made cards with them, I made little pictures for people - they just sorta showed up everywhere.  Earlier this year (probably in the spring), I posted something on Facebook about painting or drawing, and one of my friends who knew me back then mentioned the birds and asked if I was painting the birds.  Huh.  I had completely forgotten about those little birds.  Well, the comment has been sitting with me since that time and I've let it just roll around in my brain.  I wasn't sure why it wasn't going back into the recesses, but it wasn't bothering me, so I just let it be.  As I've been contemplating the change and the forward direction I wanted to make and thinking about names for the blog, it just all sorta clicked.  The happiness.  The birds and the fact that my favorite color is now green, when it used to be blue.  greenbirdofhappiness.  Yes!  So I kicked it around all the way into work yesterday, liked it and voila - the domain gods were smiling on me because the name was available.

Last night I pulled my sketch pad out and started jotting down some ideas for the site design.  As far as what comes beyond this - I really haven't a clue, but my arms are open wide to the possibilities of the universe and I'm going to do what feels right, when it feels right and see where it takes me.