So! I've been leading worship at a really nice church; I actually started out as just the pianist, playing the hymns that were selected and picked by the pastor. A few transitions and a new pastor later, I saw myself being stretched, molded, and blended into someone I'd always subconsciously wanted to be but never really knew how to take the steps to become: A Worship Leader. I've always felt that worship was my way to the cross. To believing whole-heartedly in a Saviour. To pouring out my heart and thoughts to God. To using it as a healing mechanism from my hurts. Going to a Black church, I appreciated gospel and old hymns. Simultaneously going to a White Christian school gave me awareness of contemporary Christian music using an acoustic guitar, drumset, and people lifting up their hands and closing their eyes. Going to college opened up all other types of music to me, and a revamped direction and Classical training in piano really gave me a world of music to enjoy an...

You ever hear someone smugly tell you some wise saying and you believe it? Then you start to thinking, "Does it really say that in the Bible?" Not that people can't be wise, but every good and perfect gift is from above, so if it's true wisdom it should reflect a well-known source for wisdom...which for Christians is the Bible. Here's some things that really make me think twice when I hear them said: "Actions speak louder than words." I'm not an expert on the Bible, but I do and have read a lot and I don't remember this one. I remember ones along similar lines, such as "Even a child is known by his actions, by whether his conduct is pure and right " which is simply saying that even children's characters can be deciphered by what they do, whether they do it with mischief or sincerity. Another verse is "Out of the mouth the heart speaks ." Here's the kicker: an action is a function carried out through output of the con...

My friends, I have something great to announce: I am happy! Yet I have a twinge in my chest as I announce that, because I am wise enough to know that such a feeling is usually fleeting in such a world as this, but what I resume to say that I have made certain changes and goals for myself that allow me to reach towards happiness on a daily minutia basis. My reservations about happiness include the knowledge that: *The Christian life is not always filled with happiness, but instead pain, constant searching, a denial of self, and giving up of human urges to defend oneself and fight back for the sake of being Christ-like. *Marriage does not = ultimate, immediate, or long-lasting happiness; nor do children. *Family often produces more feelings of pain and heartache, and happiness regarding family is fleeting (in my case anyways) *Opening your heart to friends and family is not always a happy experience, but if your goal is to do so, you must be confident in your feelings ...

Chapter 12 Complete a nagging task.   If you've learned anything about me through previous chapters and journals, you may know this could be a never-ending goal for me.I ALWAYS stay packed to the brim with nagging tasks. Finishing my new Oprah magazine, or starting it for that matter. Taking out chicken to thaw for dinner later. Going to buy a "For Sale" sign for my car. Searching online for coupons or deal-breaker sales. Doing the laundry! I drive myself insane half the time by assigning myself ridiculous tasks with an unrealistic time limit in which to finish it...which leads to me doing nothing and being extremely unproductive. Well, my newest task is to create a 5-year goal plan. The catch is, I'm only allowed to assign myself TWO THINGS per year to accomplish. I want to jump off a bridge figuratively speaking as I type this. TWO THINGS?! How in the world am I to soothe my Type-A personality with only approaching two things at a time? My hope is that by setti...

Ch. 11 Hello my friends! Today I want to share with you a few tidbits I learned recently from a Family Fun workshop through the "Press Pause" women's conference at Valley Family Church. The topics are family and surprisingly, money. What does money have to do with family, you ask? Quite a bit! One of the biggest causes of divorce is financial strain. We've all seen single parents where the mom has three to five kids, works about two jobs, is tired, broke, and short after not receiving child support on time from the dad (or at all), and can't afford to buy her kids everything she wishes to, or else spends all her money trying to compensate for the shortcomings and still ends up with no money for savings or retirement. I went to the workshop seeking more ideas to help my family run smoothly, to help me find ideas for activities for all of us to do that would hopefully not cost a lot of money. I am very cheap. I do not like to spend money very often, and when I d...

Chapter 10 I am still steadily plodding my way through my happiness project, and it has recently taken a little twist during my journey to develop my spirituality. Like many people, I was raised in church, and after going to college decided I didn't quite agree with all of the principles taught by my church and entered a partying phase. It was short-lived as I became pregnant with my first son. Having kids really made me think, "How am I going to teach these children about spirituality and about Christianity (my faith of choice)?" I have still been trying to figure that one out. Imagine my surprise and relief when I opened my planner this past week to discover I had penciled in a Women's Conference on Thurs/Fri. I scheduled the dates back in late March or early April, when Valley Family Church sent a flyer advertising their first ever two-day women's conference. The conference was titled, "Press Pause." Sounded just like my type of event! I really ad...

Chapter 9 This chapter is all about finding happiness by accepting yourself as you are and making a difference by being yourself. Impressing others by pretending to be someone you're not or know something you don't isn't nearly as exciting as wowing others by who you aren't (a boring know-it-all) and what you don't (you don't know what Glee! is all about? Oh my gosh I have to tell you). In fact, just being who you are opens up a world full of conversational possibilities with other selves out there. Part of accepting myself is knowing that I cannot sew to save my life. I cannot do more than 3 hip-hop moves (and wiggling hips down low does not count) to have enough variety while dancing. I love flowers and would like to have a garden and grow flowers and veggies, but I am so deathly afraid of bugs my garden will probably never be tended to because I will kill everything with bug spray. I don't know Spanish as fluently as I wish I did, but I know I could s...

Chapter 8 So I needed a little while to get my happyness goals set in motion by developing habits to achieve them. So far I am on my second week of creating a structure of exercise where I work out 25 min/day. The first week that goal landed me 5 days of exercise! I don't think I've ever willingly worked out 5 days in any one week. This is week 2, and the structure so far has gotten me 4 days of exercise, and I have two more days in the week; I missed Monday. This has made me a little happier in that I know I am taking responsibility for exercise and pushing myself to make it routine. When I make it a choice, it won't happen. This is what I have found works for me . Your own goals may need different structure than what I have set up for myself. This chapter is mainly about family. This month Shawn and I produced our first issue of our first newsletter, called The Padula Post. It was one of my goals to keep our families updated with our lives and include them in our fam...

Chapter 7 Amazing how one of my happiness goals, forgiveness, has sat active in my mind with the drawing near of and occurrence of Mother's Day. What a beautiful holiday. I couldn't help realizing my inability to enjoy the day with abandon. I knew that in addition to being Mother's Day, it was also my adoptive mother's birthday, her 60th. I am always very aware of how old my parents are, and with each passing birthday I cringe a little thinking ahead to the days when their birthdays will only bring memories instead of a voice on the other end of the telephone line. I knew I would call my mother today, and I knew I would wish her both a happy birthday and a happy Mother's Day, and let her know I hoped she would have a great day. I figured we would politely exchange conversation about our plans for the day, how things were going with my husband's job, etc But I knew that after not talking for four weeks we were both thinking the same thing : "Why is this...

Chapter 6 I have come to grips about a few things about myself that have always bothered me but now I feel I can accept. The first: I find a project that I want to tackle, I run it into the ground, I wear myself out over it, and then I am so fatigued I end up at times becoming depressed because of my lack of progress and simply give up on it for an unprecedented period of time. Take exercise, for example. I put myself through hell to have a flat stomach, slimmer thighs, and toned arms after having two babies. I attributed my inability to lose weight after my first pregnancy to having hypothryroidism, which does make it almost impossible to lose weight. I then fell into a depression because I loved eating too much to avoid certain foods AND hated cardio too much to run around my apartment complex. Talk about Mission Impossible! I set out to accomplish a task, and when other factors contributed to the delay of the completion of my task, I have a heart attack! Everyone around wa...

Chapter 5 Now is when the pieces are really going to start being put together. I just finished the book, "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. It left with me with a child-like excitement to being mindfully accepting my quest for happiness that I can barely contain. This woman is one of my literary heroes, all because she has voiced for me that which I never knew could be voiced. And now I feel I have the opportunity to have a better quality of life because I know that at least one other person struggled with and worked out a solution to her resolve towards self-improvement, thus happiness. Why a "Happiness Project?" At the very end of her book, Rubin's husband made note of the fact that her project was really a cover-up for wanting to gain more control of her life. Pause. Recognize. Wow! Ditto! My intrigued obsession with her account of soul-seeking played on my own desire to look the phenomenon of happiness in the face and demand to know more about ...

Chapter 4 If you don't have the book "The Happiness Project" by now, I may have to leave you in the dust a tiny bit. Many of the references I will use come straight from the book. Forgive me, but I am just exploding to hit every topic! First and foremost, I must confess something: I love writing and would love to be a writer if I could somehow work that out. It is so releasing, comforting, and sharing to open my heart completely through words and depictions. I feel it is definitely a form of therapy within itself. The downside is once it's out there, you open your work and honesty to judgement, criticism, and of course rejection. Fortunately, I have been working towards internalizing the verse of the Bible that says, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." That way I don't have to worry about others judging me for they will receive it in return. So cliche, but "Only God can judge me!". His opinion is the only one that should really matter to me. I ...

Chapter 3 My commandments of happiness were contrived of notions and ideas I have been generally working towards, but became much more magnetized towards once I had written them down. I have written them down on cute blue sticky notes and placed them in places I will see them; one on my bathroom mirror, one on the inside of my closet door, one on the dash of my car, and one on the front page of my planner. The idea is that I will see them constantly and swiftly meditate on them with each glance. Here are my commandments: 1. Accept myself as I am AT THIS MOMENT. 2. Give that compliment you hesitate to say 3. Smile at others and don't expect one in return. 4. Be open even in awkward situations 5. Identify the problem instead of blaming 6. Be willing to compromise ALL THE WAY. 7. Say "I'll do better" and MEAN IT. 8. Stand up for myself lovingly. 9. Always say "thank you." Always. 10. Listen to yourself, and say "no" when needed. 11. Lig...

Chapter 2   On Thursday March 17, 2011, I checked myself into the emergency room at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, MI. The diagnosis was depression resulting in the inability to repress such overwhelming emotions that made me fear hurting myself or others. At the time I was very ashamed, embarrassed, and afraid. I've always considered myself to be highly intelligent, socially graceful, talented, and possessing the skills and motivation to be successful. But the truth is I was driving myself literally towards mental instability by not confronting my past and floating on "life preservers" that provided a cover for happiness but never let me fully indulge in the essence of it. I was hanging on by a shredding thread of faith and hope, and a nasty argument with my husband snipped the middle. My emotions numbed, my body only moving because I forced it, I cried for help. I participated in a week-long partial hospitalization program, packed with 6 hours of daily group therapy, nu...

Chapter One The Happy Files is an online journal regarding my feelings, ideas, and realizations before, during, and after reading the book, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. You can check her blog out at www.happiness-project.com . Let's jump right in, shall we? In the foreword of her book, Gretchen defines a happiness project as "an approach to changing your life." She then continues on to define three stages of this project. First, there is a preparation stage, where one identifies what makes them happy and what makes them unhappy. Second one must make resolutions based on the principal understandings of their happy/unhappy findings that will strive towards boosting their state of happy. Lastly, and the hardest of any part of making a resolution or commitment to anything or anyone, is the challenging task of keeping those promises to yourself and choices of change. Might I add, in my own opinion, although a happiness project is indeed a solo project where...