Happiness as Science

There's a scientific research project called Track Your Happiness which is trying to quantify what exactly makes humans happy. I first heard about this over a year ago on one of the podcasts I listen to.

The scientist said what they are learning is incredible. Things like, people tend to be most happy when they are in a car and not thinking about much in particular.

It's something you don't think about often. What makes me truly happy? Sure, you know things like eating ice cream will make you temporarily happy, but when, during your everyday life, are you happiest?

I decided to sign up to get text alerts and add to the project. I've done it twice now, 6 months apart. My second go around just finished. This is particularly interesting to me because of the completely different life-place I'm in compared to where I was around the holidays last year during my first time doing the survey.

There were a lot of "no-duh" pieces of information.

• I'm happiest on Fridays, least happy on Tuesdays. (The day I have to take phone calls.) 
• I'm most happy when I'm doing things I want to do, but also have to do. Which I think translates to, "I enjoy doing certain things (cooking) for other people when I sign up to do it. (family event, dinner party)
• Right now, I'm slightly more happy when I'm inside. When I did it the first time, back in January, I was slightly more happy when I was outside.
• I tend to be happiest when I get around 7 hours of sleep. When I get more than 8, I'm less happy.
• I am happiest when I'm brewing, at a brewery, at a buddy's house, listening to music, or watching a movie.
• I'm least happiest when I'm at a hospital, relaxing (that's a huge surprise), working, listening to the news, at Target, or praying/worshiping/meditating. 

I think what I get out of this is, when I'm left with my thoughts, I'm the least happy. Which I don't know what that says about my mental well being. 

It makes sense though, my three least favorite chores to do are yard work, grocery shopping, and doing dishes. All things that are relatively mindless, yet it's not easy to listen to podcasts or occupy myself in other ways. 

Salmonster VS Hungerbot

Every few holidays, I'll make Sallie a comic or picture instead of getting a card.

We've had a bunch of old paintings and canvases sitting around the house, so I got the bright idea to raise the bar. I was going to paint a picture. Now the thing you need to know is I'm terrible at painting. I'm really bad at figuring out which colors go together and staying in the lines. I'm terrible with brush strokes. I basically don't like moving outside of drawing. So I knew this would be quite the undertaking.

I started back in May. The concept stages. Sal and I have this joke that the only time we fight is when she's hungry or I'm tired. In fact, she has a persona for when she's hungry. She's SALMONSTER!

So I thought about how much I love old sci-fi and horror movie posters and decided my topic. I would create Salmonster vs Hungerbot in the style of an old Godzilla movie poster. Specifically, the one below was a huge inspiration.

So I started on this journey. I didn't know how I was going to pull this off without ruining the surprise.

So I started with some concept art, this one being the one that made it. I actually drew this sitting on the same couch as Sal, but she was getting deep into the internet on our tablet, so I knew I was safe from her seeing. I took one of the paintings we already had and agreed that we didn't want to hang it on our wall, I painted primer over it and then did this nice orange and red.

I got a little cavalier next, painted the frames for the buildings and then without any outline, went ahead and did some lettering. Not only did it not line up very well, but days later I realized I forgot the "S" in Monster.

I then added the beginnings of Sal in my favorite dress of hers and the robot. I'm a little creeped out that Sal has no eyes or hair, but I have to wait for the paint to dry before doing anything else. I also start painting over the lettering that I screwed up.

Now this was starting to look like something. I redid the lettering across the bottom, put some hair and glasses on Sal, as well as her dragon breath, and paint a pretty sweet St. Louis skyline. If you look in the top left corner, you'll notice it looks a bit different. I again messed up some lettering, but this is Slider's fault this time.

I was doing the "NEVER BEFORE SEEN..." lettering and I had paints out. The dummy decided to lay right on top of the plate I was using to mix colors. Now my back was turned during this initial thing, but I believe he probably felt wetness, sat up, licked it, and then spazzed out when he tasted paint.

All I see is a gray blob come flying around my "L" shaped desk, jumping off of my drawing table, and then shooting upstairs. I look at the paint and see hair stuck in it.

I start to chase this already panicked cat around the house, he's foaming out of his mouth, getting paint everywhere.

I catch him, put him in the bath to wash all the paint off and then make him throw up.

A day later, while Sal is eating dinner, I notice a bunch of cat painted paw prints near the piano on the floor and stealthily clean them up.

Disaster averted.

Then I had Rosie come over and do a little touching up. She put on the perfect accents to make it look a little more professional. So, after a good ten weeks of working on this for 30 minutes at a time, here is the final product.