# 5 HAPPINESS IS...

When one is sad, happiness cannot always be achieved by weeping. As I said in my previous blog, when I am sad there is little comfort at my age in having a good cry. But there is big comfort in other things. Chocolate, oh yes! There is big comfort in chocolate.

But with Hub being a diabetic I cannot buy chocolate bars every time I head into town. And if I do, and hide a stash, and he discovers it, which has happened a couple of times, he is mighty offended. He seems to be losing his trust in my forthrightness and honesty when it comes to snacks – particularly snacks with a high sugar content. In fact, just this morning he noticed an empty Cheezie Bag in the garbage.

His comment, "So what else are you buying and eating on the sly. I see you finished off a bag of Cheezies last night without even offering me any!"

The real truth was while I was searching for tobacco dust in the car (see previous post), I had taken an empty bag of cheezies and some other refuse from the inside pocket of the car door and tossed the stuff in the kitchen garbage. I was pleased this was the case because I refuse to lie to Hub. That kind of stuff can create major rifts in a relationship, but at the same time withholding non-pertinent information is okay. Isn’t it?

Anyway, I am happy and upbeat today because I have discovered a quick and easy fix for my moments of sadness. A quick fix that I want to share with you because it is so swift, so easy, and so-so good. I found it in a recipe book authored by Susan Blackman and Dawn Ius called "Golden Spoon". A recipe quicker and more simple than most cake mixes.

It's just this simple.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Place the following ingredients in a large bowl in the order given without stirring. 1 cup sugar (I used ¾ c.), 1 egg, ½ c. milk, ½ c. (soft) butter, ¼ teas. salt, 1 teas. soda, 1 teas. baking powder, 1 teas. vanilla, 1 ½ c. flour, ½ c. cocoa, ¾ c. boiling water. Mix well and pour into a greased 9 x 9 inch pan and bake for 35 minutes.

I popped some of that into my mouth when it came out of the oven, and ‘Voila’, I was a changed woman. So my question is, "How come the experts and the educated therapists don’t advocate this kind of fix for depression when it works so well?"

*little happy dance across the room, down the hall…snapping fingers, swaying bum, and flexing ‘back’…no not like flexing spine – like ‘flexing back’ into the kitchen for more*