So what makes you happy?

[warwick.hoy]

The 1 bdr we lived in was about the same sq footage. Don't get me wrong,...I don't wanna make it sound like it was any sort of hardship,...there is absolutely nothing wrong with apartment dwelling,...I did it for a long long time as did my wife,....but at some point you just outgrow it.

Factor in the basement and the garage of the current house we live in,...and we about tripled our square footage,...and with minimal additions we have a pretty well furnished home (I say well,...but don't mean properly,....none of our furniture matches,....to which I don't really give a fuck). When I consider how well furnished and decently decorated this house is. I'm floored that at one time most of the stuff in the house occupied an apartment.

I do have one room that is functioning as a storage room and it is relatively empty aside form a few stacks of DVDs and CDs, a TV I don't give a fuck about and some cheap old particle board wal mart cabinets that are better suited for the dump. It's where the Table Tennis Table is and I really ought to clear out some of the crap and make more room to play.

We are also storing a lot of stuff for a friend in transition to help her out, I'm hoping it's pretty temporary.

Beyond that,...we have the common areas and we each have our own spaces to do with what we please. Mine being my shop and the wife's being her craft room. That really is the key. Having your own personal space.

[Bassboar]

I really like drones, something about them makes me so serene and happy. Harmonies, be they natural or manmade, are something I've always loved. Trees give me this almost sickening amount of happiness, they just astonish me. I can stare at an enormous oak for hours on end. Sleep is one of my greatest pleasures, as is good food and good company, I guess I'm very easy to please.

[dubkitty]

cats. cheese. hugs. noodles. pizza. stained glass. marijuana. knowing that i'm loved. the sound of an oboe. camping in the mountains. mountains generally. trees, especially big trees. large dramatic rainstorms with lightning and thunder and stuff. sunset over the ocean. playing a solo that i think is good and effectively moves the song forward. finding a perfect backing part. being able to hit the high harmony part nobody else can get that fills out the arrangement. learning new stuff. helping other people. reading. riding my bicycle. driving at high speeds down the highway while listening to music. absolutely losing myself in making love with someone. swimming underwater in comfortably warm water. climbing into bed with lots of covers on, pulling them up to my ears, and curling up like a five-year-old under the weight of all those blankets, sleepy, safe, and content.

[kaboom]

sunlight.
things i can make noise with.
coffee.
delicious snax.

[alexa.]

Sound waves

[jfrey]

That avatar ^

[DuoSonicII]

Stuff that makes me happy? Pedlulz, obviously. Tube amps, especially old ones - they smell great. Old stuff in general, like Adoom said. Most American vintage guitars are way overpriced, but I have some crazy 70s and 80s Japanese stuff - Electras, Grecos etc. I love old radios, especially Crosleys. My grandpa used to restore old furniture, so I have a good bit of that. They definitely don't make stuff like they used to.

Fast cars - not fancy ones, just fast ones. First car I bought was a used '93 Mustang 5.0, it was awesome. I've had two WRXs since then, awesome in a different kinda way. Dark beers. Flannel shirts. Dickies jackets and hoods. Fall, and spring. Living on a river. An occasional drag off the pipe or a Backwoods cigar. Ambien. Football and baseball games, and tailgating with my dudes. Old-school football and baseball jerseys. Girls with heels and cleavage.

I was married for six years and owned a big house for four, and in that time I accumulated a ton of stuff. Didn't realize how much crap I had until I had to move it all. Some stuff is definitely worth the hassle of keeping - music gear, tools, books, CDs and records, special things with sentimental value - but a lot of the stuff in my life was just crap I could do without. Since then, I've been working hard to get rid of the crap I don't need and to stop accumulating more of it.

[Achtane]

Instruments, but mainly guitars of which I have a few now. I really like messing around with cheap guitars, seeing how they're put together and personalizing them. I'll do it a lot more when I get a job. I like doing setups, cleaning them up, changing out parts, stuff like that.
I like my pedalboard, the board itself. Well, and the pedals too.
The painted bathroom door I got from the local record store that went under, as well as a couple of the paintings they sold. That door might be the coolest thing I've bought.
DIY'd useful stuff.
Obscure Japanese movies and music. I have a bigger digital collection than I do physical though.

I can never think of anything when I have the opportunity to express it. There's more, but I guess that's most of it in terms of material things.
I get why people like minimalism in their living space but personally I feel really uncomfortable in rooms that are (relatively) bare.

Other things:
Rain (except when the roof leaks) and the way everything smells when it first starts raining. There's a word for that, "petrichor", but nobody ever uses it.
Looking at Christmas lights without my glasses or contacts on.
Also the feeling of an active city at night.

Sometimes, well actually a lot of times, I'll look at something and think "man, that is strange if you really consider it" which eventually leads to "being alive is pretty fucking crazy". And then I'll think about the size of Earth compared to various huge-ass celestial bodies, the expanse of space, the history of mankind and everything else, or maybe how the lives of people are very short and only important in relation to other things and blow my own mind.
Anyway, if I'm feeling down about something then this might help put it into perspective and at least bum me out a little less. Depending on what it is. Maybe that's not "happiness", per se...but still.
I dunno. Probably if I ever said this in "real life" the response would be "dude, are you high?"

WHICH LEADS TO THE NEXT THING.
Being able to relate to people or connect even semi-deeply is really nice.

[snipelfritz]

A small child fell off their skooter today near me as I was smoking a cigarette. I went inside and didn't look back. That made me happy.

[01010111]

I like things with a story behind them. I buy lots of books and movies even though I am able to borrow whatever I want to read or watch most of the time. Being warm. Chocolate. Silence. Being loud. Sleeping with no intention of waking up. I have an intense hate of knick-knacks and clutter (I find my sprawling music stuff annoying sometimes unless I can make it at least visually appealing in someway). And lately I've found myself unbearable so I really like to be around people.

[kevinhifi]

Aside from material things, which never really provide true happiness for me, and my wonderful family, I find infinite happiness from making things. I have this eternal desire to produce. It's sort of a curse...or an addiction. In the more recent years, I've focused it on effect pedals, which I've found easy to do while being a dad and so so so rewarding.

And loud rock and roll. Listening or playing...it does matter as long as it's ear-splitting loud.

[smile_man]

tumblr
ableton live
max msp
the fact that ive never really listened to the beatles/zeppelin/floyd

i would love to have a super minimal house, but clutter follows me around. it's so much easier to not put things away, after all, i might use them later.

[Gearmond]

being loved
cool stuff
doing things

broadly speaking of course

[magiclawnchair]

i have this crochet turkey my mom made when i was a little kid. she would put it out as a center piece in november. after i moved out it i would make jokes about stealing it. my mom gave it to me before they moved to canada.

and my bich...

[snipelfritz]

and my bich...

That's Latin for generosity!

Yall are a bunch of saps.

I also like touching myself.