Sometimes it happens in a place I’ve been a million times, and today, it just looks surprisingly beautiful.

Sometimes while I’m running, I’ll round a corner, and the sun is shining through the trees just right, falling all around me like warm rain.

Sometimes it happens when I’m driving. I crest a hill, and the symmetry of the road ahead of me, the trees, the gently rolling hills of Missouri create the most beautiful image of familiarity. (I’m specifically thinking of the trip on I-44 between Joplin and Springfield, one I’ve traveled hundreds of times.)

Sometimes it happens in place that’s famous for its vista, like the snowy mountains in Colorado; the picturesque, traditional view from my hotel in Grindelwald, Switzerland; looking over St. Louis from the top of the Arch; flying in over any city as you approach for landing; or looking out over Marburg from the Schloss on the hill.

I love it. It brightens my spirit and lightens my mood.

As we got older, we enjoyed the freedom of our own cars, so we would plant ourselves at a Mexican restaurant, eat free chips and salsa, and play cards for hours. (Don’t worry—we always tipped well!) I remember spending hours in Beth’s room listening to the Beatles, eating Cheez-its, and playing cards. I remember play cards all night at my house: Spit, the game I always won. It’s a very long game, and Mom would inevitably come in several times throughout the night telling us to keep it down (we laughed a lot) and that we should go to bed. “But Mom, I’m winning!”

Our senior year of high school, we had lunch period together, so we would just stay in the classroom and play canasta. We kept a running total of the score that year. I think by the time we graduated, Beth was ahead something like 45,000 to my sad and embarrassing 20,000.

It didn’t stop when we got to college. The only thing that changed was the Mexican restaurant (Cielito Lindo, of course!) and the place we played in. Now that Beth lived off campus, we usually met at her house to play. I even remember a few late nights at the campus Steak’n'Shake.

We play all sorts of games: spades, 500, several versions of spit, speed, canasta (house rules), gin, rummy, gin rummy, golf, you name it! We both like to win (who doesn’t!), but we never hold grudges. The best way to get over losing is to play a game that you’re good at and your playing partner isn’t.

From the time I arrived back in Springfield after getting the job until we moved, I met Deanna many times for queso and ritas. We sat on the patio and just talked and laughed. It was wonderful.

Right now, as I sit here so many miles away from my dear friends and family, those evenings at Cielito Lindo make me happy. And there are so many other memories with Deanna that also make me happy: impromptu lunches while she worked at ANPAC; weekends in my dorm our sophomore year of college; the Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone opening night at Campbell 16; prom dress-up parties; the night we created that drink called something about Bermuda grass; lunches in the band room with our group.

As this list will continue to show, my friends make me happy.

Quite often we talk about our fighting patterns and how we view problems. I think our view of problems is one of the reasons that we will be married for the rest of our lives. We see problems and the fights that deal with them as vehicles for growth within our marriage.

First and foremost, the fights (which are not always ugly fights, by the way, but are usually discussions about a rising problem) serve as communication. Instead of bottling up what bothers us, we talk about it. Right then. We try to work it out.

But this is a life-long committment we have made to each other, so we recognize that most, if not all, of our problems just simply cannot be solved in one sitting. Our lives and personalities are complex, and so are the problems that arise from meshing two such lives and personalities together. There is no quick fix.

So we talk, and we argue, and we test solutions. Then we talk some more, make suggestions, and each of us just keeps working on our end of the problem. There are many iterations of this process, for many different problems, going on all the time in our relationship. We are working, testing, retesting, and solving all the time.

And every now and then, I feel like we have finally solved something, finally figured it out, and that’s when I feel happy and accomplished.

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We haven’t been married that long, only a little over 3 1/2 years, but we’ve dealt with enough to know how strong our marriage is.

Before we were married, I had a lot of debt. Rob didn’t have money, but he helped me in a more intangible way: He showed me what I needed to do to get out of debt. And he stayed with me when we were eating Tuna Helper every night. He had fun with me going to two McDonald’s for free dinner right after they went 24 hours and were giving away coupons for free Big Macs.

The first year and a half was rough. We were adjusting to each other. We both naturally have tempers, but we had some great pre-marital counseling, so we got through our ugly fighting stage, and we are stronger for it. We talked a lot about our fighting during that time, as well. And we learned something. Those fights, they weren’t threatening our relationship. They were (and are) opportunities for us to better understand each other. Opportunities to grow. Together.

There are many other stories I can tell that might convince you that I have a wonderful husband and that we are happily married, but I am not writing this for you. These stories are for me and my 100 Things list, because they are an intricate part of why being happily married makes me so much happier than having all the money in the world.

The night I started crying because I felt fat and didn’t think I could ever get healthy, he took me to the kitchen and we threw away all the unhealthy food. The next day, he took me shopping for healthy food.

Recently, we made an international move. It was a stressful time in our relationship, but we talked about our plans; the potential problems with them, from both of our points of view; then found solutions that we were both happy with.

I’m totally going to be adding to this as I think of more stories.

I took a picture the first time I solved it on my own, without Mac, in the band room. It was a great feeling! I have to be honest; being able to solve the cube makes me feel like I’m a part of a special group. I think that is part of the reason that being able to solve it makes me happy. I mean, doesn’t everyone like to feel special?

Another reason that the cube makes me happy is really only tangential. When I am studying, grading, or reading for school, I have to be doing something with my hands in order to focus on what I am reading. When I realized that, I was eating to satisfy this desire. That made me search for another way to study and avoid gaining 40 bajillion pounds. I have used every thing from playing with silly putty, shuffling cards, and mixing the Rubik’s Cube. The Rubik’s Cube is especially nice because when I need a break, solving it offers my mind just the escape from work that it needs. In other words, the Rubik’s Cube makes me happy because it helps me focus and be productive, some things Linden 2.0 is especially focused on.

I have successfully taught only one other person to solve the Rubik’s Cube, but if you would like to learn, just capture me some afternoon, and I’ll spread the wealth.

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I think the main reason that taking pictures is so important to me is that memories are encapsulated in those images. Photos are a way of memorializing my life: the places I’ve been, the experiences I’ve had, and the people I’ve met and who have changed my life. Especially now that I am 4,755 miles from my dear family and friends, the special moments.

Taking good pictures is also important to me because I can capture just a little bit of God’s power in the beauty of the world. I love taking pictures of flowers and the sky. I have hundreds of these pictures on my back-up hard drive. (I recently had a friend whose hard drive crashed and he lost all his art: pictures, stories, poems, and the first chapter of his novel! Don’t let it happen to you.)

There’s one final reason that I value my skill for taking pictures is exactly that: it’s a skill. I have been interested in it since Betsy in high school had her camera everywhere and always had good pictures of exciting moments. When I got to college, I took an intersession class on photography. After that class, I realized just how much there is to this skill and that I want to develop that skill. It’s a nice hobby to have, and I look forward to getting better as I get older. To that end, I have just started a photoblog. There isn’t any thing on it (as of right now), but I hope that eventually it will get hits from professionals and fellow amateurs who will give me tips.

Because my dear Aunt Linda almost died in 1989, save for blood donations, I knew before I even knew what I wanted to be when I grew up that I wanted to donate blood too, so someone else wouldn’t lose her beloved, funny aunt.

As soon as I turned 17, I donated. It wasn’t regular, every 8 weeks, but I gave blood. I gave blood when I moved away to college too. Giving blood makes me feel so happy so easily because one donation can save the lives of up to three people. Three people! What other action can you do in an easy 30 minutes that can save three lives? I don’t know of one. Sure, you have to endure a little bit of pain, but it is minimal considering that my short-lived pain can allow other people to live.

I began to donate regularly in 2004, and would still be doing so today. Unfortunately, I learned in late 2006 that I have a genetic disorder that increases the likelihood that my blood will clot, so I was disqualified from donating. I cried. Not enough people donate blood as it is, and now I am unable to as well. I hope that, in the future, I can find someway to participate in blood donation, but I can give my own blood anymore.

Several years after my aunts were in a car accident, I learned another lesson about helping others. In 8th grade, I joined Key Club because all my friends we’re joining and some older kids that I looked up to, and who doesn’t want to help other people? Key Club is a community service organization, so our meetings centered around projects that would enable us youngins to make a difference in our community. We Trick-or-Treated for canned goods fully costumed a week before Halloween to collect non-perishables for local homeless people. We helped to deliver beautiful bundles of daffodils that people had ordered to donate money to the American Cancer Society.

We, as 13 and 14 year olds, learned that by giving our time to help people who had endured a more difficult life than we had, could grow as people, we could discover that we did have an impact on our world when every one around us made us feel like we were just little teenagers. It is a power lesson to learn.

Helping others does not have to be done through an organization like Key Club, Kiwanis, or Rotary. Your local church, your kid’s school, and even the post office offers many opportunities to experience the joy that comes from helping other people. Don’t miss them. See if your city has a Ronald McDonald House and volunteer. Help out at your local soup kitchen with your kids on cold weekends in the winter. I read about a family who prepares 20 sack lunches together on Saturday mornings and delivers them to homeless people.

There are many ways to discover the true happiness that comes from selfless acts. Don’t miss them!

I think I like sudoku because it gives my logic muscles a work out. In middle school, I was in the gifted program and our teacher always had us do logic problems. I sucked at them, but Rose and Silas were always rock stars at ‘em. And they were fast, too! I was always envious because they had some ability that I didn’t.

But later I realized that logic is as much a muscle as my hamstring. The more I stretch and strengthen it, the better it gets.

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I play paper sudoku whenever I get the chance, but, because I’m fascinated by stats and records, I love playing at WebSudoku.com. It’s customizable, so if you wan to be able to make notes like you might on paper sudoku, it’s possible. If you want hints, there are three different settings for hints. When you have completed a puzzle, you will find out how well your time rates against other people who have completed puzzles at that level. It’s perfect for those with a competitive nature! But be careful: If you received any hints along the way, this report does not display.

Brain Age I and II for the Nintendo DS both offer sudoku, and the interface is excellent. Once you get used to using the top screen for “figuring” and the bottom screen only for writing, it goes very quickly.

I think there are many reasons why fresh flowers bring me joy. My grandma has an amazing green thumb. She can grow or revive anything! So there were always beautiful things, like red geraniums, growing around their house.

Also, in the yard of the house where I grew up, we had some beautiful purple iris bushes.

I love getting flowers. Roses I love, not only because they are beautiful, but because they smell amazing. I think the mutli-colored ones are gorgeous. When I have a house of my own, I want to have a rose bush.

Tulips! I can’t explain why I like them, but I think they are exotic. I hope that while we are here in Europe, I’ll get to see fields and fields of Dutch tulips!

When I was young and we lived in Kansas City, Poppy owned a couple houses that he rented out. Whenever Daniel and I would “help” Poppy out for the afternoon, I’d spend most of the time playing in the big lilac bush in the yard of one of the houses. It was so fun, and I loved the smell of those big beautiful blooms.

In high school, the Key Club took part in Daffodil Days: We would spend afternoon delivering the daffodils that people had ordered to support the American Cancer Society. I think I helped with that for four years. It was amazing to walk in the Presbyterian Church and see tables full of daffodils. Also, I couldn’t get to my best friend’s house in Neosho without driving by a field of daffodils.