Meet Cortnee.

So, I’m not exaggerating when I say Cortnee is the happiest person I’ve ever met. (Follow that up with the first question below.) I’m pretty sure if you needed the words, optimism, joy, and the color yellow defined, you’d really just need to meet Cortnee. Think of a sunflower. Anyway, I could go on, but I don’t need to, you’ll see how wonderful she is just by reading her responses. Ready set read! P.S. She’s working on Happiness Project, to hear more about that and to help, please click this link  ! It will direct you to her blog,. 

You are quite literally the happiest person I have ever met in my life, like constantly happy, how do you do it?
My Grandma Bebe, (my mothers mother) is one of my idols. If you think I am happy, she would blow your socks off. 😉 For as long as I can remember, she’s sung this song to me, “You’ve gotta, accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and latch on to the affirmative. Don’t mess with mister in between! You’ve gotta spread joy up to the maximum, bring gloom down to the minimum and have faith or pandemonium’s libel to walk upon the scene.” It’s become our families theme song. Each day I try to incorporate those lyrics into my every choice, thought and action. There is so much to be sad about in the world, like tons. But as I try to eliminate what makes me sad, and latch on to what makes me happy, in turn.. I’m happy. 🙂 It’s a choice I make multiple times every day.

I’ve never met someone so in love with her husband, and I’m so in love I probably make people sick, what are some pieces of advice you could offer to us about love, marriage, partnership, relationships?
🙂 It makes me happy that you can tell I love Todd. Because I kinda do with my whole everything. He is my most important. I don’t know if I feel qualified to give “advice” in my 3 whole years of marriage, but something that is embedded into our marriage that I feel could help others as well is service. I try to serve my Toddy everyday. Even if I’m a little grumpy, doing something for him immediately takes away any negative emotion and replaces it with charity. He’s really good at it, I’m still learning. 😉

Do you believe people are innately good?
I do. I think Harry Potter, (well, technically Sirus Black said it to Harry..uh oh, NERD ALERT!) said it best referring to people who feel like they aren’t “good.” He said, “You’re not a bad person. You’re a very good person, who bad things have happened to. Besides, the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”

What has been your grandest adventure?
Am I allowed to say life? Because this life is the coolest grandest adventure.. right?! 🙂 At each stage in my life, whatever I was taking part in at that moment seemed to be my “grandest” adventure. And subsequently, each of those “grandest adventures” taught me lessons and things that have made me into who I am today. The best part though is that each new “grandest” adventure that I’ve taken part in seems to get grander and grander as I experience more of what life has to offer. So, currently? My grandest adventure is being Mrs. Furness and all in entails… which I am witnessing truly is getting grander and grander each day. 🙂

How have you found joy in the journey of life?
I honestly believe that I am the most blessed person on this earth. I don’t say that lightly, I truly truly believe that I am. Noticing all my blessings each day, every little tiny thing has helped me find joy. Realizing those little blessings helps to increase the knowledge I have of my Heavenly Fathers’ awareness of me. It helps me to see His hands in each literal detail of my life. With that knowledge, how can I feel anything but joy? 🙂

What are the top five most important things you hope to teach your children?
I saved this question for last because when I first read it, it seemed so daunting to me. I remember being so “prepared” as to what kind of mother I wanted to be before Ellie got here. I had this very list, things of what I wanted to pass on to my children, what I wanted them to learn from me… etc. Then I had Ellie. 😉 My world was literally turned upside and inside out with love for this little precious soul that God Himself entrusted ME to watch over while she was away from Him. The pressure hit and all those “preparations” flew out of the window. How would I teach her all she needed to know to make it back to Him? This was a real situation now, not just a hypothetical list anymore. It’s kind of a lot scarier that I thought it was going to be. To this day, I still feel like a chicken with my head cut off, but I am doing the very best I know how to raise my best little buddy and teach her all she needs to know. It’s hard to make it into a list…I hope that I am teaching her who she is, and WHOSE she is, because if she knows that, then a lot of the other stuff will follow.

What do you believe it takes to truly love one another?
I can’t seem to form a sentence as I try to answer this; all that is coming to my mind is words. Lots of different words. So, I will write those words. 🙂 Consideration. Respect. Kindness. Patience. Forgiveness. I think encompassing those things and making them apart of our very nature give us the capacity to truly love each other, and to also feel love in return.