Life As A Lemonade Stand

  While I’m traveling in November, I’m happily sharing some of my favorite blogs from 2009. In the years after I wrote this, our family bought a little cottage in Chautauqua and now spend our summers there. We’re still close to the family in this blog and love spending time with them. Of course Fortunate…

Read More

Sunday Inspiration: How To Be Miserable

I’ve written many blogs about happiness because each one of us deserves to be happy, and there are so many things we can do to make that happen. Recently, though, I found an article in my local paper about a renowned family therapist who gives a different perspective: she asks how can we be miserable?…

Read More

Gratitude List for the New Year–Don’t Forget the Small Stuff

Last Friday I blogged about how important gratitude is in the lives of children.  Research shows children who are raised to be grateful for the world around them are, among other things, happier, most socially connected, and better students.  Gratitude isn’t just important for children, of course.  Adults who kept a gratitude journal for just three…

Read More

Four Tips to Make the Holiday Season Count

Greater Good Science Center.  Really?  I didn’t remember “liking” any such institution on my Facebook page, but now these interlopers were sending me updates. Just as I was about to send them to “unlike” purgatory, the link itself caught my eye. Gratitude vs. Materialism.  Okay, now I realized who they were.  GGSC researches emotional and social well-being and…

Read More

Summer Vacations, Summer Splendors

I’m taking a week long break from original blogs as I dive deeper into my book and still try to catch some of the most beautiful hours of late summer.  While looking back at some of my older blogs to share with you again, I came across this one written in April 2009.  It struck…

Read More

What A Difference A Letter Makes: Happy Is A Five Letter Word

I’ll confess profanity rarely bothers me. Maybe my tolerance comes from my father, who was an army staff sergeant during World War II and didn’t always remember to temper his speech later after I made my appearance. Or maybe I’m less bothered because on the radical streets of Berkeley, California, where my husband did his…

Read More

The Pollyanna Syndrome: Finding Things To Be Glad About

As a child, Pollyanna was one of my favorite movies. I loved everything about it. The setting, the acting, the story. I ached for the unloved little girl who played the “Glad” game to deal with a difficult life. I’m all for having goals. I’m all for working on them. But maybe what most of us need even more is to be glad about the things we already have, to count our blessings, because isn’t there the possibility that if we don’t, when we reach that long sought goal, we won’t even notice? We’ll just screw up our faces, tense our muscles, and start concentrating on the next one.

Read More

Just Do What You Want To Do

There are two kinds of people in the world.  Actually there are almost seven billion kinds of people in the world, but for our purposes today, I’ll simplify.  There are two kinds of people.  The kind who fall neatly into slots other people choose for them, and the kind who make their own slots.  I…

Read More

2010 and the Happiness List

Sometimes all you have to do is look around.  Last night I did, and see what I found? 2010 in shells laid down by an invisible hand.  Not only that, but the light was exactly right for a photo, and my husband had his camera.  With this kind of divine prodding, how could I NOT think about…

Read More