Catching Happiness

Field Trip Friday--The Enchanting Le Vieux Couvent

February 01, 2019

Early morning at LVC

It’s Friday, and it’s cold, and it’s February—would you like to escape to an enchanted place, even for a few minutes?

W-a-a-a-y back in October, I had the privilege of traveling with Laure Ferlita to her workshop at Le Vieux Couvent, following our stay in Paris.

LVC, as we call it, is in the little village of Frayssinet in southwest rural France, about five hours from Paris. As its name suggests, it is an old convent—17^th century—converted into a special event and art retreat center. The hosts, Bill and Corinne, were utterly charming, the gourmet food out of this world (I now have a taste for duck), and the whole experience, hands down, one of the most delightful and extraordinary of my life.

Today’s Field Trip Friday will focus only on LVC and the village of Frayssinet. (I’ll save photos of our explorations of the region for future installments.)

After taking the train from Paris, our group met in the courtyard for aperitif (a delightful practice we repeated during our entire stay at various locations around LVC). Corinne welcomed us, and we eventually dispersed to our various rooms.

An aperitif--there was always wine, too!

In addition to the main building where the kitchen, dining room, salon, and most of the bedrooms were located, there was also a studio and a house just down the road where Laure and I stayed in separate apartments.

I stayed here, at Joel's house, in a separate building

My neighbor

Everywhere you looked there was an enticing path, something blooming, or an “is this real?” scene. Sketching opportunities everywhere!

Kitchen courtyard

Herbs outside the kitchen door

A small selection of art books at a table at the entrance to the studio

The food, oh the food…

Breakfast

Lunch

Picnic lunch

A first course

A cheese course--look at the grape scissors!

We did a little exploring of the area around LVC, and joined the local community one Friday night at the bar that only opens on Friday night. Everyone was welcome—visitors, dogs, babies…

Village rooftops

And just next door, was a Little Free Library. I didn’t get any closer than this, unfortunately, to see the books on hand.

View from the studio--original convent building on left

The village church

The staff at LVC were also outstanding, including Corrine and Bill’s hard-working son, Joel, whose talents ranged from serving meals to unclogging showers to rebuilding kitchens. And Bill, who acted as host and tour guide—well, there are no words that do justice to him. He was quite a character.

Using LVC as our base, we explored some of the surrounding villages, including St. Cirque La Popie, Castlefranc, and Sarlat, the Chateau de Beynac, and prehistoric caves at Cougnac. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little trip to the south of France as much as I enjoyed reviewing my photos and memories. I’ll share more of our experiences in future Field Trip Friday posts.

Laure is planning another workshop at LVC in October 2020—click here for more information. If you want a once-in-a-lifetime art retreat experience, I can’t recommend this experience highly enough.

Aesthetics of joy

The “Aesthetics of Joy”—Creating an Environment That Boosts Happiness

January 28, 2019

While it’s true that a good measure of our happiness depends on internal factors like attitudes and beliefs, it’s NOT true that our environment has nothing to do with feelings of joy and happiness.

Designer Ingrid Fetell Lee’s 2018 book, Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness, (Little, Brown Spark) is all about how the “seemingly mundane spaces and objects we interact with every day have surprising and powerful effects on our mood.”

Lee calls these the “aesthetics of joy,” and they are: energy, abundance, freedom, harmony, play, surprise, transcendence, magic, celebration, renewal.

Joyful is one of the most intriguing books on happiness I’ve read. It was interesting to read the scientific reasoning behind why certain objects and spaces lift the spirits while others depress them. Lee’s thorough examination of the factors that contribute to joy was thought-provoking—from the questions (on page 10) that help you determine if your surroundings are joyful or not (including “How often do you laugh?”, “What emotions do you feel when you walk into your home at the end of the day? How about when you enter each room?”, “Who are the most joyful people in your life? How often do you see them?” and “What are your ‘happy places’? Are any within ten miles of your home? When was the last time you visited one?”) to her statement that, “At the heart of this book lies the idea that joy isn't just something we find. It’s also something we can make, for ourselves and for those around us.”

She continues, “You can use this book as a field guide to spotting and savoring more joy in your surroundings, to help you gain a better understanding of why certain things and places light you up inside. And you can also use it as a palette, to design and craft more joy into your world.”

You can also download a “Joyful Toolkit” at Lee's blog, aestheticsofjoy.com. These worksheets will take you through exercises to discover what brings you joy, as well as what activities, people, and places kill your joy.

I’ve unconsciously been pursing the aesthetics of joy through what I call simple pleasures and everyday adventures. My penchant for pretty notebooks and painting my home office lavender are just two small examples. Now Joyful has given me a whole raft of things to think about and experiment with in regard to what places, people, and activities bring me joy. I definitely recommend it if you want to find simple, doable actions that will make you feel more joyful.

What would add joy and happiness to your life today?

Link love

New Year, New Link Love

January 25, 2019

Luna ready for action

Happy Friday, everyone! I don’t mean to rub it in, but here in Florida we’re enjoying a stretch of pleasant weather—i.e., cool temperatures and lower humidity. I haven’t had to wear shorts for a couple of weeks! (Everyone is happy about that.) Today, I’m going to take Luna for a walk and work on a freelance project with my windows open! Simple pleasure!

Here are a few tidbits from my recent internet explorations that I think you might find interesting:

I find almost everything David writes on Raptitude thought-provoking. Here’s a short excerpt from his “How to Enjoy Life”:

“Life’s enjoyment isn’t all locked up the things we want to do. There’s enjoyment available to us in almost all of the obligatory maintenance stuff too. It is possible to enjoy standing in line at the deli, sweeping the floor, turning the compost pile, sitting in traffic, and untangling Christmas lights—unless we see those parts of life simply as obstacles to the enjoyable parts, as we often do....

“We don’t do these things—or most things—for reasons of pleasure, but pleasure is available in most things.”

A few words of caution and advice regarding the constant insistence that we leave our comfort zones from “Please Stop Telling Me to Leave My Comfort Zone”:

“In a world of increasing demands on our time and attention, our comfort zones act as predictable spaces of mastery where we can seek refuge when the stress becomes too much. They act as containers to shore up confidence, gain momentum, and think clearly. When we spend less time grappling with discomfort, we can focus more on what matters most. If the people who routinely push themselves past their comfort zones are metaphorically skydiving out of airplanes, those of us who choose to operate from within our comfort zones are serenely laying bricks, creating a home we can thrive in.”

An unexpected loss spurred Emily Maloney to write “Why I’ve Become a Now Person.” The amount of upheaval in my own life in the past few months made this piece resonate with me. “Make all your resolutions immediate,” she writes. Working on it.

If you’re still working on not caring what others think (as I am), here’s some advice from Marelisa Fabrega at Daring to Live Fully:

“If you rely on the opinion of others to feel good about yourself, then of course you’re going to give a lot of importance to what others think of you.

“Therefore, if you want to stop caring what others think, you need to start relying on yourself for validation, instead of relying on the validation of others. That is, you need to trust yourself.”

Gretchen Rubin knows plenty about happiness—it was 10 years ago that her book The Happiness Project came out. In this post, she shares “30 Tips I Use to Make Myself Happier, Right Now.” Because, “Yes, of course, sometimes terrible circumstances make it impossible for me to be happy, but it’s almost always possible to be happier, and often with just a few small steps, I can give myself a big boost.”

Futureme.org allows users to write letters to their future selves. What encouragement or wisdom could you send to yourself one year, five years from now? This idea intrigues me, and it’s free.

One of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, passed away on January 17. She’s a good choice if you’re not sure you’ll enjoy reading poetry. Read about her life here (I just discovered we shared the same birthday!)

Or listen to her read her poem “The Summer Day,” which ends with the lines most of us have heard:

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?”

Note: Starting this month, the Happy Little Thoughts newsletter will hit your inbox on the last Wednesday of the month. Not a subscriber? Click here. (If you already subscribe to Catching Happiness blog updates, you’ll receive the newsletter automatically.)

Happiness

Refreshed

January 21, 2019

Photo by Randy Fath on Unsplash

I’m back. So where were we?

The past two weeks flew by (what a surprise). After wrapping up a couple of freelance writing assignments, I enjoyed some much-needed rest and mental downtime. During my time off, I:

Watched Tidying Up With Marie Kondo on Netflix. I know her methods can be somewhat controversial, but I found her presence soothing, and her attitude respectful rather than shaming, even in the face of American-style excess.

Took down the “happiness souvenirs” from my bulletin board. There were fewer than in previous years, but I think that was because I didn’t do a great job of collecting them, rather than that there were fewer happy moments.

Created a vision board for 2019.

Thought about and brainstormed on my word of the year, “rise.”

Mostly I rested my brain and my emotions.

By the end of 2018, I was mentally and physically exhausted. I got sick twice (which is unusual for me), and found myself eating junk food uncontrollably and leaving the TV on all day for comfort. I needed a reset. I share this because even though I know better, I don’t think I’m the only one who sometimes runs off the rails when life gets crazy. And while my reset came at the beginning of a new year, it’s something we can do any time of year. Call a halt to “normal” and take a look at where our habits are taking us.

Now I’m creating a new morning routine, working on goals again, and also leaving time for play and unstructured creative time. I’ve got some great books on happiness to share with you, some new links to love, and more trips to France for Field Trip Friday. I feel refreshed and ready to dig in to life again.

Hello, 2019.

So what’s new with you?

Breaks

Out With the Old, In With the New (Year)

January 04, 2019

Photo courtesy malohan, via Pixabay

It’s a bright, shiny new year. How is it treating you so far?

So far so good, here at Catching Happiness. I’m happy to say my freelance work continues to flow in, and our son recently passed his (very difficult) 2-20 property and casualty insurance agent’s license exam. A child’s success: that’s a happy BIG thing.

The end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 have been a scramble. I’m slowly making the time to reflect on 2018 as well as begin to think about goals and projects for 2019. In November, I’ll have been producing Catching Happiness for 10 years. How is that even possible?! I still remember how exciting and scary it felt to click publish for the first time. I’ll have to come up with a fitting way for us all to celebrate!

“Flow” was my 2018 word of the year, and it served me well. I worked and traveled more than I have in past years, and I lost a parent. We also added a puppy to the household, and even though Luna’s a year old now, she still requires significant training and supervision—and she’s not always getting it. (My husband’s Christmas slippers didn’t survive a week!) For the past few months of 2018, I’ve felt like I was riding a raft in white water—going with the flow was a fitting image to hang onto.

I’ve been thinking a lot about where I want to go, figuratively speaking, in 2019. My comforting routines have fallen by the wayside and need to be rebuilt. I’m still getting used to life at my new barn. The owner is wonderful, and it will be a good situation in the long run, but we’re still finding our footing. I need to simplify my life (again) so I can pay attention to the things that mean the most to me. (And I have a lot of messes to clean up. A. Lot. Of. Messes.)

I think my word of the year for 2019 is going to be “rise.” It keeps knocking on the door of my consciousness, but I don’t know what it’s trying to tell me yet. Guess I’ll have 12 months to figure it out.

Do you choose a word of the year? How is your planning for 2019 going? What are some of your hopes and dreams for the new year? What was great about 2018, and what lessons did it teach you? Please share in the comments below!

Traditionally, I’ve taken a break during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I didn’t get the chance to do that last week, so I’m going to take next week off instead. Be back soon!

Holidays

Whew, What a Year!

December 31, 2018

Remember this? This happened in 2018!

I don’t know about you, but for me 2018 was f.u.l.l. The last few months have been a mad scramble, and I’m planning some time off this week to recover. I’d take more time, but I already have writing deadlines! (Yay for writing deadlines.)

Before 2018 becomes history, I want to say thank you to you, my Catching Happiness friends. Thank you for reading, for commenting, and even for lurking (I lurk on multiple blogs myself). Working on Catching Happiness is one of the pleasures of my life.

Happy New Year, and see you in 2019!

Quotes

Savor the Present

December 28, 2018

“One of the most important things I've learned during the last fifteen years is how to enjoy and savor the present. When I am writing, I am inside the sound and meaning of the words, playing with them, curling them around each other. When I am eating, I luxuriate in the taste and texture of every bite. When I am alone, I listen to and communicate with the silence within me and the noises and messages of the world around me.

“And when I am with people, I am really with them.”

—Rita Golden Gelman, Tales of a Female Nomad

Happiness

Wishing You Holiday Happiness

December 24, 2018

Prudy, Luna, Tank, and all the humans here at Catching Happiness wish you and your loved ones much holiday happiness, whatever your traditions may be.

Emily Grosholz

What Will You Miss When You’re Gone?

December 21, 2018

Introduction by Ted Kooser: Do others of you think about what you'll miss when you leave this life? For me it will be the great skies over my part of the world. Here’s Emily Grosholz’s take on this, from her new book The Stars of Earth: New and Selected Poems, from Word Galaxy Press. She lives and teaches in Pennsylvania.

Here and There

What will I miss when I'm gone?

The squeak of the wheelbarrow's wheel,

Grace note that strikes with every slow

Revolution, and then the hushed, rusty

Answer in triplets from the invisible

Bird in the lackluster maples.

Branches, weeds, last autumn’s leavings

Raked from the moss-eaten pads, beds,

Borders, still untrimmed hedges.

Also the silent pale blue bells

Of my half dozen borage, ringed,

Self-seeded from the woods.

Daylilies my mother liked to set

Roadside in June. Pale Greek anemones

She never traveled far enough

To find wild, as I did once or twice, but

Maybe I'll bring her some, if over there

Windflowers blow beside a cloudy sea.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2017 by Emily Grosholz, “Here and There (from “June”), from The Stars of Earth: New and Selected Poems, (Word Galaxy Press, 2017). Poem reprinted by permission of Emily Grosholz and the publisher. Introduction copyright©2018 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Happiness

Tools to Help You Build a Foundation of Happiness

December 17, 2018

Friday’s quote from Operation Happiness got me thinking about the concept of building a foundation for happiness—the kind of foundation that will support us when we’re deep in grief, facing some of life’s more wrenching experiences, like losing a parent, watching a child struggle, or coping with the serious illness of a friend.

Building a foundation for happiness of this nature involves more than investing in some bubble bath and chocolate, or even a great book and cozy blanket. While comforting self-care rituals are nice (and necessary), by themselves they won’t be enough to support us during our darkest hours.

I went back through the Catching Happiness archives, and I thought about the things that have helped me most during my hardest times, and here are four I’ve found useful in building a foundation of happiness that sustains me. Perhaps they’ll help you, too.

Create and strengthen close personal relationships. Relationships are the number one contributing factor to happiness, according to a long-running Harvard study. I’m grateful that I have quality relationships with my family and my husband’s family. I also have many close friends, and many “virtual” friends I know only online. They’ve stepped in to offer support, love, encouragement and more when I’ve needed it most. I have several people I know are only a phone call or text message away if I really need help (and I hope they know I would do the same for them). It’s easier to walk through the dark valleys when someone walks beside you.

Determine and write about your personal values. Surprisingly, this is one of the keys to coping well with stressful situations. Sometimes painful feelings result from not doing what someone else expects you to do, or from making hard choices. When you’re tired of struggling, remembering why you’ve chosen to think, behave, and live the way you do can help. Reminding yourself of your personal values can give you strength when you’re suffering.

Treat your body well. Eat healthfully, exercise, and get enough sleep. If you’re run down or sick, it’s much harder to feel happy. If, like me, you have a few nagging injuries, look into how to treat them…then actually do it! Care for yourself the way you would care for a child or someone dependent on you.

Make a list of simple mood boosters. This may seem frivolous in comparison, but there is a time and place for using mood boosters. When you’re knee deep in misery, you’ll be hard pressed to come up with anything that might lift your mood, so now is the time to think about what generally makes you feel happier. See “Five Ways to Feel Happier (in 10 Minutes or Less)” and “The Dark Side” for ways I boost my mood when sadness threatens to overwhelm me.

If your happiness is built on a foundation of deeper values and practices, it will stay with you, running like an underground river even when you face un-happy experiences. Happy feelings will return, and sorrow and grief are temporary.

For more ways to seek deeper happiness, check out:

“Surprised by Happiness”

“Streaming Happiness”

Happiness

How to Build a Foundation for Sustainable Happiness

December 14, 2018

“Part of building a foundation for sustainable happiness involves preparing to weather the most challenging times with as much peace, light, and inner fitness as possible. The way to do this is to gain skills that help us create supportive, go-to responses for emotional pain and tools to help us find the strength to take baby steps toward healing that lift us up, help us process, and empower us through our journey. Part of changing our view about happiness is embracing the idea that there are always encouraging tools and resources to reach for in any life situation if we’re willing to take action.”

—Kristi Ling, Operation Happiness: The 3-Step Plan to Creating a Life of Lasting Joy, Abundant Energy, and Radical Bliss

What tools and skills do you use to cope with emotionally difficult times?

Happiness

Four Things I’ve Been Thinking About Lately

December 10, 2018

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

I’ve been having trouble getting back into the habit of writing for Catching Happiness—maybe you’ve noticed? My life has been…full…lately, and I’m playing catch-up in more than one area. So to ease back into post writing, here are four things I’ve been pondering lately:

Life is too short to sweat the small stuff.
Being around people who have lost loved ones has reminded me that so many of the little things I fret and obsess over (which dog food to switch Luna to now that she’s a year old, for example) are just that: little things. They barely matter now, and won’t matter at all in 10 years. That’s becoming my new rule of thumb: will this matter in 10 years? I’m just worn out with all of the obsessing.

I have no idea how long it takes to do anything.
I just read Dan Charnas’ book Work Clean: The Life-changing Power of Mise en Place to Organize Your Life, Work, and Mind, and took away some helpful ideas. Charnas takes principles he’s learned from interviewing dozens of culinary professionals and executives and tweaks them to apply to work and life outside the kitchen. One thing I’ve discovered while doing one of the exercises from the book is that many of my projects take longer than I think they do. I also forget to factor in the time it takes to transition between activities, make and eat breakfast and lunch, take care of our pets, and shower and change clothes after a workout! All those little things add up to a big chunk of day that I’ve not accounted for, and so I wind up scheduling too many things in a day, leaving me feeling unproductive and defeated.

It’s OK to feel sad.
After my dad died, one of my close friends lost her mother, and a friend from my old boarding barn became dizzy and fell while getting out of a car, and passed away from her injuries. Even though my life is unutterably blessed, I feel sad—sad for my friends, sad that I won’t have these people in my life, sad that we have to say good-bye permanently before we’re ready to do so.

But it’s OK to feel happy, too.
Friday as I was pouring my cup of Barnie’s Creamy Buttery Caramel coffee (no affiliation) and getting ready to sit down and write this post, I felt a little lift of my spirits that I haven’t felt in probably at least a month. Do I dare to feel happy? Yes, I think so. Sad doesn’t last forever, 24/7, just the way happy doesn’t. And that’s OK, too.

These are just a few of the ideas that have been floating around in my head as I try to get back to “normal,” whatever that is going to look like. I’d like to thank all of you for your kind comments and for sticking with Catching Happiness when there wasn’t much happiness to be caught!

What have you been thinking about lately?

Flow

In the Flow

December 07, 2018

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

“Water teaches us things, with the most valuable lesson probably being: flow! Go through life with ease and elegance, follow the path of least resistance, bobbing and swaying in the flow. Accept everything that life brings you. Always be prepared to move along without fear or reservations. ‘Water reaches its goal by flowing uninterruptedly,’ Richard Wilhelm wrote in his translation of the I Ching, the Chinese book of change. ‘It fills every depth before it flows on. It does not recoil from anything—no dangerous spot, no fall into the abyss—and nothing makes it lose its essential nature. It remains true to itself under all circumstances…as all noble folk should.’”

—Happinez magazine, issue 9

30-Day Gratitude Photo Challenge

Wrapping Up the 2018 Gratitude Challenge

November 30, 2018

Every year since 2014, I’ve participated in Positively Present’s 30-Day Gratitude Photo Challenge. I love using Dani’s prompts to think about how much I have to be grateful for. This year was a bit of a challenge, since for 10 days I was in California dealing with the loss of my father. I managed to post most days anyway, though this year I opted only to post on Instagram, rather than both Facebook and Instagram, for simplicity’s sake. Here are a few photos and captions from this year’s challenge…because there’s always something to be grateful for.

Day 1: Home

“…I just returned from a three-and-a-half week trip to France…and promptly got sick. I’m sooo glad to be in my own bed with these four-legged “nurses.” There’s just nothing like home when you’re feeling under the weather.”

Day 5: Happiness

“Happiness…is seeing your horse drinking from a water trough. It might seem unremarkable, but when he’s just moved to a new boarding barn and is still settling in, it’s one more indication that he’s beginning to relax. And that lets me start to relax, too.”

Day 9: Laughter

“Day 9’s…prompt, laughter, made me think of my dad, who loved to tease and joke. He recently passed away, and I’m going to miss his humor and spirit. This is the last picture I took of him, and he was getting ready to play penny ante poker with the family—believe me, there was a lot of laughter involved!”

Day 12: Wisdom

“I love pithy sayings that sum up meaningful ideas in a few words. I’m grateful for the wisdom distilled in the sayings that then become mantras for me. I heard a new one from Corinne, the lovely and wise owner of Le Vieux Couvent in Frayssinet, France: ‘You are who you take the time to become.’ Something to ponder when the couch and TV remote control beckon, or junk food whispers my name…”

Day 27: Luxury

“As a middle class American, my life is filled with luxuries and I try not to take them for granted. (One reason why I like taking part in this Gratitude Photo Challenge every year!) Today I’m sharing a pic of one of my favorite luxuries, a personal library. This is just one t-i-n-y fraction of all the books in my house, but I see these shelves every day when I’m at work in my home office (another luxury I’m grateful for).”

And with that, the 2018 Gratitude Photo Challenge is a wrap.

What are you grateful for today?

Announcement

Homeward Bound (Again) and Catching Happiness Housekeeping

November 26, 2018

Today I’m on my way home from California where I attended my father’s memorial service and spent Thanksgiving with my stepmom. We’re all doing as well as can be expected.

For the past two months, life has been anything but normal and I’m sorry it has affected my posting schedule. The November edition of the Happy Little Thoughts newsletter will be delayed, but will hit your inboxes sometime this week. (If you’re not already a subscriber and you want to be, click here.)

Thanks for your patience and support! Posting should go back to normal soon.

Attitudes

Drop Your Burdens

November 23, 2018

“After all, a vacation is not a matter of place or time. We can take a wonderful vacation in spirit, even though we are obliged to stay at home, if we will only drop our burdens from our minds for a while. But no amount of travel will give us rest and recreation if we carry our work and worries with us.”

—Laura Ingalls Wilder