Happiness

Happiness is a Warm Project

July 05, 2010

One of my favorite recent reads has been Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project. Like most of us, Rubin wasn’t unhappy—but she wondered if perhaps with some attention and effort, she could become happier. “I had everything I could possibly want—yet I was failing to appreciate it. Bogged down in petty complaints and passing crises, weary of struggling with my own nature, I too often failed to comprehend the splendor of what I had. I didn’t want to keep taking these days for granted,” she writes on page two.

Rubin decided to devote a year to seeing if she could improve her level of happiness, and “The Happiness Project” was born. She turned to scientific research, age-old wisdom and popular culture for ways to do this—focusing on a different subject each month. “A ‘happiness project’ is an approach to changing your life,” she writes in "A Note to the Reader." “First is the preparation stage, when you identify what brings you joy, satisfaction, and engagement, and also what brings you guilt, anger, boredom, and remorse. Second is the making of resolutions, when you identify the concrete actions that will boost your happiness. Then comes the interesting part: keeping your resolutions.”

As she compiled her subjects and resolutions, she found “overarching principles” emerging. These she dubbed her "Twelve Commandments" and her "Secrets of Adulthood."

I enjoyed this book so much that I’ll be sharing several posts about it with you over the next few months. I’m not choosing to pursue a formal Happiness Project of my own right now, but I couldn’t help coming up with my own “Twelve Commandments.” They are, in no particular order:
  • There is time enough.
  • Live joyfully.
  • Be Kathy.
  • Put on your big girl panties and deal with it.
  • Pause before you say no.
  • It is what it is.
  • Rise to the occasion.
  • I am enough.
  • Slow down—faster isn’t better.
  • Progress, not perfection.
  • Help is everywhere.
  • What would I do if I wasn’t scared?
If you want to start your own Happiness Project, or just learn more about Gretchen’s, visit her fantastic blog at http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/ or hunt up the book at the library or bookstore —and please come back here and share what you learn!

Word of the year

Knock, Knock

July 02, 2010

It’s been six months since I chose “open” as my word of the year. How is it going?

To be honest, I chose the word and promptly forgot about it.

However, I was in a favorite store a couple of weeks ago and came across this decorative tile:


…and I began to think about how I was and wasn’t putting “open” into practice, and what I’ve come to see it has been teaching me to do:

Open my eyes. Actually see what’s around me. Notice the details of life. Taking the Artful Journaling class helps, because to draw or paint something, you have to learn to see it.

Open my ears. Hear the frogs in the pond behind our house (it’s hard not to when they really get going). Hear the birds singing. Hear what my husband and son are really saying. Even hear what my own heart and intuition have to say.

Open my mind. My default answer is no. I can tell you all the reasons why whatever you’re suggesting isn’t a good idea, or can’t be done, or why I don’t want to do it. “Open” makes me bite my tongue. I may be thinking no, but maybe if I don’t say it right away some new thought or idea will sneak in. If it takes up residence, well, maybe my mind will open up just a little more.

Open my heart. When I pay attention—see and hear—I am touched by others. I can give the kind word, the money, the time or the good thoughts. If I’m not open, I don’t even know those things are needed.

I’ve begun to see that even when I’m not thinking about it, “open” is working on me subconsciously. I recognize how tightly wound I’ve been, how rigid and closed my ideas of what I should do with my time, how I should run my household, how things “should be.” I think I’m afraid that if I let even an inch of control slip from my hands, my carefully constructed life will fall apart—I’ll fall apart.

“Open” is about much more than trying new things. It’s a philosophy of life. I have quite a ways to go before it’s my philosophy, but at least I’ve opened the door a crack.

If you’ve chosen a word of the year, how is it going for you? What have you learned? What has surprised you?

Everyday adventures

The Art of Artful Journaling

June 29, 2010

Since I returned from Missouri, I’ve been scrambling to catch up in my latest art class, Laure Ferlita’s Artful Journaling: Foundations. (I’m two lessons behind, and should be working on an assignment, but instead I’m writing about the class…)

I’ve wanted to learn how to do illustrated journaling for several years, after seeing an acquaintance’s gorgeous journal while on a trip to Greece. I’ve drooled over books about creating illustrated journals by Hannah Hinchman and Clare Walker Leslie and started sketching off and on. Since I love the look of watercolor, I wanted to incorporate it into my journal, but the first time I tried it (with the help of a library book), I realized I needed a real class with a teacher I could ask questions of. Laure’s current class is the best so far for what I actually want to do: add sketching and painting to my journal when I travel, as well as work on a nature journal here at home. Each lesson helps us build what Laure calls a “visual vocabulary,” techniques and skills for creating different effects, page design and so on. Assignments have included making a color chart (surprisingly soothing and fun), creating a set of borders, using a “placement map,” and making word art (one of the assignments I haven’t done yet).

Here are three of my pages (the color isn't quite right because I have to take a photo of the art instead of scanning it):



(Still need to darken the cast shadow between the cookie sides.)

Summer’s more relaxed schedule is a good time for exploring new hobbies and experiences. For me, illustrated journaling is both a simple pleasure and an everyday adventure. It’s fun—and it stretches me just a little outside my comfort zone while helping me move towards one of my goals.

What about you? What kind of simple pleasures and everyday adventures are you taking part in this summer? Do share!

Arabia Museum

Strawberries and Gelato and Steamships--Oh, My!

June 24, 2010

My final day in Missouri, we went to the City Market and the Arabia Museum in Kansas City. I drooled over the large produce stands selling one-pound containers of strawberries for a dollar, as well as jewel-like cherries, peppers and lettuces. At least two vendors carried bulk spices, their luscious aromas perfuming the air. Fresh flowers, homemade fudge and fresh-baked breads tempted me, too, and it was a delicate form of torture to wander through the stands and not be able to buy anything because I was flying home the next day. (I consoled myself with a triple chocolate gelato from an Italian deli.)



Garden art--so cute!


In addition to the produce and food stands, the City Market has shops, restaurants and the Arabia Steamboat Museum, an attraction my aunt, who is an archaeologist, had been dying to visit. A little history: in 1856, the Arabia steamed up the Missouri River, laden with more than 200 tons of merchandise bound for pioneer settlements and general stores. When she hit a “snag,” or submerged tree, she sank in mere minutes, taking her cargo with her. All 130 human passengers survived; the only fatality was a mule, who has now been nicknamed Lawrence (of Arabia—get it?). Museum visitors are encouraged to pay their respects to Lawrence as they leave the exhibits.



A fraction of the Arabia's cargo.

But back to the Arabia (see how easily I’m distracted by anything equine?). Over time the Missouri River changed its course, leaving the Arabia buried 45 feet beneath a Kansas corn field, half a mile from the river’s edge. Arabia was excavated in 1988-1989. Her amazingly well-preserved cargo is the largest pre-Civil war artifact collection in the world—everything from dishware, clothing, tools, guns, foodstuffs, medicine, trade beads and buttons. They’re still restoring what was excavated, and expect to have at least 15 more years of work ahead of them! At the preservation lab in the museum, we watched a restorer work on a pair of boots, and sniffed a sample of perfume recovered from the Arabia. To learn more about the Arabia, visit http://www.1856.com/, or read Treasure in a Cornfield, by Greg Hawley.

More treasure.

And that concludes our trip through Missouri. Thanks for traveling with me—I’ve enjoyed reliving it all!

Rest in peace, Lawrence.

Everyday adventures

"Orphans Preferred"...

June 21, 2010


 
While we were in St. Joseph, MO, we toured the Pony Express Museum. (I’m sure you know why I was interested in it!)




“The mail must go. Hurled by flesh and blood across 2,000 miles of desolate space—Fort Kearney, Laramie, South Pass, Fort Bridger, Salt Lake City. Neither storms, fatigue, darkness, mountains and Indians, burning sands or snow must stop the precious bags. The mail must go.” –M. Jeff Thompson, Mayor of St. Joseph, Missouri, April 3 1860, before the inaugural ride of the Pony Express.


The Pony Express was founded because of the need for faster communication with the West and the looming Civil War. On April 3, 1860, riders left simultaneously from St. Joseph and Sacramento, CA, carrying specialized saddlebags, called mochilas, filled with mail. The first westbound trip took 9 days and 23 hours, and the eastbound journey took 11 days and 12 hours. The riders covered approximately 250 miles in a 24-hour day. A letter cost $5 per half-ounce to mail (approximately $95 today!) and a rider could carry only about 20 pounds per ride.

Mochila

Riders had to be light (under 125 pounds), tough and most of them were age 20 or younger. Riders included many “colorful characters,” like 15-year-old William “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Even though it was called the “Pony” Express, Mustangs, Morgans, Pintos and Thoroughbreds were chosen for use.

"Wanted. Young, skinny, wiry fellows. Not over 18. Must be expert riders. Willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred." A (probably apocryphal) ad in a California newspaper.

Pony Express service lasted only 19 months, until Oct. 24, 1861 when the Pacific Telegraph line was completed and the Express was no longer needed. The Pony Express eventually had more than 100 stations, 80 riders and between 400 and 500 horses. Despite the hazards of the route such as Indians, extreme weather conditions and wild animals, only one mail delivery was ever lost and one rider killed.

“It was not until December 1860, that I had an opportunity to ride. The boys were dropping out pretty fast. Some of them could not stand the strain of the constant riding. It was not so bad in summer, but when winter came on, the job was too much for them… My first ride was in a heavy snow storm, and it pretty nearly used me up.”—William Campbell, Pony Express rider.




“There were about eighty pony riders in the saddle all the time, night and day, stretching in a long, scattering procession from Missouri to California, forty flying eastward, and forty toward the west, and among them making four hundred gallant horses earn a stirring livelihood and see a deal of scenery every single day of the year.”—Mark Twain, Roughing It

Despite the romance of the idea of the Pony Express and its usefulness to those relying upon its news, it was not profitable and led its founders to bankruptcy.

Original Pony Express desk


 The Pony Express is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. For more information, go to www.ponyexpress.org.