We’ll be keeping a close eye on the progress of Hurricane Dorian this weekend. It’s not supposed to reach us until Monday, and as I write this, we don’t yet know where it will make landfall. Some models show it crossing from the Atlantic over us into the Gulf of Mexico, so keep Florida in your thoughts. Other than last-minute hurricane preparations, this weekend we’re expecting a visit from my mother-in-law, celebrating our son’s birthday, and my husband and I are attempting to repair something on my car—wish us luck! I might do some baking—maybe chocolate chip cookies or some type of muffin. We’ll see.

Just in case you have some free time on your hands this weekend (a three-day holiday weekend for most of us in the U.S.), here are a few items of interest I’ve come across recently. Enjoy!

“How to Manage Your Energy to Get More Done” was a timely read for me, as I’ve been dragging lately. Going to pay more attention to renewing my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual energy.  

Have you ever tried to “Follow Your Jealousy”? As Sheila Devi writes, “Jealousy tells you what you want more of. What if you listened to it?”

Check out Modern Mrs. Darcy’s “Rom-Com Syllabus” if you’re looking for something fun and light to watch over this long weekend. There are some great additional suggestions in the comments, too.

This long essay by Roy F. Baumeister examines the differences and similarities between happiness and a meaningful life.

I totally understand and identify with “Pet owners share 55 hilarious rules their animals have made.” The animals are clearly in charge.

What do you think about research that shows that trying to be happy can result in feeling less happy? “Quit Doing 1 Thing Today, and Science Says You’ll Feel a Lot Happier (It's Counterintuitive)” is worth a read.

This is an oldie, but still hilarious. My husband showed this to me again this week, so I hunted it up on YouTube for you:

Our backyard has grown from oasis to jungle after months of rain and sun. My husband has had his hands full keeping the bird feeders and birdbath cleaned and filled, and collecting all the debris that falls into the yard from the trees (sticks, Spanish moss) and trimming out the most obvious dead stuff. He hasn’t had time for pruning or puttering around for pleasure, and it’s still too hot to plant. Right now, in many ways, we’re holding on, waiting for a change in the season, or at least a lessening of the heat and humidity enough to allow new things to sprout.

In gardening, as in life, there are times for planting, weeding, pruning, and harvesting. There are fallow times.

In the US, I don’t think we allow ourselves enough of this fallow time. Instead, we tend to fill every free minute with noise—whether it’s actual noise from the TV, radio, or a podcast, or “noise” from the written word. We don’t give ourselves time for our own thoughts to wander where they may. At least I know I don’t, because my own thoughts are often full of worry or fear.

I’ve been weeding and pruning and getting rid of the most obvious dead stuff, otherwise known as purging. Pulling books off shelves, throwing away or shredding file folders of outdated papers, sorting through my clothes, putting closets and shelves in order. Taking everything off my desk and cleaning it thoroughly. Getting ready for fall’s cooler temperatures and generally higher energy levels, when I’ll be capable of planting again.

But before that, during this last week of August, I need some fallow time. Maybe only an hour or two here and there, to lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling, or to rock in my glider rocker while acoustic guitar music plays and I stare out my office window. To sit propped up in bed with my journal and pen in hand.

The past 12 months have brought a lot of changes, new projects, new experiences, sad losses, and one spectacular trip to France. I feel like I haven’t processed half of it. It’s time to allow myself to slow down, even stop, and let all of that sink in. There will be time, soon, for planting, weeding, pruning…the cycle will continue. But first, fallow time.

Do you allow yourself the rest and restoration of fallow time? 

Introduction by Ted Kooser: Let’s hope that by the time this column appears all fires in California have been extinguished. I wanted to offer you a poem that shows us what that beautiful but arid state can look like before it’s caught fire. The poet, Dana Gioia, served as Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts and has been a friend to, and advocate for, poetry for many years. This poem appeared in the anthology, Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California, from Scarlet Tanager Books.

I can imagine someone who found

these fields unbearable, who climbed

the hillside in the heat, cursing the dust,

cracking the brittle weeds underfoot,

wishing a few more trees for shade.

An Easterner especially, who would scorn

the meagerness of summer, the dry

twisted shapes of black elm,

scrub oak, and chaparral, a landscape

August has already drained of green.

One who would hurry over the clinging

thistle, foxtail, golden poppy,

knowing everything was just a weed,

unable to conceive that these trees

and sparse brown bushes were alive.

And hate the bright stillness of the noon

without wind, without motion,

the only other living thing

a hawk, hungry for prey, suspended

in the blinding, sunlit blue.

And yet how gentle it seems to someone

raised in a landscape short of rain—

the skyline of a hill broken by no more

trees than one can count, the grass,

the empty sky, the wish for water.

Back in March, I wrote about one of the authors who inspired my mindset when I started Catching Happiness. Today I want to introduce you to another: Alexandra Stoddard.

Stoddard began her career as an interior designer, working with Eleanor McMillen Brown. She became a top design professional, and established her own design firm, Alexandra Stoddard Incorporated.  She also became an author, penning 28 books and giving lectures on not only design, but on personal happiness and living a more beautiful life. Her website lists her as “contemporary philosopher, author, interior designer, and speaker.” All this at the age of 77!

Her mantra is “Happiness is the first principle of life. Love & Live Happy.”

Once again, I can’t remember how I originally found her work, but over the years I’ve read probably half of her books. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been remaking her acquaintance by rereading some of my favorites.

As much as I enjoy her books, Stoddard has a more formal approach to living than I do. I’m a California/Florida girl and I’m ultra casual in almost everything. But I aspire to her tranquility and her cheery outlook. I love the idea of making our daily surroundings as pretty and uplifting as we can, as well as her belief that we have a role in creating our own happiness. (She also has no computer or smart phone, and hand writes manuscripts using a fountain pen. I start most of my writing with pen and paper, but couldn’t do my work without both a smart phone and a computer…much as I might like to sometimes.)

A few of my favorite Alexandra Stoddard quotes:

“In my work in interior design, I’ve noticed that many people have a tendency to save up 95 percent of their money and effort to spend on 5 percent of their lives—festive occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, and the special, more public places in the home, such as the living or dining room. Instead, the way to live a beautiful life is to make the daily 95 percent of your life wonderful.”

—Living a Beautiful Life

“Whenever we want to learn to do something well, we have to go into training. Just because we’ve been given eyesight doesn’t mean we know how to use our eyes to look and really see.

“We have to train ourselves to look at all things and see things well. We must not be limited by the familiar but must instead look and look again. Seeing well is a process of opening our mind as well as our eyes. We will be intrigued and curious, but in the beginning we also need to discipline our mind and eyes and discern through practice.”

— Open Your Eyes

 “I love the idea that bees gather nectar from flowers and herbs and then go home and make honey. We are like bees in that way. We move about, going from here to there, having thousands of different experiences, and learning how to cultivate our own. We take everything in, then we make our honey, our own dreams come true, our own happiness.”

—Choosing Happiness

“When you greet life choice by choice, detail by detail, aware of how much more happiness you can experience, you will be living a good life.”

—You Are Your Choices

We live in a frightening, frustrating time—but what era has NOT been frightening and frustrating? There is, there has been, and probably always will be suffering as long as we are humans. Despite, that, we have a choice whether to live our lives in sadness, fear, and discouragement or to embrace what we have, make it better, share it with others. We can try to inspire and encourage rather than tear down, divide, or add to the fear and frustration around us. Even though that’s quite often the larger challenge.

I do it imperfectly, but I choose to seek after and share happiness.

What are some of the little things you do to make your life happier and more beautiful?

For a list of Alexandra Stoddard’s books, click here.