Horses not minding the heat. Tank is second from right.

This week has been…hot. Luna and I usually walk our neighborhood’s trail twice a week, but with temperatures above 80F by 7:30 a.m., 100 percent humidity, and a dew point of 79, I decided not to. This is a picture of our house “crying” this morning:

Condensation on windows

I haven’t done much, just what’s required to keep life from imploding. I’ve been snapping pictures of random things for Susannah Conway’s August Break Instagram challenge, including this nut:

Ready to play?!

I made a fresh tomato and feta pasta for lunch one day, using basil from my herb garden:

Yum!

Excuse my scuffed up walls

Even in an ordinary week, with a little bit of grieving, and a lot of sweating, there are still bright spots. I’ve got the simple pleasures in hand, but haven’t had many everyday adventures lately. Working on it!

Hope your week was full of simple pleasures and everyday adventures!

Part of my collection

It’s been a couple of years since I compiled an official summer reading list (see 2021’s here), but of course that doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading…a lot. This summer, even though I haven’t created a summer reading list, I have spent quite a few of my reading hours continuing what I call my “Agatha in Order” reading project. I own most of her books in inexpensive paperback editions because I started collecting them many years ago.

Murder as a comfort read?

It started back in October of 2020, when I wrote about celebrating 100 years of Agatha Christie. I reread The Mysterious Affair at Styles, the first novel Christie published and the first appearance of Christie’s famous sleuth, Hercule Poirot. I decided I’d reread the entire Christie cannon in the order the books were published. Since there 66 crime novels and I am doing this simply for pleasure, I put no deadline on the project. I’ve been doing it slowly, in between and alongside other reads. Often I read a few pages of my latest Christie just before going to sleep. Despite the murders, the books are comfort reads for me—and they’re not gory or suspenseful in a too-stimulating way. 

I’m not doing this for any other reason than I think it’s fun. I’m not comparing and analyzing her early and later work, or doing anything more than escaping to England (or ancient Egypt, via Death Comes as the End). The novel I’m reading now is set in fall and I’m envious of the brisk temperatures and changing leaves described in Murder After Hours (also known as The Hollow). 

This project also helps me feel closer to my mom, as she was a great Christie fan and introduced me to the books when I was a teenager. (I also plan to reread the books Christie wrote under the name of Mary Westmacott. I wrote about rereading Absent in the Spring here.) 

The pleasure of becoming a completist

There is such a thing in the reading world as becoming a “completist”—one who reads an author’s complete works. There’s satisfaction in doing so—I’ve managed it for a couple of authors in addition to Christie. I’ve also completed reading a particular series by an author, such as the Harry Potter books, or Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver mysteries. I still want to read more Wilkie Collins, and I only have Jane Austen’s juvenilia to read to finish her entire body of work. Maybe I’ll start a list of other authors whose complete works I’d like to finish.

But before I do that, I’ll continue to wend my leisurely way through the world of Agatha Christie. 

One whodunit at a time.

Are there any authors you’d like to complete? Is there another summer project you’re making progress on? Please share in the comments!

*It may seem late in summer to write about a “summer” reading project, but keep in mind that in central Florida, summer lasts until at least the end of October.

Photo by Ann on Unsplash

Even when we feel sorrow, we can still feel joy—sometimes in the same moment! And thank goodness for that. So while it’s boiling hot outside (at least in most of the Northern Hemisphere), let’s relax in the cool indoors and check out these links related to aspects of joy and happiness.

First up, “You Don’t Have to Be Happy to Feel Joy,” according to author Ingrid Fetell Lee. She writes, “Little moments of joy happen to us all the time, whether or not we consider ourselves happy people or not. They happen in good times and also right in the middle of stressful or miserable ones. And we all have the capacity to notice them, savor them, and make more of them.” 

Sometimes joy results from letting go of something, as Courtney Carver says in “7 Things to Let Go of for a Happier Life.” Choose the one that makes you feel the worst to let go of first. For me, that’s probably number 4. 

What Gretchen Rubin calls everyday luxuries in “Why Everyday Luxuries Help Make Us Happier,” I call simple pleasures. Potato, potahto. Some of my everyday luxuries/simple pleasures include drinking bottled iced tea rather than making it myself, fresh flowers on the kitchen table, and flavored coffee. What are some of yours? 

Your joy matters. Love what you love. 

I love the suggestions from “7 Things You Need to Do If You Want to Enjoy Life More.” Numbers 4 and 5 are on the agenda this summer.

I love ice cream—and good ice cream is definitely an everyday luxury. Check out Thrillist’s list of the best ice cream shops in the U.S. I haven’t been to a single one of these, but I’m keeping this article for reference. Is there one near you? Check it out and let me know if it lives up to its reputation. 

 

Photo by Sarah Kilian on Unsplash

“But as I have started down the road of understanding self-compassion, I have found one—just one—affirmation that actually does work for me. And it’s this:

 ‘I am allowed to be human.’”

—How to Keep House While Drowning, KC Davis, LPC 

If you’ve read Catching Happiness for any length of time, you know I love to read. I do it to learn, to be inspired, to be entertained, and to be comforted. Over the past few months, I’ve sought out books that would help me deal with the emotional upheaval and grief I’ve been coping with. I thought I’d share three of the books I turned to for comfort and strength to keep going when my heart is hurting and I feel unequal to the task of living.

1. Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be: Lessons on Change, Loss, and Spiritual Transformation, Lama Surya Das. Talk about the right book at the right time! I bought this on a whim at my library’s used book sale, and I’m so glad I did. I read a few pages every day during the sad time leading up to my mom’s death. Surya Das is the highest trained American lama in the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism, and practically every page held food for thought.

Takeaway quotes:

“When we lose people we love—and we will all lose people we love—seekers are immediately confronted by a spiritual conundrum: Even though our hearts are breaking, how can we search inward and continue to know and feel the love we all carry at our core? Being separated from those we love invites us to take a fresh and deeper look at the meaning of love itself. This is the major challenge of love.”

“Mourning is a necessary process as well as a deep and significant spiritual experience. It brings us closer to the ground of our being and our felt sense of authenticity. We need to intelligently process our most difficult experiences in order to regain balance, harmony, and inner peace. But there comes a time when it is helpful to seek and find ways to release the pain. Yes, certain losses remain with us; they are part of our history and our karma. But that doesn’t mean that it is appropriate for us to spend our lives grieving. We need to find ways to peacefully coexist with our sadness. We can embrace our pain and our losses and be greater and more authentically real for doing so.”

2. Choose Wonder Over Worry: Moving Beyond Fear and Doubt to Unlock Your Full Potential, Amber Rae. I frequently do battle with fear and worry, so when I heard of this book on The Lazy Genius podcast I almost immediately ordered a copy. According to Rae, Worry says things like, “Am I good enough?” “Does my voice matter?” and “What if I fail?” Wonder says, “How can I get better?” “What do I have to say?” and “Failure=Learning.” A slight alteration in viewpoint, but a powerful one. She discusses the myths of worry and how to combat them, and how wonder and worry can work together when wisdom “runs the show.”

Takeaway quote:

“When Wisdom runs the show, Worry and Wonder respect each other, move as allies, and walk hand in hand in the direction of what is most aligned and true. It’s called The Union.

“The Union is when we welcome fear, sadness, grief, shame, joy, heartbreak, vulnerability, and unworthiness to all have a seat at the table of our heart. It’s when we invite every part of us that we’ve denied, repressed, or abandoned to come forth and join us. Not so that we can ‘fix it’ or ‘make it better’ or ‘overcome it,’ but so we can acknowledge it and embrace it lovingly for what it is: an aspect of who we are. When we do this, we tap in to a wellspring of creativity, connection, vitality, and flow. This is the place from which our greatest contributions, deepest connections, and most profound experiences emerge. This is the place from which we return home to who we are.”

3. Microjoys: Finding Hope (Especially) When Life Is Not Okay, Cyndie Spiegel.  The last two weeks of my mom’s life, when I was staying at her house and visiting her daily in a nursing home, I tried to do one nice thing just for me every day. One day I walked in a botanical garden before seeing my mom. One day all I could manage was a glass of wine and comfort food on the couch. And one day, I had a copy of this book mailed to me at my mom’s address so I could read it while MY life was not okay. Reading these short essays gave me pleasure and helped me become aware of microjoys around me, because as Spiegel wrote, “Amidst everything, these moments of contentment teach us how to hold heartbreak in one hand and stillness in the other.”

Takeaway quotes:

“Microjoys aren’t small. Instead, they are easily accessible, and they don’t require that we reach too far from where we are (in any moment) to discern them. They’re called microjoys because seeking any semblance of great joy in the midst of sorrow simply wasn’t accessible to me when going through the most difficult things.”

From the essay titled “Busy Being Busy”: 

 “Right after my mom died and only months after the death of my nephew, I took to painting walls, making and doing anything that I possible could to avoid sitting with the hardest things. I knew the moment I sat still I would fall apart. And I also knew that I wasn’t yet ready to fall apart.”

[Same! Even though I say I want to rest and recover, I still find myself busy.]

These aren’t the only books I’ve found comfort in over the past few months, but they’re ones I’ve returned to when I’m in need of inspiration and encouragement. Writing this blog post, I’ve felt more like myself than I have in a long, long time. I hope, if you’re in need of some encouraging reading, that you’ll check out one or more of these books.

If you have any favorite comforting and encouraging reads, please share in the comments!