I'm plugging away with my happiness project despite the great lethargy I feel now at the beginning of my third trimester. I'm growing quite uncomfortable, and at the same time unsure of how I'm going to make it through the next three months. The darkness of winter is creeping in (sunrise: 8:25; sunset: 2:51) and our Vitamin D...
Happiness
Happiness Project Check-In, and Some Thoughts on Meaning and Happiness
So way back when, at the beginning of October, I got started with the second month of my happiness project, focused on making our home a cozy haven. I was doing quite well with getting our home in order, organizing and sorting (and donating) as well as rearranging and decorating. And then halfway through the...
Thoughts on Family, Geography, and Home
While we were in Michigan after my father's death, we had the great fortune to spend time with extended family. One of my favorite moments was the Saturday before Halloween, when James and I took the kids to a pumpkin patch and brought home a haul of pumpkins to carve with my Uncles Lee and Chris. Carving pumpkins...
Spending 1-on-1 Time With Kids
I'm finally back. I was a bit ambitious to think that I'd be able to get right back to posting on Wednesday, the day after we returned from the US. I was essentially immobilized by exhaustion and jet lag our first day home (I cannot sleep sitting up on airplanes), and just as I was beginning to feel...
Happiness isn't big enough
Last week I wrote a post considering the question of whether seeking happiness actually makes us miserable, as some maintain. (Spoiler alert: I don't think so.) I was moved by the comments to that post, and all week I've been thinking about this one: In the 1960s, there were some very popular and influential books that accused American...
Does Seeking Happiness Make Us Miserable?
Over the weekend I noticed an essay on Vox titled America is obsessed with happiness--and it's making us miserable. Obviously, given all that I have written about happiness here, including my own efforts to do a happiness project, the title jumped out at me. Even without reading the essay, that title gave me a prick of discomfort...
Happiness Project: Month 2--Making A Home
The first month of my happiness project may have fizzled out, but that doesn't mean I'm giving up. Rather, I spent the weekend rethinking what I'm doing with this project in general, and what I'm doing in the second month in particular. One of the things that really attracted me to the idea of a happiness...
Happiness Project: Month 1 Wrap-Up
Full disclosure: the first month of my happiness project did not go so well. I was hoping to start my six-month project out with a bang and create the momentum I'd need to carry me through the rest of it. Instead, I fizzled out about halfway through the first month. Here's a look at my resolutions,...
September's First Autumn Weekend
While it may have officially become autumn just last week, here in our part of Sweden it's felt like fall since early August. Still, we wanted to herald the new season with an outdoor weekend--and a trip to an apple orchard.
Happiness Project: A New Page for Links
I'm recovering from a long weekend of hosting friends from out-of-country and a short trip to Åland, a group of Swedish-speaking Finnish islands (an archipelago!) that lie between Sweden and Finland. I'm also battling a cold while desperately trying to catch up with office work. I find it so much harder to recover and to catch...