• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Dear Sabrina

  • Family
  • Happiness
  • Life in Sweden
  • Beauty
  • Thinking
  • Miscellany
  • About
    • Now
You are here: Home / Archives for Happiness

Happiness

dock-in-fog-water

Why You Shouldn't Follow Your Passion

August 17, 2016 By Jodi

Follow your passion.  We've all heard it a million times, right? Follow your bliss. Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. The admonitions to find exciting, deeply fulfilling work--with the implied or else. I don't know where I first heard this, but I do know it was somehow embedded in me from early on. Because of...

Read More

hands-holding-strawberries

Edwin Morgan's Strawberries

August 12, 2016 By Jodi

Here's a lovely poem by the Scottish poet Edwin Morgan to wish you a luscious weekend. Strawberries There were never strawberries like the ones we had that sultry afternoon sitting on the step of the open french window facing each other your knees held in mine the blue plates in our laps the strawberries glistening in the...

Read More

unkempt-mama-talking-to-baby-picking-blueberries

On Having Imperfect Pictures of Myself on the Blog

August 11, 2016 By Jodi

One of the most common critiques of the social media world--a world most of us find ourselves entrenched in--is that it presents us with edited and often idealized images of other people's lives. We see more of others' aspirational lives than we do of their real, everyday lives. While we might lament this, we often tend...

Read More

Swedish-summer-sailing

Summer in Sweden: the Basics

August 4, 2016 By Jodi

Let's talk about summer in Sweden. The days are endless, the nights almost nonexistent, and everyone is on vacation. After a dark and grueling winter that seems to last nine months, suddenly the world is bright and warm(ish) and lush again. Swedes use this time to get out of the office and back into nature. For us,...

Read More

bicycles-in-rack-summer-day

An Intentional Summer

June 22, 2016 By Jodi

The New York Times has challenged its readers to an intentional summer. Every week, they're offering a suggestion to set this summer apart from the rest of the year. The first challenge is to walk or bike somewhere that you'd normally drive, to make an ordinary trip a little more extraordinary. 

David-James-Duncan-writing

Have You Ever Written to an Author?

June 13, 2016 By Jodi

A few years ago I was sitting in a cafe in Santa Barbara and felt an overwhelming urge to write to David James Duncan. I had just read a piece by him in The Best American Essays 2009 about birds and extinction and disintegrating marriage, which left me weeping at my table.

beautiful_reasons_happy

Starting a happiness project

May 31, 2016 By Jodi

Have you heard of The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin? I stumbled across the book, and then Rubin's website, a few years ago. I was really taken by how clear and, well, smart her writing was. I tend to shy away from anything overly self-help-y and anything that relies on positive thinking to make life changes, but I felt that...

Read More

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to page 5

Primary Sidebar

About Jodi

I just repatriated from Sweden to the US with my British husband and three young kids. I started this site while living in Sweden to build the conversations and community we've had with loved ones around the world, and to create a space to share thoughts about life, beauty, motherhood, and everything else. read more →

Connect & Follow

  • Bloglovin
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Receive the weekly newsletter

* indicates required
/ ( mm / dd )

Recent Posts

The Fox and the Bear: Telling Stories

December 6, 2016 By Jodi 5 Comments

Fox and bear storytelling card

You know how some people, when they hear "tell me a story", can rattle one off instantly? With no preparation, no outline, nothing? I am definitely not one of those people. When August asked me recently to tell him a story, I had no idea where to begin (or end). I stammered and said, "I don't...

Read More

So Long, Leonard Cohen

November 18, 2016 By Jodi 5 Comments

Leonard Cohen black and white

I'm a bit late to the point on this, but still I wanted to note the passing of one of my favorite singers. I've been listening to Leonard Cohen on repeat since he died last week, and his lyrics have been running through my mind. Especially, in the light of the election, this one, allowing...

Read More

Kissing boo-boos and bearing witness

October 5, 2016 By Jodi 9 Comments

baby-holding-adult-finger

A couple years ago, when August was learning to walk, we were visiting my family in Michigan. August fell and started to cry, so I picked up him and kissed him where it hurt. He continued to cry as he rested in my arms. My mom, who'd been watching, said, "And there goes forever the...

Read More

Using My Superpower: Donating Breastmilk

March 29, 2017 By Jodi Leave a Comment

Breastfeeding baby August as an infant

The closest thing I have to a superpower is lactating. Making food that another human can eat—and thrive on—from my own flesh (well, technically my blood) has always been and always will be absolutely miraculous to me. And like any true superpower, I can use it for the highest good: saving lives.

Categories

  • Beauty
  • Family
  • Happiness
  • Life in Sweden
  • Miscellany
  • Thinking

Follow me on Bloglovin'

Follow

Instagram

Footer

About Dear Sabrina

Welcome! Dear Sabrina is a lifestyle blog for the thinking woman (and man, if men read lifestyle blogs). I hope that visiting this site gives you something to think about, makes you laugh, or shows you something new. If you want to further connect, find me on one of networks below or send an email.
Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think. More about me…

  • Bloglovin
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Copyright © 2023 · Jodi Elliott