The fig season has ended, at least down low in the area of the tree that we can reach. The tanagers and jays and robins and vireos and thrushes are still finding ripe figs up high, so the tree is still a huge bird feeder right outside my office window.
It makes me think [...]
I just read a beautiful description of a petition to God in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat, Pray, Love. It’s so good that if I lived in a world without copyrights, I’d type the whole chapter here to make sure I can come back to it.
The author is having a discussion with a friend about [...]
All of us have weak areas in our work at home or on the job. Some of these involve tasks where it takes more energy to make ourselves do them than the tasks themselves require. Marcus Buckingham has some very practical advice about dealing with these, including this statement that I have found [...]
When I was a girl, I read a book called Hitty, First 100 Years — the story of a doll as it passed through the lives of different generations. That came to mind this morning when I was making my bed and pulling up the quilt that I use as a bedspread.
This quilt was pieced [...]
Every day I get numerous bursts of small pleasures from the Google desktop photo gadget that cycles through pictures on my computer showing a new one every 10 seconds or so. In the corner of my eye, the pictures appear. Many I ignore, but many give me a small rush.
I particularly like pictures [...]
Last time I talked about the gratitude I feel when I use things that make me remember people. I commented that some objects that carry memory are almost too precious to use, lest they be soiled or destroyed. When we don’t use them, they can’t serve as gratitude cues for us.
That reminded me [...]
I’ve been thinking about gratitude, about noticing and appreciating the good things in life. I’ve been reading some of the psychology literature about it. As a character strength, it is one of the most strongly correlated with well-being. As a feeling, it is one of the positive feelings that leads to “broaden [...]
My aunt invited me to her house this week to see my first cousin once removed who was vacationing here from Florida with her husband and young son. (They picked a fine time — it was 104 degrees here and 82 degrees down in Florida!) After my 2 hour drive, I thought [...]
For my birthday this summer, my husband erected a clothes line in the backyard. This may not seem like a particularly romantic gift, but it has already given me a great deal of pleasure hanging out clothes and then taking them down and folding them. Even though it has been hotter than the [...]
One of my work partners used to say that we gee’d and haw’d pretty well together. But there was considerable friction while we figured out how. We had very different talents and very different ways of thinking about things. So there was a lot of letting go, of working on faith that the one [...]
