Update

In episode 24, Elizabeth talked about her beloved “Blankey,” her childhood blanket that she still sleeps with every night. We loved hearing about other people’s childhood “comfort objects” (such a bad phrase for such precious items). The books I mention are Rebecca Caudill’s The Best-Loved Doll and Dare Wright’s Make Me Real and The Lonely Doll. Oh, how I love the uncanny work of Dare Wright…I’ve collected all her books, including the ones that are out of print.

Try This at Home

Have trouble deciding whether or not to choose a course of action? Like — whether or not to get a dog? Try this: Choose the bigger life. 

In this discussion, I reveal the answer to the question first posed in episode 24: Should Gretchen and her family get a dog?  See if you can guess the answer.

We heard from so many people — it has been fascinating, and so helpful. You can listen to what people had to say in a montage of opinions.

In this answer, I mention that I’m an Upholder, which is one of the Tendencies in my Four Tendencies framework. To learn more about that, and to take the Quiz to see if you’re an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel, read here.

Know Yourself Better

What’s your “tell?”

Listener Questioner

“I can’t answer the question, ‘How are you?’ in a light, positive manner…I always throw in a complaint….I genuinely love what I do, but I seem incapable of just saying, ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ I’m either a complainer or rude. Can you help?”

Gretchen’s Demerit

I don’t really have a summer. Yes, we have family vacation, but I don’t really have a “summer.”

Here’s the quotation I read:  “Every man makes his own summer. The season has no character of its own, unless one is a farmer with a professional concern for the weather. Circumstances have not allowed me to make a good summer for myself this year…My summer has been overcast by my own heaviness of spirit. I have not had any adventures, and adventures are what make a summer.”
— Robertson Davies, “Three Worlds, Three Summers,” The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies

Elizabeth’s Gold Star

Elizabeth gives a gold star to the extremely polite stranger who held the door open, even though he was in a tremendous rush.