Update
We mention the fun, get-things-done-quick episodes: “Sweep the Deck,” Deck the Halls,” and “Clear the Decks” episodes.
Try This at Home
Design your summer.
We’ve talked about this idea in episodes 431, 325, 224, 118, and 67. Here’s the quotation that originally inspired these discussions:
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 (Amazon)
We talk about our upcoming hiking trip in England, partnering with Wilderness England: Northumberland and the Lake District. (The possibilities of Wilderness Ireland/ and Wilderness Scotland/ also look terrific.)
I talk about my “Five-Senses Portrait: Summer Past and Present.”
I mention that the “Spin the Wheel” in the Happier app will suggest a fun, free activity to help give users concrete ideas for a happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative summer.
Happiness Hack
We discuss a symptoms break-down if you’re wondering whether you’re suffering from Covid, allergies, or a cold.
Know Yourself Better
If you have to choose, do you prefer comfort or adventure?
Listener Question
A very outgoing and gregarious listener asks about her pattern of periodically withdrawing from social demands.
Demerits & Gold Stars
Elizabeth’s Demerit: She gives herself a demerit for a failure of dog-training.
Gretchen’s Gold Star: The students working at Jamie’s and my college reunions were so friendly and cheerful.
Resource
Earlier this year, I started the monthly “Five Things to Try This Month” edition of my “Five Things” newsletter, and the feedback has been great. If you’d like to subscribe for free, sign up at happiercast.com/newsletter.
What We’re Reading
*This transcript is unedited*
[486]
[music]
Gretchen
Hello and welcome to a happier a podcast where we talk about strategies, hacks and suggestions for building happier habits into our everyday lives. This week, we’ll talk about why it’s useful to design our summer and not unrelated. We will discuss the question of whether we prefer comfort or adventure.
Gretchen
I’m Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies habit is good habits The Five Senses Human Nature. I’m here in my little home office in New York City. And joining me today from L.A. is my sister, Elizabeth Craft. And Elizabeth, I’m excited to be part of the design of your summer.
Elizabeth
That’s me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer living in L.A.. And yes, Gretch. You and I have a big adventure planned. We are going to talk about today.
Gretchen
Yes, they did. But before we jump in, listeners, this is a question just for me. I am thinking that I want to make July 4th into a family holiday, a family traditional holiday for Jamie and Eliza and Eleanor and me. Now that we’re entering into the open door, I’m thinking July 4th has a lot of possibilities. July 4th was always special to us when we were growing up.
Gretchen
That’s our mother’s birthday. But I’m thinking, what are some other interesting ways to make July 4th a fun holiday? But as always, things that are manageable, realistic. This is not the new Halloween. This is the new Groundhog Day in the level of stuff I want to do. So I would love to hear what people do for family traditions around July 4th.
Elizabeth
Also, remember to send us questions for our Ask US Anything episode and hacks for exercise for hiking, for travel.
Gretchen
Yes. And the reason that we are asking for these facts will be revealed. So stay tuned to us. And then finally, Christine writes, I loved Your Sweep the DEC episode and was on such a productive kick that when I finished listening, I went back and relisten to the original Clear the Decks episode, doubling down on all things deck when cleaning out my purse, I found a ring wedged an increase in the bottom that I thought I lost weeks ago for the prompts that weren’t relevant to me.
Gretchen
I tried to adapt them. I didn’t have any difficult emails to write, but I did have a few texts hanging over my head. I don’t have any summer activities I needed to sign up for, but I did have a vet appointment to reschedule. It was much more fun than my regular weekend chores. I hope there will be more duck themed episodes and I think moving forward I will pair those with a real listen to the older ones as well.
Gretchen
Yes, it is. I think that inadvertently we have launched ourselves on a series and we need to continue to think of clever ways of bringing the deck into it. But I will post a link to the previous deck episodes. These are funny little get things done, quick episodes of everybody’s getting a big kick out of them. I think they’re so fun.
Elizabeth
Yes, we had to clear the decks and we had deck the halls and then sweep the decks. Yes.
Gretchen
So yeah. So yeah, suggestions for other ways. And somebody said that if you didn’t want to do Deck the Halls, you could do Deck Ember. You know, December is DC so maybe, you know, other interesting ways to find a deck tie in. I fear that we will be hitting the limits of our imagination soon if we don’t get some good suggestions.
Gretchen
But now this week’s tried. This at home is to design your summer.
Elizabeth
Yeah. So, Rach, we’ve talked about this before. Every year we talk about designing your summer episodes. 431 Episode 325 Episode 67.
Gretchen
Yeah, I think that there’s several episodes. I’ll put links in the show notes for anybody who’s interested in going back and listening. And here’s the quotation that originally inspired us. This is from Roberts and David’s essay, Three Worlds. Three Summers he wrote, 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.
Gretchen
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. And that’s the point of design your summer. It’s in the busy day to day life. It’s easy to think like, Well, everything will be easier in the summer.
Gretchen
We’ll have so much time in the summer we’ll see friends, we’ll get caught up on this. We’ll go on those trips, we’ll go on a picnic, we’ll do it in the summer, and then the summer comes and goes. And it’s never as long as we think it’s going to be. And if we don’t plan for things, we don’t design what we want to get out of the summer, especially something like an adventure.
Gretchen
If it takes planning, it’s very easy for the summer to fly by and then before you know it, everything’s cranking up again in the fall.
Elizabeth
Yeah, and I think sometimes people think fun should be spontaneous. They should have. Yes. Spontaneously go on a picnic. But the truth is, when we plan with intention, we ensure that we have the summer that we want and need.
Gretchen
Yes. And there’s nothing wrong with spontaneity, especially you rebels out there. I know you’re saying, hey, I don’t want to put anything on the calendar, but you can keep it spontaneous. But you could also just say like this is sort of bucket list things or these are things that we would like to get done. Let’s look for opportunities for this, because part of it is just remembering, yeah, we we’re going to go to amusement park or I always use the example of a state fair.
Gretchen
You kind of need to just stop and look up what are the dates of the state fair or here something right. Somebody was saying like, the fireworks in our little town aren’t on the 4th of July. They’re on the Saturday before the 4th of July. So that’s the kind of thing where you’re like on the 4th of July, by the time it occurs.
Gretchen
Do you think, maybe we should go watch the fireworks? They might have already happened. So you just need to sometimes think ahead to make sure that you have the summer that you want.
Elizabeth
Gretchen, you always do a summer of reading.
Gretchen
Yes. So I’ve done this for the last several years. I’ll pick a theme for the summer, so I’ll read other things as well. But one was the summer of Proust because I really wanted to read Proust. One was the summer rereading I love to reread, so I reread a bunch of books that I’ve been meaning to reread. This summer.
Gretchen
I’m having the summer of Abraham Lincoln as storyteller. Abraham Lincoln. There’s so many ways that you could study Abraham Lincoln. He’s such a towering force and it’s such a towering influence. But one of the things that’s always particularly interested me is people always talk about how he was such a gifted communicator because of the way that he could tell stories and use jokes and and bring people together and get people to agree with him just through his ability to communicate that way.
Gretchen
And it wasn’t, you know, me, I love a teaching story. I love a secret of adulthood. I love an aphorism, I love a quotation. So I’m very interested in learning more about how he harnessed that power. So it’s a specific aspect of the Abraham Lincoln story, but I’m super excited. I got a stack of books that I’m going to launch into.
Elizabeth
It kind of goes with your love of Winston Churchill. He was also the great communicator.
Gretchen
He is, yeah. my gosh. And that was my favorite part of studying. Winston Churchill was just his absolute mastery of words. I learned so much from studying the way that he wrote and spoke. One other thing for me is I like I said, I want to come up with new family traditions for the 4th of July because I feel like that’s at least in the United States, that’s the height of summer is July 4th, which makes sense.
Gretchen
It is halfway day of the year. How about you? How are you thinking about your summer this year?
Elizabeth
Well, great. You know, so often my summers have been like falls.
Gretchen
Yeah, you’re in a tough spot.
Elizabeth
Because in Hollywood, a lot of times that’s when things are in television or really gearing up is in summer. But of course, everything is changed so much that it’s not as much the case anymore. And as it happens this summer, I do have more of a summer situation. Yeah, which is good, Gretchen, because you and I have planned a big summer adventure together that we are so excited about.
Gretchen
Yes. So, Elizabeth, you and I had been wanting to go on a big sisterly adventure together, and one of the things we’d been thinking about was a big hiking trip. You love to hike. You hike all the time. I love to hike. I hike more rarely, but we thought that would be a fun thing to do. And, you know, it’s so often when the student is ready, the teacher appears.
Gretchen
And I was randomly talking to someone who I don’t even know very well, and she was telling me all about this hiking trip that she and her friends did and how great it was. And I said, I’ve been thinking about, you know, my sister and I’ve been talking about this. She said, Absolutely, check it out. So we looked it up.
Gretchen
It’s Wilderness, England. And we’re going we are going on the Northumberland and Lake District hiking trip and we are so excited.
Elizabeth
Yes. Gretchen We researched this. We contacted Wilderness England and told them what we wanted to do and they said they would partner with us for this. So we are going to go to England, we are going to be walking about, yes, much walking about seven or eight miles a day. Yeah. And we are going to give listeners an inside scoop as we do it.
Elizabeth
What it’s like. We are planning to have a lot of big insights.
Gretchen
Yes, we are planning our insights now.
Elizabeth
Yes, we are going to be thinking about things we are going to be experiencing, like what we get from walking every day and being in nature. Yeah. And meeting people. So I’m just so excited. It’s also part of your open door, your new open door.
Gretchen
Yes. One of the things that I want to do in this open door period is to travel more, have big adventures, and, you know, the door is open for all of us to come and go. And so I’m really excited. Elizabeth, you and I always love our sisterly adventures. We haven’t had a major one in a while. Seeing the Lake District is a bucket list thing for me.
Gretchen
I’ve read so much English literature and there’s so much about the beauty of this area and people going on these long walks. I’ve always wanted to do it, so this is very exciting. There was it is a little bit stressful for me because I was going on a hike. I was in Arizona, I went on a hike and I slid on some rocks and I hurt my toe.
Gretchen
And foolishly I thought, it’s not hurt that bad. I’ll just keep walking on it and it will be fine. And so it wasn’t hurting very badly. But then I walked on it a lot and then it got bad. And then I started getting extremely worried. And basically with a toe, it’s like, well, wear loose fitting shoes and stay off your toes.
Gretchen
So I have been trying to stay off my toe. It’s hard, especially if you live in New York City, you walk so much just day to day. It’s hard to really stay off a toe. Even going to the Met and walking around. I haven’t been doing that, but it is getting better, so I feel confident that it will be fine by the time that we go.
Gretchen
But that was giving me a little bit of anxiety because part of what’s fun about this is all these challenging hiking, which we think will be really, really fun.
Elizabeth
Yes. And we’re getting all of our stuff together to get hiking boots and a daypack and water containers and all of these things. So we’ll be talking a lot more about this on the podcast. Very excited. If anyone wants to look up and see what we’re doing, it’s Wilderness. England and we are doing the Northumberland and Lake District trip in July.
Gretchen
Yeah, there’s so many trips that look cool, but that was one that we just couldn’t resist. But on a more modest note, one thing I want to get done this summers, I want to have a family picnic. Nothing sounds more pleasant than a picnic in the summer, so I want to make that happen.
Elizabeth
I love that idea.
Gretchen
And another thing that I did just I don’t know. You know, I give myself these assignments. I decided to do a five senses portrait of summer past and present. And that was a super fun thing to do, just to think about like, Well, what are the five senses of summer?
Elizabeth
Well, you love doing that five senses portraits. And they they’re almost like diaries.
Gretchen
Yeah, this one I did. I could have done it all present, but I guess we’re not in summer yet, but I just wanted to get in that summer mode and it was super fun. I’ll post a photograph of it in the show notes, but it reminded me that somebody said that they use their five senses journal for the seasons, and I thought that was an interesting thing to do too.
Elizabeth
And Gretch Design your summer is really kind of part of our larger design. Your year theme.
Gretchen
Yeah, because the fact is when we think about, well, what do we want and how might we get what we want or why are we not getting what we want? We’re much better able to create the lives we want and we’re much better able to create the lives that we’re aiming for. And as we always say, something that can happen at any time often happens at no time.
Gretchen
So using the calendar as a catalyst for reflection is really useful. So you can use January 1st, but you can also use summer time so we can identify what we want to have happen and figure out how to get there.
Elizabeth
And Gretchen, I love in your app the happier app you have, the spin the wheel feature where you can spin it during the day and it’ll give you a little task. Yeah. And you’ve made for the month of June the spin the wheel all about design your summer. Yeah yeah And Gretchen I did it and it was so much fun.
Elizabeth
I got identify a bird.
Gretchen
Ooh, that’s a good one. Yeah.
Elizabeth
Yeah, it’s a great one. And so I’m going to do it every day in June and have fun with that.
Gretchen
Yeah. You get three chances to spin the wheel if you want to do more than one thing or for some reason you want to get one every day in June. And I would love it if people share what they got and what they’re doing in social media. It’s so fun to see. Just use the hashtag design your summer and maybe I’ll repost it.
Gretchen
It’s so fun to see how people are making the most of the season and design your summer. I mean, we do this every year because it really does help us get more fun out of summer like Robertson.
Elizabeth
DAVIES said.
Gretchen
Yeah, and Robertson, DAVIES said adventures are what make us summer and so of you and are having a major adventure and hopefully a lot of minor adventures too. So let us know if you do try this at home and how you’re planning to design your summer and let us know what you got when you spun the wheel in the happy row.
Gretchen
Let us know on Instagram threads Tock Facebook drop us an email at podcaster Gretchen Rubin dot com Or as always, you can go to the show notes. Go to have your cars.com slash 486 for everything related to this episode.
Elizabeth
Coming up, we’ve got a happiness hack that will help you distinguish what you’ve got when you’ve got something ailing you. But first, this break.
[music]
Elizabeth
Okay, gretch, we’re back with this week’s happiness hack, which is how to tell if you’ve got covid spring allergies or a cold.
Gretchen
Yes. And the information here was taken from a new york times article, so I’ll post a link to the entire article if you want to read it. But I thought this was really helpful because it says by considering your symptoms, there’s often a very clear signal of what’s wrong with you. So first of all, if you have a fever of 100.4 or higher, it is probably COVID or another virus allergy has rarely cause high fevers.
Elizabeth
If you have an upset stomach, it’s probably COVID or flu, because allergies don’t usually cause that.
Gretchen
If you have body aches again, it’s probably COVID or the flu or cold, not allergies.
Elizabeth
If you have itchy eyes, ears or throat, it is probably allergies because COVID doesn’t cause itchiness.
Gretchen
Now, if you have sudden severe fatigue, that’s probably COVID. So allergies can make you tired, but that’s more like I need a nap, whereas COVID is more like I can’t get out of my chair. I’m so tired.
Elizabeth
And if allergy medications work like an antihistamine, then probably it is just allergies, right? Obviously, a COVID test will help you determine this, but sometimes we don’t have tests or they can be hard to get for whatever reason. Yeah. So if you don’t have a COVID test at home, this can lead you in the direction of figuring out what you’ve got.
Gretchen
Just for my observation, it seems like people have like a couple of symptoms and then they’re just sort of. It could be anything. And it’s like, well, actually, if you really think about your symptoms, you probably know what it is and then you know how to proceed. So I thought that was very helpful. Yes. And now for a know yourself better question and I love this know yourself better question.
Gretchen
It is particularly well time since we’re thinking about our big adventure, our hiking trip in England. And it’s the question of if you have to choose, do you prefer comfort or adventure? So, Elizabeth, do you prefer comfort or adventure?
Elizabeth
Well, Gretch, I thought about this when you asked me. And what I realized is it depends who I’m with.
Gretchen
Ooo interesting.
Elizabeth
So I’m in charge. If I feel like I’m going to be the person in charge, I prefer comfort. But if someone else is in charge, I prefer adventure. So a great example of this is Sarah. So Sarah, my writing partner, co-host of Happy in Hollywood, when Sarah and I are together traveling. She’s more in charge. She’s just better at being in charge.
Elizabeth
And so I feel very safe with her making decisions and knowing that she’ll figure out what needs to be done. So I love our adventures, but if I’m in charge, let’s say, of planning a family trip, I prefer comfort. And it just because it’s easier and I feel more confident when I’m planning comfort.
Gretchen
Yeah, adventure always feels riskier. Yeah, the stakes are higher. It’s a lot more challenging to plan something adventurous. I think this is part of what’s so great about this England trip is they’re doing all the hard planning. Yeah, we have to get there. We have to make sure we have the right hiking boots or whatever. But the itinerary, how far do you go?
Gretchen
What do you do if it’s raining really hard? Where is everybody going to eat? We have all the fun, but somebody else is doing the hard planning so we can have the adventure without being responsible for the adventure.
Elizabeth
Exactly. And gretch. You have another adventure you’re going on?
Gretchen
Yes. Okay. So I had talked about back in designing for a year when I was doing my 24 for 24, I said I wanted to plan a big family trip to Japan. And then Jamie said, I really can’t go to Japan. I you know, he took on this big role as being chairman of the New York City Housing Authority.
Gretchen
Plus, he’s got this whole day job just like I just can’t go to Japan. So then I crossed it off the list. Then my daughter Eliza was like, happiness, bullied me and told me all of my research, everything I’ve always said about happiness, you know, atmosphere of growth, novelty, adventure or time together, what’s memorable, all this stuff. And so then I was like, okay, well, maybe Jamie can’t go and Eleanor can’t go, but we will still go to Japan.
Gretchen
And for some reason I have just always felt like something was going to happen and we weren’t going to be able to go. I usually don’t feel superstitious, but about this trip I felt very superstitious. So Jamie and Eleanor cannot go. But Eliza, her girlfriend Caroline and I, are going and again, suspiciously, I thought somebody was going to get in the way.
Gretchen
But it looks like it’s happening.
Elizabeth
I can’t wait to hear about it.
Gretchen
Yes, but it was funny, You know, you call me a happiness bully. Well, I got it from Eliza that she gave me the happiness bullying treatment.
Elizabeth
You’ve taught her.
Gretchen
Well, yes, exactly. So I’m super, super excited. It’s going to be amazing. I’ve always wanted to go to Japan my whole life.
Elizabeth
So, Gretchen, for the adventure versus comfort, it’s a good distinction because it helps you know what you want at a particular time because, I mean, I think sometimes we want comfort, sometimes we want adventure. And if you’re with somebody who really leans one way or the other, yeah, that’s good to know, because then you can understand why you might be having cancer about making plans.
Elizabeth
And by the way, it doesn’t just have to be about a trip comforted and our adventure can be, are we going to go to a movie today or are we going to go walk around a neighborhood we’ve never been to? I mean, it can be small or it can be big, right?
Gretchen
And it can help you work out conflict because you can understand why something that sounds very appealing to you does not sound appealing to someone else. Because if you keep suggesting adventure after adventure after adventure and nothing’s working for them, they might just seem like, well, they don’t want to have any fun, but it’s actually because they’re seeking comfort or vice versa.
Gretchen
If you want comfort, comfort, comfort, but somebody wants novelty and challenge, it’s easier to understand how you can arrive at something that’s going to work for both of you. If you’ll understand why you might be feeling that difference.
Elizabeth
Or let them go have an adventure with someone else.
Gretchen
Right? Exactly. But then you would know why. Then. Then it would be like it’s not personal. It’s just that I’m looking for something else with this afternoon or this weekend or this vacation or whatever.
Elizabeth
Yeah, great. So you’re having two major adventures.
Gretchen
I am so incredibly lucky. This is amazing. As I said, I didn’t think that I was going to be able to do this Japan trip, and now I am. And we’re going on this amazing hiking trip. I feel so, so, so fortunate. And that’s why I was worried about that toe. That toe has got to work for me.
Gretchen
Yes, But yeah, I feel so lucky about the summer that I have ahead of me.
Elizabeth
So, Gretchen, as always, when we understand ourselves better, when we know ourselves better and helps our relationships with other people.
Gretchen
Exactly.
Elizabeth
Okay, Gretch, now we have a listener question.
Gretchen
Yes, this comes from fair. She says. QUESTIONER Here I have a having a stumbling block around being an outgoing friend. I’m someone who puts a lot of effort into my friendships. I make sure we have regular time together on the calendar. I reach out with text to check in. I remember birthdays are important events and so on. I’m also described as outgoing and friendly.
Gretchen
I’m in the parents of young children part of life, and I’m the mom at the playground who introduces myself to new parents, ask for their number and make sure they’re included in the next group. Get together. I show up at all the school events and belong to a community club, so I’m constantly meeting new people. I really value this as part of my personality.
Gretchen
However, I sometimes get a rebellion type feeling and shut down. I start reaching out to anyone at all and avoid these common places. It’s not that I’m angry that other people aren’t at my level, and oftentimes people do pick up the slack and reach out. But it’s like every once in a while I need a two week recharge.
Gretchen
Eventually time passes and my stamina returns and I’m back to my outgoing self. Is this common? Is there a way to reframe this that feels more positive than negative? Well, I think this is so positive. Wow.
Elizabeth
Yes. Yeah, I think it’s great. She knows she needs a rest.
Gretchen
Yes.
Elizabeth
She takes her rest and then she goes back to it. If you never took a rest, you might end up burning out and stopping forever.
Gretchen
Yes. Or feeling so resentful that then you’re not friendly to people because you just see them as, like, work to be done. But this way you really are able to maintain this extremely high and admirable level of connecting of other people. It is so hard to be the person who is this connector. I hope that everybody in your life recognizes what you’re doing to help knit people together.
Gretchen
Gertrude Stein said of Apollinaire that he had the quality of bringing people together and that after he died, people sort of fell apart. And, you know, some people really do have this quality, and it’s extremely hard work and it’s extremely important and admirable.
Elizabeth
Yes. And so I think just keep doing what you’re doing. Yeah. You’re doing everything right.
Gretchen
Yeah. And it’s great that ferry’s taking on this identity and sort of taking pride in it and recognizing that it is part of who she is. Because sometimes we don’t give ourselves credit for an identity. But she did. She’s saying this is a role that I play, this is an identity. And she also recognizes that others might not be as comfortable playing that role.
Gretchen
It’s just not in everybody’s character and temperament to feel comfortable being that ongoing. So it’s great that she’s doing it, great that she realizes that it is something that it’s like kind of a superpower for her.
Elizabeth
Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Coming up, I give myself a corgi related demerit but first this break.
[music]
Gretchen
Okay, listen, it’s time for Demerits and gold stars. What is your demerit about corgis?
Elizabeth
my gosh. gretch. Well, I’m giving myself a demerit for the lack of training, dog training for our corgis. We did try when they were puppies, but like so many, we’ve fallen off the training and they are barking so much. They are jumping on people. I think corgis aren’t known to be the easiest dogs to train. Plus, we haven’t helped by just again, falling off of it.
Elizabeth
But I hosted mahjong the other nights and the corgis were not well-behaved and it was just it was very distracting. I felt bad. You know how it is. You want your dog to behave? Yeah. So I think Adam and I need to get back on the train of the dog training.
Gretchen
Well, I have a few responses. One is, Barnaby is totally untrained as well, so I share that demerit. He’s an older dog, so he’s more chill. But that’s just because that’s the way he is, not because of our training. And, you know, they always say it’s not the dog’s fault, it’s the people. It’s the people who need to be trained.
Gretchen
Yes. The one thing I would say is I just think it’s hilarious that corgis can jump. They are so low to the ground and so kind of squat that it is always kind of comical to me to see them like get up off of their little legs because it just seems like they couldn’t be able to do it.
Elizabeth
Well, let me tell you, it’s like a tank. I mean, they’re they’re small, but they are strong. They’re all muscle. yeah. They jump on you. You feel it?
Gretchen
Yeah. It can be hard if they’re really enthusiastic. Yeah.
Elizabeth
We need to do some work that can be part of design. My summer. I need to get to work on having more well-behaved dogs.
Gretchen
Not the most fun part of having a dog.
Elizabeth
Okay, Gretch, what’s your gold star?
Gretchen
Okay, I. We’ve recently gone to my college reunion, and also my husband, Jamie’s college reunion, and they are super fun. I love going to reunions, and I want to give a gold star to all the students who work the reunions. Now, from what I can observe, what was true when I was in college is true today, which is that a way that people make money is they work the reunions.
Gretchen
You get trained up to be a bartender, to do whatever point people around, register people. And that’s the way people made money right after school let out. And these students, they just could not have been more friendly and more cheerful, more helpful. All these people are bumbling around and they just stay, you know, I’m sure they’re answering the same questions a bazillion times or they’re standing there pouring drinks for 3 hours and they were just always so nice.
Gretchen
And I just I want to just give a gold star to all the students who were working the reunions. I feel like such an old fogy by saying like, they were so well-mannered and friendly. They mean but they.
Elizabeth
Were gold star to those students.
Gretchen
Yes. And the resource for this week Earlier this year, I started my five Things to Try this month. That’s an addition of my five Things newsletter. And people love this. People love things. To try each issue, I feature five practical tools and strategies to help us all achieve our goals. For instance, in a recent one of the Five Things to Try newsletter, I highlighted this really great online tool that helps you break down overwhelming tasks into manageable steps.
Gretchen
That’s called Goblin tools, which is super fun. So if this sounds intriguing, you can subscribe to get more insights and tools at Happy Hour Cars.com Celeste Newsletter And Elizabeth, what are we reading? What are you reading?
Elizabeth
I’m reading Anatomy A Love Story by Dana Schwartz.
Gretchen
And I am reading The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch. And that’s it for this episode of Happy Art. Remember to try this at home. Design your summer. Let us know. What are you designing into your summer? We are always on the lookout for more ideas.
Elizabeth
Thank you to our executive producer Chuck Reed and everyone at Odyssey. Get in touch. Gretchen’s on Instagram threads, Facebook and Tik Tok AG, Gretchen Rubin and I’m on Instagram and threads was craft.
Gretchen
And if you like this show, please write us. Give us those five stars. You know, we love a gold star. We love those five stars. And here is your rhyming reminder. I love what you hear. Tell a peer.
Elizabeth
And until next week, I’m Elizabeth Craft.
Gretchen
And I’m Gretchen Rubin. Thanks for joining us. Onward and upward.
Gretchen
So, listen, I have to ask, so what did Daisy and Nacho do at the mahjong get together? That was was mischievous?
Elizabeth
Well, they just were really jumping on people when they were sitting around the table. And so then I was trying to get them to be quiet. So I gave them each like a little chew thing. But then they started fighting over the chew thing and crazy manner. And so everyone was just watching in horror as I was dealing with the situation.
Elizabeth
And I felt very self-conscious about my corgis and I didn’t feel my Corgi pride.
Gretchen
Well, they are mischievous, but so cute.
Elizabeth
Cute.
Gretchen
But so cute from the onward project.