As I mention, during this conversation, I was wearing the “Happiness” t-shirt that our mother gave me as a Christmas gift.
Something Making Us More Happier
Elizabeth: She has a new sideboard for her dining room, with lots of storage: “Tablescape Central.”
Gretchen: I love my giant mugs! Here are some of my favorite huge mugs. For some other great mugs, check out the mugs on the Happiness Project site.
I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You
As Elizabeth and her family were waiting to board the plane from Kansas City to Los Angeles, she found that even though the airline staff member’s announcements were helpful and well-intentioned, she felt annoyed by being reminded what to do. And then she realized: that’s the way she must sound to Jack and Adam.
I mention Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, the brilliant children’s book by Betty MacDonald. (All the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle novels are terrific — they also make great books to read aloud, because they’re funny on the adult level, too.)
Spotlight on a Tool
Creativity can be an important element in the atmosphere of growth that makes us happier.
It can be difficult to make time for creative activities; if you’d like to build more creativity into your life, consider the Creativity Jump-Start. It has tools to help you cultivate creative habits: an SMS challenge, Creativity Bingo, and ideas about how to use the Happier app.
Here are the other Jump-Starts:
Happiness Gallery
I knew that back in ancient times, Greek and Roman sculptures were painted with vibrant color and adorned with detailed ornamentation — but I couldn’t picture it.
So I was so happy to visit the Metropolitan Museum’s exhibit Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color.
“Exploring the artistic practices and materials used in ancient polychromy, the exhibition highlights cutting-edge scientific methods used to identify ancient color and examines how color helped convey meaning in antiquity, and how ancient polychromy has been viewed and understood in later periods.”
Quotation
When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
— C. S. Lewis, “On Three Ways of Writing for Children”