Most of you are probably wondering what that Happy Book thing is on the left sidebar of my web site. I hope you are wondering enough to read on.
First, let me start by asking you if you are familiar with The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, a novel by Ann Brashares (and later a movie by the same name). The premise is that four best friends, spending their summer away from each other, decide to share a pair of pants to keep them connected. Each keeps the pants for a short while and then send to the next friend.
Second, The Happy Book, written by Rachel Kempster and Meg Leder is a book about being happy. It is an activity book that encourages us to discover or re-discover the things in life that make us happy. They (the authors) say their book is more fun that a basket of kittens!
Third, one of those happenstance, must be fate kinda moments in life, I happened to log into Facebook right at the moment when a friend shared a link to Jamie Ridler’s Creative Living Blog, and since I wasn’t too busy with anything else I clicked on the link and read that Jamie had interviewed the authors of The Happy Book and…
Combine these three elements and what you have is Jamie’s idea to send a Happy Book around the world for people to share their happy things!
What a cool idea, thought I, so I signed up immediately, wanting to be one of the few to get in on this happiness sharing thing!
Jamie would accept 26 names, come up with a mailing list, mail the book to the first recipient who can keep it for a week and do whatever happiness she wants in it. Then she mails it to the next person who gets to the same and so on! Considering the mail time involved, it will probably take about a year for the book to make a round trip.
Well, first so many people wanted to do this, that Jamie decided to start 4 books on their trips around the world! I am in the Glee group and I am number 14 on the list. When the book gets to me I can do any or as many of the activities that I want. I can insert pictures or doodles or use crayons or whatever makes me happy! I can share with my family and friends, if I like, but when my week is up, I send it to the next person. If we run out of pages, we’ll just add more!
I know none of the people in the Glee group in real life. But, I know I am going to enjoy perusing what the thirteen happy people entered before me. And, maybe my happy will add some joy to the people after me!
Jamie mailed the books on January 15 to the first recipient in each group. I should receive it, somewhere near the end of July. It will be Jamie’s job to help us keep the book on schedule and she has set up a blog site for us to follow our book through its journey.
That’s it! I’m in a sisterhood of a traveling happy book and that makes me happy!
Everyone likes to be happy, yes? Let’s use the comment section of this post to share things that makes us happy! Send lots of happy comments, okey dokey? I’ll go first…
Makes me very very happy to get comments on my blog!
What makes me happy – well all of the above except snow storms. I hate them, but they are kind of pretty as it’s coming down, it’s the aftermath of driving around on bad roads that I hate and the fact that I know it will be a long time till I can put my golf ball on the tee box. I love family, children and grandchildren (see me smile just talking about them), sister reunions, playing the violin and of course good food.
Yes, good food is the best!
Better yet, good food with good friends with much laughter!
Payday! No, no, not the candy bar, well, yeah, maybe the candybar, too!
Friday nights. Saturday mornings. Dog running in back yard. Health. Good friends. Flowers. Spring. Love clean sheets. Clean house. Sister reunion annually. Scented candles and soap. Vacation.
Mari, March 13, 1977? As I remember, it was a very good day!!
no. i turned 16 on feb 15, 1985. but i remember the 1976/1977 snows. they were brutal, and we missed a LOT of school.
I didn’t live in the south then. But, I have looked at the archives at our newspaper. Seventeen inches during one storm they had in the this part of South Carolina! The weather stayed cold, too, and the snow couldn’t melt! Schools were cancelled for almost 2 weeks!
Finding $20 in my coat pocket!
I once took a (informal) survey of the people I worked with. One of my questions, as I remember was, what makes you happy. I wanted people to tell me something (NOT SOMEONE) that made them happy. My boss said her daughter. I couldn’t get my boss to name someTHING that made her happy.
I could probably give you a laundry list of the things that make me unhappy!!
It’s Sunday morning and our street is still NOT plowed after receiving some 20-24 inches of snow. The water conservation warning has been lifted and I can get a shower…woohoo! Ther last storm of this kind was March 13, 1993 which was Shani’s 16th birthday. I got her a t-shirt that said, “I Survived the Storm of the Storm of the Century.” ….She was not impressed!!
What make me happy? I don’t know…my kids, my cat…being safe in a winter storm.
There were almost two feet of snow on the ground on my 16th birthday, too. We lived way out in the country. My party was canceled – not even the trains were moving that day. But my grandmother still baked my cake. LOL
Back scratches!
Home grown tomatoes!
Grape Nuts with honey and cinnamon and fruit!
Clean sheets that are Downy Fresh!
Morning coffee in the sunroom watching the wild birds at the feeders makes me happy!