Really, folks, I don’t spent every waking minute reading blogs and immersing myself in the wonderful world of podcasts. I do have to remind myself, though, just as I used to remind myself about my book-reading habits, that sometimes taking in all this material from other people means that I’m not participating as fully as I might in my own life. That being said, I’ve greatly enjoyed getting into this whole new way to access a very old type of information, that of the spoken word. Instead of my just having the radio on to Colorado Public Radio and being forced to listen to whatever they’re droning on about, I get to choose my material to keep me company while I’m walking or cooking or cleaning.
Power of Choice
You Crave What You Eat.
Interesting quotation from Anne Lamott in today’s Washington Post, “A Few Quick Thoughts on that Diet You Are About to Fail.” (I’ve read her non-fiction books but could never get into the one novel of hers that I tried. She can be pretty strong stuff, both in subject matter and language, but I have really enjoyed Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, 
A Start on New Year’s Resolutions–Why Deny Yourself Pleasure?
My good intentions to write a separate post last week about each of my NYR’s went by the wayside, swallowed up in all sorts of family activities. I hope everyone reading this post had a great time with family and friends over the holidays, but I know it’s inevitable that for some of you this time of year is especially hard. The Ostroms over at Pinch of Yum lost their baby last year, and they struggled over what to do this year about various traditional celebrations. I know there are days to come when there will be empty seats at our table, but for now we’re all hale and hearty and thankful for it.
The Best Way to Make Yourself Happy
I’ll have a post later this week about doing the food for the Chorale post-concert reception on Friday, but for today I have a couple of quotations for you and some observations about doing good deeds for other people and how helpful that is for the person performing said deeds.
First, from the comic Patton Oswalt, whose wife died suddenly in April 2016:
“Something that really pulls you out of grief is helping other people. . . . Anything to get you out of your head.”
Do the Boring Stuff
Another great podcast today from Liz Craft and Sarah Fain’s “Happier in Hollywood,” their podcast about life as TV writers living in Los Angeles. I would encourage you to listen to the whole thing. (One instance of bad language very early on, BTW.) Anyway, they have a guest this week, Melissa De La Cruz, a mega-best-selling author of young adult fiction. (Who knew? Not me.) But Melissa’s fabulously successful career came at the cost of a stroke.
How Many Seconds?
We’re in the process of changing the title of this blog from “Intentional Happiness” to “Intentional Living,” and part of the reason I didn’t get much posted last week was because of that change—I wanted to have the new banner up. But that hasn’t happened yet; this post is about a week old. As I’ve continued to write on various subject of interest to me (and to you, I hope) I’ve realized that not everything I write falls neatly under the heading of happiness, and that my posts about food and books fit into this
Where Will Your Month Go?
Sometimes I think that this blog wouldn’t have many entries if I didn’t do so much cribbing from other sources. Gretchen Rubin is a big crib, but another one is Laura Vanderkam, whom I’ve mentioned before. She’s quite a gal; I last wrote about her in this post about downtime. In addition to her quasi-daily blog posts she also sends out a weekly newsletter that sums up her week or gives ideas for the week or month to come, appropriately called “A Week’s Worth.” (The link is to the signup form.)
I Need Structure!
For the past three years I’ve been involved with an organization that promotes Bible study and faith around the world, Bible Study Fellowship International. The procedures that BSF follows were originally developed by its founder, A. Wetherell Johnson, who had been a missionary to China for many years. She was asked to start a Bible study for a group of women in California, and the organization spread from there.
Lessons from the Dentist’s Chair
I know, I know: this small-things-every-day idea comes up over and over again in this blog because I struggle with it so much. I devoted a whole chapter in my book to the idea of “the power of small things.” (Read that chapter here.) Becoming more aware of how counterproductive it is to let things pile up has helped me to improve my consistency even as I experience the boredom of putting things away, making the bed, wiping down the bathroom counter, etc., etc. It’s a total drag,
Is Your Procrastination Costing You?
Two ways my procrastination is costing me right now:
1. I missed getting my material on the choral masterpiece Carmina Burana ready in time for the fall concert season. This short e-book has been on the back burner for at least a year and probably longer–I can’t remember when I first came up with the idea of packaging the posts I wrote for the Cherry Creek Chorale’s 2013 performance into some sort of sellable item for other choral groups.