Happiness is subjective

How happy are you? Dr. Oz wants to know. You know who he is, right? The doctor dude that shows up on Oprah occasionally and talks about poop and ingrown toenails and other inappropriate topics. The one who doesn't wear a t-shirt under his scrubs. Sorry, that's a personal preference but it really annoys me when a guy is walking around in a v-neck scrub top without a t-shirt under it.

OK so back to happiness. How happy are you? Dr. Oz has a couple of handy little tools to help you assess your happiness, in case the thought that you might be low on the happiness scale is keeping you up at night. Here's a sample question. You are supposed to select the number on the scale that represents your level of happiness on the "Subjective Happiness Scale"...

1. In general, I consider myself (circle one):

Not a very happy person -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 -- A very happy person

Hmmm. I need my happiness scale to be a little more defined. Something like...

1. In general, I consider myself (circle one):

ecstatic jubilant joyful convivial cheerful perky chipper pleasant upbeat optimistic realistic disagreeable fretter bellyacher malcontent pessimistic surly curmudgeonly miserable morose

There - now you have so many more options that are far more descriptive. Dr. Oz suggests starting out his 28 day plan for happiness by spending the first week journaling about the occurrences, people or situations that make you happiest and then, well, do more of those things.

Personally I prefer to be like the Danes. Denmark is the happiest place on earth, according to an annual survey by Leicester University in England. The USA ranks a pessimistic 23rd. But why are the Danish so happy? It's cold there and it's really tiny! Survey says...the good folks from Denmark are happier because they have low expectations. Yep, they figure things will turn out badly and when things turn out well, they are delighted by the positive turn of events.

Sounds like a good plan to me. But as a backup plan, I guess I'll go make a list of things that make me happy and try to put more of those things into my day. Couldn't hurt.

Things to during "Winter Storm 2010"

So if you're stuck in the house today because of "Winter Storm 2010", which, I have to say, is better than being stuck in the office, and if you give up on trying to actually accomplish meaningful work, here's a little entertainment.

The Gary England Drinking Game - while I'm not advocating actually taking shots as the instructions direct, because as The Lost Ogle points out, you will soon die of alcohol poisoning, this is very funny. Maybe you could make it into a bingo game. Or eat M&Ms instead of taking shots. And of course, you have to be an Okie and familiar with our very own millionaire weather man to think this is even slightly amusing. ( I bought one of those shirts for my niece. Yes I did).

From this blog I was highly entertained for about 8 minutes. "Curb Mining" was very popular when we lived in Bulgaria. And in Bethany for that matter!

Blu Dot Real Good Experiment from Real Good Chair on Vimeo.

Visit the home page of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and catch up on their podcasts, play the Daily News Quiz game, or find out Harry Reid's reaction to the State of the Union address at Wait Wait Don't Blog Me .

Or you could do something old school like read a good book or take a nap. Just don't plan to go to Starbucks. They are closed indefinitely. They closed at 10:00 a.m. so their associates could get home before the weather got really bad. Where do the associates live? Texas? Seriously, they could have waited to close until 10:30 so I could have drown my irritation at my boss for calling me to say we were working from home today AFTER I was in the office already. But no, all Starbucks are closed. So don't go there hoping for solace. Panchos Liquortown, however, is still open and very busy.

General Manager of the Universe and other tall tales

If you read my last post about online advertisements following me around, and you didn't read the comments, I thought I'd share as a public service announcement. My computer whiz little brother had the following to say. Seems like very sound advice to me!

My $.02: It's all about the cookies. Make sure your browser is set to not accept 3rd-party cookies (I mean, they'd be totally stale by the third party anyway!). I also use three browsers - Firefox for the important stuff like online banking, Chrome for social stuff like Facebook or Blogger, and Safari for general anonymous browsing, news, research, etc. And, never let anything save your password(s) and if it asks you to turn on "auto-complete", remember Nancy Reagan and just say no. :-)

He's always been smart like that. Genius shows up in random blossoms on our family tree. Come to think of it, maybe I'm the outlier. Hmm.

My genius seems to be for organizing. I want to organize all the planets and galaxies of my universe. OK everyone, sort yourselves out and line up accordingly. Inefficiency drives me crazy. I schedule my trips to the bathroom around when I have something to drop in the office mail box, papers to put in the recycling bin, and a check request to drop off in the office one over from mine. Does anyone else do that? Seriously, one day I'm going to pee myself waiting to get everything organized for that trip down the hall. It would be so inefficient to stop midway through a draft of our quarterly newsletter just to answer the call of nature.

Do NOT mistake my genius for organizing for an ability to be neat and tidy. Planning/organizing are not the same as being tidy. Those of us with this type of genius often operate in a cluttered environment. It's hard to be tidy when one is managing the universe.

Take it down a notch!

Everyone in my house is deaf. Really, only two of us are certifiable. (Shut up. I'm talking about having a hearing deficit.) My mother-in-law wears hearing aids to assist. I do not yet, but hope to someday soon. I've never had my hearing officially checked, but it's a well know fact I can't hear. I would be easily certifiable.

My twin sister has done all the work of going to have her hearing checked and buying the hearing aids. So I really don't need a doctor to tell me I can't hear. There's some weird genetic thing that caused us both to lose some of our hearing at about the same age. Genetics are interesting. Our paternal grandmother had the same problem.

But back to the epidemic of deafness in my household. Every sentence has to be repeated at least twice. Personally, I think it's more of an attention deficit than a hearing deficit. You know it's a lack of paying attention when you wait before repeating yourself while the communication slowly works its way through the fog. Then the answer. See. I knew you heard me.

Here is where if this were a blog of some substance I'd draw a parallel between our family's attention deficit epidemic and the state of the public conversations in this country. I'd point out that if everyone would stop yelling and actually listen, we might not be building these walls of fear and anger and accusations. But that's not what this blog is about, so I'll leave it to you to draw those parallels.

I'll just go back to trying to hear those around me and trying to make myself heard. For me, the key to hearing is being in close proximity - close enough where I can see the lips moving, and understanding the context. When the back is turned, or the hand is over the mouth, something obstructs my view...forget it. For me, seeing and hearing are very much interdependent. I have to see you to hear you.

Feel free to read between the lines some more and apply your conclusions to the shouting, hearing-impaired world around us. Sheesh. Everybody, simmer down!

This might be worse than talking to yourself

Printer Installation: It never hurts to ask...

"If there is something to gain and nothing to lose by asking, by all means ask!"

W. Clement Stone

When is the right time to pass on the stuff

I cleaned out Angela's old room yesterday, and it got me wondering what the statute of limitations is on keeping your kid's stuff. Our family is a little unique in that we've traveled and moved often, pulling together a household from nothing more times than I care to remember. This is in contrast to folks I know who grew up in one house, or folks who have lived in the same home all their adult lives and have accumulated a bunch of "stuff" from that lifetime. When the neighbor across the street died, the family had to bring in a bobcat to clear out the backyard. We lost count on the number of those big trash containers they brought in to clear out the "stuff" in the house.

We've never had that problem. I'm a tosser, not a saver, mostly by necessity. If you are shipping an entire family to Bulgaria in eight suitcases and as many boxes, you have to narrow it down. When we moved to Johannesburg, I thought it was a luxury to have a couple of 4x6 shipping containers. It's amazing what you can put into one of those. Actually, the giving up of one's "stuff" is a whole 'nother blog.

Today I'm thinking about those treasures we all accumulated as children, tweens, teenagers, then college students. The coming-home-from-the-hospital infant outfit, special blankie, first shoes, t-shirts, trophies, souvenirs, books, special toys or stuffed animals, photos of old boyfriends. We have one box for each daughter marked "keepsakes", but really, their keepsakes can't be contained in just that one box. Tessa has a lifelong love of shoes. Each time she gives away or throws out a pair of shoes it's like saying good-bye to a dear old friend. We also have a closet full of formals from various proms/dances/weddings. Getting two daughters through four years of high school and four years of college requires a LOT of fancy dresses! And one daughter isn't even finished with college yet!

So my question is, at what point is it the right time to hand over all that stuff to your adult children? I believe that at this moment Mark and I have retrieved all of our keepsakes from our parents' houses, including old yearbooks, my junior high drill team outfit (was I ever really that tiny?), and my wedding dress. But it took years for us to make that transfer - again, complicated by the fact that we were moving and often without a permanent place to call home.

I don't know the answer. I just know I want my children to always feel welcome in my/their home. I want them to know they always have a haven. If that means I should keep their things for a little longer, then I'm happy to. But really, I just crave a well-ordered life and a well-ordered home, and keeping closets full of things we don't use doesn't help to fulfill that desire.

While we're on the subject of keeping things from the past, here are a couple of photos of my parentals I found while creeping on my Mother's Facebook. She's in touch with some of her friends from high school and they've been sharing photos. My dad is the guy in the middle of all the girls (duh). The photo was taken on their senior trip. My mom is the cute blonde on the left in the second photo.

Hello world, what's new?

Whew, the last couple of weeks have been crazy at work, leading up to our big annual meeting and volunteer appreciation event, among other things. I've been planning, thinking and creating non-stop for weeks and it all turned out well. Fantastic even. So I'm thankful and relieved and happy to take a few days off.

Now I have time to think about what is going on in the world around me. Let's see. Swine flu? I'm somewhat confused by the mixed messages. It's near pandemic proportions says the World Health Organization, President Obama says it's a cause for concern but not alarm, photos of masked citizens riding the subways of the world fill the news. From what I read, the best way to prevent catching and/or spreading the swine flu is a complicated and technical procedure.

1. Wash your hands often.
2. Cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough.
3. Don't pick your nose.
4. Stay home if you have a fever.

Wait. I'm pretty sure mothers everywhere have been drilling those things into the heads of their offspring for generations. I've always said just use the good sense the good Lord gave ya!

Now that we've solved that problem, what else is happening. Looks like there's a need to avoid raw alfalfa sprouts due to possible salmonella. Check. What else. GM is getting rid of the Pontiac. Duh! Oh, here's a stunner.

By Andrew Stern – Mon Apr 27, 12:15 am ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Children given stimulants to treat
attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms score higher on math and
reading tests than children with the condition who do not get drugs, researchers
said on Monday.

Oh for crying out loud, I should certainly hope this would be the case. It doesn't appear to be a slow news day, but apparently stating the obvious is now newsworthy. Here's another good one for the use of common sense.

Fri Apr 24, 12:13 pm ET
ZURICH (Reuters) – A Swiss insurance worker lost her job after surfing popular social network site Facebook while off sick, her employer said Friday. The woman said she could not work in front of a computer as she needed to lie in the dark but
was then seen to be active on Facebook, which insurer Nationale Suisse said
in a statement had destroyed its trust in the employee.

If people would just listen to their mother, we wouldn't need to be reading all these headlines. That's my summary of today's news. And speaking of mothers, just another subtle reminder of what's coming up in a mere two weeks...Mother's Day! The Bible says, and I quote: "Treat your mama right and you'll score major points". That's from 1st Carinthians, if you want to look it up.

Unsolicited Advice

Tessa was home this weekend. Although she was sick and missed most of the Easter festivities, I still had the opportunity to offer some unsolicited advice. Because that's my job as Mom and Head General Manager of my children's universe. Truthfully, I gave up trying to manage their universe about the time they went off to college. I really don't have much leverage. I mean, what can I do, take away car keys, limit television, enforce a curfew? Not from long distance. I figure I did what I could in the first 20 years and it's up the them now. But I sometimes can't resist throwing little tidbits of wisdom in here and there.

Which got me to wondering what things my mother tried to tell me when I wasn't listening. And because it's Monday and you know what I love on a Monday. Everybody in unison. Because on a Monday Cari loves...all together now..."a good list".

5 Things My Mother Probably Told Me While I Wasn't Listening

1. Wear more lipstick. Life needs more color.
2. There's no such thing as "safe" sex.
3. Don't wait for a Prince Charming to rescue you. Sometimes you have to rescue yourself before your prince will seem charming.
4. Donuts make you fat.
5. Sometimes life sucks, sometimes it doesn't. Get over yourself.

What did your mother say when you weren't listening?