Remedial Play

I truly believe that playing is an essential part of a happy life and, on a more practical level, I also believe that it is an essential part of a productive, useful life. The second part of that statement really appeals to my Puritan work ethic, so I’m going to go...

Saying No Is Not a Bad Thing

Who would you rather ask a favor from? Say you need a babysitter or even, God forbid, to borrow $100? Here are your choices: Friend A, who will interrogate you about why you need a babysitter or what you want the money for. You know she will do this as she always...

Who’s Judging Me?

My husband, Tom, left the country and dry land for three weeks. I stayed home with our son. In some ways, life was harder, but in some ways, life was a lot easier. I noticed about a week after Tom left, that I felt good. Lighter. I had more “work” to do, and less time...

Wildly Improbable Goals

Back in the fall, I started thinking about goals for 2012. More specifically, I reviewed my list of WIGs (Wildly Improbable Goals). Martha Beck talks about them in her book, Finding Your Own North Star. WIGs are goals that seem almost impossible but they are things...

Gratitude

In the past, my thinking about gratitude has been along the same lines as the attitude of a Depression-era parent. “Be grateful for what you have. Don’t ask for more. What you have is good enough.” Since I have Depression-era parents, I came by this thinking honestly....

How Do You Treat You?

If you had a friend who constantly berated you, judged you or criticized you, would you keep her close? Would you want to be around him? Would you try to find ways to spend more time with her or would you try to find ways to avoid him? Most of us would say that life...