Family & Happiness

Two thought provoking tidbits from Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project blog:

• Pierre Reverdy observed, “There is no love, there are only proofs of love.” Keeping these journals to be a link between himself and his children is an active proof of love. We think we act because of the way we feel, but in fact, the way we act shapes the way we feel – so performing loving actions boosts loving feelings.

I'm taking this as a reminder to do, not just to contemplate, especially in my family affairs.

• Studies show that one way to boost happiness is to keep happy memories fresh. Happy people don’t have more pleasant experiences than unhappy people, but they remember them better. Keeping a journal (which for most people skews toward the happy experiences) will help keep good times memorable.

One of the smartest things I've done for keeping memories alive is to order an extra copy of Josie's yearly photo alblums (I use MyPublisher's Bookmaker) and keep it under the coffee table with Josie's other books. We pull her first year out regularly to look at it -- unfortunately the second year one isn't done yet.

On Marriage

"Marriage typically meets our sharply felt needs for security and predictability, [psychoanalyst Stephen Mitchell] argues, but in those relationships that last well, people take the leap of believing that they actually don't know exactly who the other person is or what he or she is capable of -- the absolute knowingness is a fantasy anyway -- and that there is new terrain to be discovered."

"Adam Phillips, a Longon psychoanalyst, muses in his 1996 book, "Monogamy": "What if our strongest wish was to be praised...What would our relationships be like?... We might find ourselves saying things like: The cruelest thing one can do to one's parner is to be good at fidelity but bad at celebration... Or it's not difficult to sustain a relationship but it's impossible to keep a celebration going. The long applause becomes baffling."

-- both from "Can This Marriage Be Saved?", Laurie Abraham, New York Times Magazine 8/12/2007

What I found provoking about these is that they tie in nicely to the current popular science on Happiness. That to be happy you have to have "flow" -- work that engages you in an almost transcendental way, and gratitude -- which I see tying in to celebration in a marriage -- to take time to appreciate what we've accomplished and what we have.

Use your inner economist to discover good restaurants

Courtesy of the Washington Post and economist Tyler Cowen.

1) avoid high rent areas
2) look for the competition
3) order strategically
4) know the restaurant cycle

In Praise of the George Foreman Grill

I nicked my sister's George Foreman grill the other day, and Ben and I have both been cooking with it. For people like us, who work fulltime and like home cooked family meals, it's a godsend. In a week, here's what we've used it for (no recipes!):

Grilled Scallops with Pesto Pasta
Eggs Panini
Grilled Chicken with Pasta
Chicken Panini
Grilled Fish Sandwiches
Grilled Cheese
Toasted English Muffin (since the toaster croaked...)

Ok, so it's a bit sandwich heavy, but this is just the tip of the iceberg, folks! We haven't even touched beef or vegetables yet! The wonderful thing is that it cuts your meat cooking time in half -- and when you have less than 30 minutes to get dinner on the table, that's a pretty substantial time gain.

We're even contemplating a supper club themed dinner, all cooked on the grill. (We might have to borrow a couple to put on a multi-course dinner for 8, but it would be doable...)

artistic abcedaries

Because some of my blogger friends have a thing for abcedaries, I thought I'd point out these finds on DaddyTypes:

P is for Peanut featuring images from the Getty Photo Collection.

Peter's ABC Book.

Turkey Talk: the supplies

I'm still too tired to actually write about our trip to Turkey, but here's some quick product reviews for things that made a two week trip with a 2 year old much, much easier:

A knockoff (from Target) of the Skip Hop portable diapering kit.

The Coppertone Kids Continuous Spray SunScreen. OMG, this stuff is so easy to apply that we all used it. I'm particularly proud that none of us got sunburnt despite 2 weeks of walking and hiking in 100+ degree sun. It came with a convenient sunblock stick, which was easy to carry for touchups.

Instead of a purse, I carried a small canvas drawstring backpack. (Sort of like these, but even simpler.) Big enough to fit the aforementioned diaper kit, as well as 2 water bottles, papers, money, guidebooks, etc. It was simple enough even Ben would carry it...


Although it's not kid-specific, I also have to endorse the Ricardo Beverly Hills 2 compartment pullman suiter rollaboard suitcase. It's not a fancy designer or anything, but I love these suitcases so much I'm on my second one (the first lasted for about 7 years of hard business travel). The neat thing about them is that they have a well separated hanging section, so you don't need to carry a garment bag (all in the space of a normal roll-aboard).

We were surprised at how much we used our stroller (and how little we used our backpack carrier), and while I was wishing we had a better stroller while we were there, I was extemely pleased it was an el cheapo umbrella stroller when Air France decided to keep it.

Turkey Talk: playing kitchen

playing kitchen
Originally uploaded by ccarlstead

What you get when you take a 2-year-old to Turkey: playing kitchen in an 800 year old monastery kitchen carved into a cave.

(in Cappodocia...)