All I want for Cmas is fame

I can’t wait for my kid—especially my daughter!—to be a social media star!

A birthday bidet

My husband is hard to shop for, so I was happy to come up with the idea of a bidet as a special way to celebrate his 45th birthday :) It cost $26 and took me about 40 minutes to install. The water it sprays is cold, but that’s not an issue as my sister assured me; she has the same model. I left it as pictured below and waited for him to find it. Although I wouldn’t say it’s a must-have, it’s been convenient and refreshing in a variety of circumstances.

How we use whipped cream

My husband has been eating a diet low in carbohydrates for awhile now—less bread, rice, and sugar, and more meat, eggs, nuts, and avocados—and he stumbled upon a way to satisfy his sweet tooth: whipped cream from a spray can. There is even a chocolate version that can be found around the holidays that tastes like a Wendy’s Frosty:

The amount of carbs, calories, and sugar are surprisingly low, and I’ve taken to eating it too. It’s oddly filling and keeps me from eating too much after a meal, when for some reason, I often want a little something else (yogurt, clif kids bar, graham crackers and chocolate chips, etc.).

The only downside is the obvious noise it makes when you squirt it into your open mouth while standing in front of the fridge: howwwwwwwrrrrff! Then everyone knows what you’re doing and wants some too.

Leave the kids alone

I’m not against kids learning about politics. But at an age where that learning comes from a board book?!

No.

No.

Not this either, unless your kid sees the book at Target as I did and begs you to buy it a full TWO YEARS before a presidential election that Elizabeth Warren may or may not be a part of.

Favorite decor

When I was first married, decorating stressed me out. But I've settled into a style that feels right for me and makes me happy. Fortunately, my husband doesn't have many strong opinions on this kind of thing, and he tolerates the sometimes quirky items around the house.

Highlights on the built-in shelves in our kitchen/dining area include my antique porcelain mantle spaniel (bottom middle, from eBay); a real blue butterfly in a shadow box (right side, a bday gift from my sisters around 2016); a Fiesta Kitchen Kraft ball jar from my aunt who has a collection of old dishes, and a bingo cage I found at the Provo DI then filled with colored bingo balls, also from eBay--it works and is a really fun toy (right side):

The spiny thing on the bottom right of the shelves is a metal sea urchin I found in the home decor section of Target several years ago. When I discovered they also came in a 3-pack of smaller sizes, I got a bunch of them and hung them on a wall in our entry: 

My Pee Wee Herman doll that talks when you push his chest is on the left side of the door to the hall, and some T-rex salt and pepper shakers are above him:

To the right of the door is a waving Chinese cat similar to ones we saw in our last neighborhood in San Francisco, the alligator head from the New Orleans trip, a postcard of the Nixon-shaking-hands-with-Elvis picture, and a plastic dinosaur my mom's dad brought me from Vernal, UT when I was little:

Our front entry console has a toad skeleton on the top right and a stegosaurus lamp on the shelf below:

I decided to keep the Halloween crows out past October on our living room mantle:

Groping without guilt

Not the best game for our times.

All hail Atarax

I've had bad allergies and related skin problems off and on all my life. Grasses, pine trees, and dogs measure highest on the testing I've had done, but sometimes I'm miserable for no apparent reason, like in April when I could NOT stop rubbing my eyes and itching my neck and arms!

I post the horrible pictures below in case others can relate and might get relief from Atarax (generic is hydroxyzine) as I recently did. I took it in the evening because it causes drowsiness, and that's also when I was most itchy, and my skin and eyes were much better within days. Half a pill turned out to work best for me; the full one left me feeling light-headed throughout the morning. The prescription ointment Elocon (generic is mometasone furoate) also helped the eczema heal.

Why did it take till now for a doctor to prescribe Atarax!?! I'm planning to start allergy shots this summer to address the root cause, but having a strong anti-itch pill on hand is huge!

I'm 40 now

I turned 40 on March 6 and planned a quick overnight to Santa Barbara, CA without kids to celebrate. My awesome friend from SF stayed with the kids and spoiled them. We drove down the morning of Saturday, March 2 and after a DELICIOUS lunch at Los Agaves, went on a docent-led tour of Casa del Herrero, an old house in a very nice neighborhood in the hills that was filled with Spanish art and furniture and had beautiful gardens and a workshop that smelled like the garage of my Napa relatives. Here we are in the front courtyard:

After checking into our hotel, we took a couple of the free beach crusier bikes they had and went for a short ride in the drizzly rain on the trail near the beach. Not many people were out, and it was very pleasant.

After dark we walked down State St. and ended up at the Santa Barbara Public Market, an upscale indoor food court where we shared a bag of Fritos cut open with chili, bbq meat, sour cream and green onion inside followed by some dark chocolate and Cinnamon Toast Crunch ice cream.

The next morning, we requested the beach cruiser bikes again after breakfast but were told by the college kid at the desk it was a "huge liability" for us to take them out because the ground was wet. This even though it wasn't raining any more, we'd taken them out IN the rain the night before, and we'd already signed a liability waiver. I decided to ask another guy 10 minutes later, and he gave us the bikes no problem. I despise overly protective attitudes and kept making jokes about how brave we were to ride through all those shallow puddles. So much risk. 

We checked out the wharf and got a picture:  

then rode farther and walked around a cemetery because that's what I like to do. I figured out this one was next door to a summer home estate called Bellosguardo that was owned by the very wealthy Clark family. I'd just read about them in the intriguing book Empty Mansions. 

We stopped in Solvang after checking out of our hotel and ate aebleskivers and visited the Elverhoj museum, which is located in a Danish family's former home. The kitchen was especially charming:

Then it was on to the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo. A friend had raved about this quirky hotel in a Facebook post, so we stopped for lunch--so good!--and looked around at the decor and grounds. Even the staircase was kitschy:

I had to buy a goblet, magnet, some hot pink decorative bunnies, and a t-shirt: 

My sisters included a list of 40 things they remember about or attribute to me with my gift, which was so touching and fun to read through. I'm including it here even though it will be long:

1) You tugging your eyelashes to itch your eyes and rubbing your eyes mercilessly

2) So organized--your bullet point Post-It note lists

3) Papa (my mom's dad) requesting you play "Rock Around the Clock" (a jazzy version of Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree) at Christmas talent shows and the crowd-pleasing slide you did down the keyboard   

4) Your funny and thoughtful birthday gifts and your excellent birthday card selections

5) Coming down to your (basement) bedroom and seeing you writing in your journal on your bed in a standard notebook

6) Most athletic sister--softball, tennis, bowling, roller blading, etc.

7) How you'd get in the tub and read for hours

8) The way you can burp and say words at the same time

9) Making oatmeal scotchies or chocolate chip cookies and lining them up on paper towels

10) Mom and Dad surprising you with your senior trip to New York by playing Frank Sinatra's New York, New York song

11) You made a video for school that included you driving off with a dummy dressed like Mom being dragged behind

12) The things you liked to eat: Grape Nuts, Honey Bunches of Oats, ice cream, chips and salsa, Mother's Taffy cookies, Bit O' Honey, Kit Kats, Great Harvest oatmeal cookies

13) Your precise handwriting and doodles

14) Dressing up to go disco skating and your love of disco music

15) The things in your basement room: lava lamp, mannequin legs, Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prarie series, Mary Englebreit and David Letterman stuff

16) You ALWAYS having a book with you for any spare moment in life when you could squeeze in some reading

17) Doing those big Disney movie poster puzzles with you

18) Hearing you blow your nose like a fog horn and then your ankles clicking up the basement stairs in the mornings

19) Your ability to slip your contact into your mouth and still be able to talk, eat, drive, etc.

20) You hiding in the ball box from Mr. Grass (my 5th-grade teacher who I disliked) and otherwise making his life hard

21) The way you drove your Mazda Protege stick shift so confidently and zippy up and down the big hills in San Francisco

22) You losing BIG after a Dr. Mario all-nighter (when we stayed up gambling) and crying upon seeing the results of the haircut I won doing on you [2nd Sister]

23) Going to Lenitos and out-eating you by like 4 tacos every time [2nd Sister]

24) Cleaning the Backman's house with you [2nd Sister]

25) Going to Taco Time with you and two friends in high school [2nd Sister]

26) Seeing you emerge from the hide-a-bed all sweaty like a newborn kitten after you talked me into folding you into it and Dad barely being able to get you out [2nd Sister]

27) Kicking grasshoppers out of the bushes and riding Big Wheels with you and your friend [2nd Sister]

28) You pulling me aside to ask me to put on a slip as I pranced around in a see-through dress on the Manti temple grounds (at my wedding). [2nd Sister]

29) Going on walks with you in boxers in the 90s [2nd Sister]

30) Being jealous of the Pirates of Penzance nightgown you got to wear and wishing I could wear one just like it to bed [3rd Sister]

31) Playing a Jeopardy game on Christmas Eve at bedtime with you and 2nd Sister [3rd Sister]

32) So impressed with how you led the Cherubs group and were so calm and good with leading the kids and doing it in your own way [4th Sister]

33) You wore that black pantsuit to a dance in high school--I thought you were so daring and cool [4th Sister]

34) You coming to pick me up from a neighborhood friend's house on the pink scooter and balancing both of us on it all the way home [4th Sister]

35) Staying up late one night with you and 5th Sister while we challenged each other to see who could successfully pick things up with our feet--I won [4th Sister]

36) You let me stay with you in San Francisco while I interned at the Kaiser lab [4th Sister]

37) Pretending to stand on one of your hat boxes without putting any weight on it and then breaking through [5th Sister]

38) Playing Boggle with you and me spelling the F word without knowing it was bad [5th Sister]

39) You bringing your college friends over and me having a crush on one of them [5th Sister]

40) Hallucinating (that she saw an intruder) in your San Francisco apartment and watching the Olympics instead of going back to bed because we were so shaken up [5th Sister]

Titillating

I called about getting my veins done again a few months ago and was advised by a vascular surgeon in our new area to get an ultrasound first. It showed the small saphenous vein in my right leg was leaky, which made sense as there was a lot more varicose stuff happening on that leg. He told me foam sclerotherapy to shut that vein down would be covered by insurance, so I got it done March 5.

Compression stockings must be worn for about 2 weeks while the vein heals, so I wore my comfy long skirt and boots for church on March 10 to cover it all up. I realized when I got home that I was NOT successful; the skirt had a slit in the back when I thought it didn't.

I had been giving everyone a tantalizing view of my slouchy, tan support wear as I walked out of sacrament meeting early, taught singing time in front of a room full of kids and teachers, and was up and down and all around with the little kids doing music for Nursery with their 3 male leaders in attendance. Great.

Fidget toy ideas

1st Brother got some tissue lasered off the roof of his mouth and sewn on below his bottom front teeth in mid January. The procedure was recommended after he got hit in the mouth with a pickleball racket in PE in October 2017 and had to get some of the bruised, torn gums clipped away. (It was the worst physical injury any of my kids have had so far. Pretty lucky, I know). Just before his graft, I had the idea to give him a velcro hair roller to put in his pocket to help him deal with nerves. He could squeeze it tightly enough to cause a little good pain. Sounds good, right? He liked it.

In early February I played 9 holes of golf when the temperatures were around 45 and it was raining on and off. I bought a shakeable hand warmer in the pro shop that stayed hot the rest of the day, and it was really nice to have for golf and in general. I went online to buy a big pack for my husband, who was about to take his own VERY cold and rainy golf trip to Bandon Dunes, Oregon, and found there is such a thing as a re-usable hand warmer that you charge with a USB cord and a computer. Doesn't that sound like a comfort? Not only that, you'll be as warm as if your lover was there!

I couldn't resist buying several of The World's Smallest Stretch Armstrong toys around Christmas. One became a stocking stuffer, and I mailed two to high school friends who turned 40 this winter. Another great way to fidget your troubles away.

Post-it parenting hack

I believe it was the excellent 1-2-3 Magic book on parenting that gave me the idea to write notes to my kids about things they need to do instead of telling them over and over. It saves me a lot of frustration, and it's hard for them to misunderstand what's expected. 

These pictures, taken of post-its on the kitchen counter as we were about to leave for a family vacation, show 3 ways I've used notes instead of nagging and repetition to get stuff done: 

My kids are old enough to pack for themselves now. The first note lets them know what to lay out on their beds, I do a quick inspection, then I usually put stuff in the suitcases. (The thought of items being wadded up or distributed willy-nilly in there is still too much for me).

The second note is one you'll see most Saturdays at our house and has to-dos for each kid. They get up and can have a couple hours of screen time, then we shut it down till they're dressed, have completed the things on their list, and have permission to do more, which is usually late afternoon or evening. "Steps" is almost always on our recent post-its, meaning they have to reach a physical activity goal and show us on their fitness tracker watch they've achieved it. It was my husband's idea to get a tracker for everyone, and it's been a good thing.

The third note was out because I didn't want people to default to their usual frozen corn dog or pizza for lunch when we had leftovers in the fridge that would go bad during our trip. I put this kind of note out when we have house guests too so they know their options.

I feel like I've mentioned my other favorite parenting books in another post, but I'll repeat them anyway:

2019 Birthday CD

It's still happening. Here are the tracks on my sister's 2019 birthday CD:

1) Feel It Still: Portugal. The Man--the hook has the same tune as "Hey there, wait a minute Mr. Postman" from the song by the Marvelettes 
2) Let Me Love You (feat. Justin Bieber): DJ Snake
3) You Know It Doesn't Matter Anymore: Hall & Oates--my new all-time favorite of theirs
4) Southern Nights: Glen Campbell
5) My House: Flo Rida--I first heard this on the day of my uncle's funeral when it was performed by my cousin's animatronic Brigham Young. Someone had to distract us.
6) God's Plan: Drake
7) On Our Own: Bobby Brown--"Too hot to handle, too cold to hold." Probably my favorite song this year. Credit to my husband
8) Supercut: Lorde--credit to my husband
9) Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show: Neil Diamond--I still keep a CD player in the kitchen and listen to old CDs when I'm making dinner, and this track jumped out a few months ago. I like the gospel singers in the background.
10) Amie: Pure Prarie League--heard when I watched the fantastic Freaks & Geeks TV show 
11) Ride Wit Me: Nelly
12) 7 Days: Craig David--they were playing this on the music-go-round ride at the Boardwalk and I was like, "Whaaaat?!"
13) Alone Too Long: Hall & Oates
14) Wham Bam Shang-a-Lang: Silver
15) You've Got It (The Right Stuff): New Kids on the Block-- The Internet just told me it's a Weird Al song that says, "I love the white stuff, baby, in the middle of an Oreo." Oh! They played that on radio Disney growing up.  
16) Rhinestone Eyes: Gorillaz--credit to my husband
17) Walnut Tree: Keane--credit to my husband
18) New Attitude: Patti LaBelle--Dr. Laura used to use this song on her radio show
19) Happy Hour (Lefti Remix): Weezer
20) Rhiannon, lullaby version: Rockabye Baby--the same cousin that made me aware of My House was playing lullaby versions of famous songs in the background at a party he had. There are tons of them, and they are interesting.
21) Cry Me a River, lullaby version: Rockabye Baby

Picky eater

Sister is a picky eater. She just is. At her current age of 6, she eats:

-Whole milk with a couple scoops of chocolate Quik powder
-Cereal bars from Trader Joe's (NOT any other brand like Nutri Grain, etc.!)
-Dinosaur chicken nuggets (ONLY the same brand they carry at Costco!)
-Trader Joe's Tomato Basil, Cilantro-Jalepano, or plain hummus
-Tortilla chips with melted ORANGE cheddar cheese, i.e., nachos
-Some cold cereal with milk: Honey Bunches of Oats, Honey Nut Os, Gorilla Munch
-Most crackers--Wheat Thins, Ritz, graham crackers
-Fruit leathers and fruit snacks
-Strawberries, a couple kinds of apples, dried blueberries
-Sometimes a baby carrot
-Eating out: french fries, chips, milk
-Treats: ice cream, chocolate chips, ice cream sandwiches, most gummy candies, a nibble of a cookie maybe

No bread, noodles, hamburgers, pizza, lunch meat, donuts, or cake!, although she does usually lick the frosting off a cupcake.

The thing she likes best is "chocolate milk and cereal bar," which is limited to 3 per day. 2nd Brother recently noticed the large container of Quik powder we keep on the kitchen counter says in fine print, "Consider limiting weekly intake to three to five 1-cup (8-fluid ounce) servings." Then he said, "[Sister] has 21 servings per week!!" Hmmm, yeah; no more about that, please.

I haven't been too worried because she is physically healthy and bright and learning like she should, but we're always attempting to get her to try new things. For awhile we put a small bit of something on a toothpick at dinner that she only had to touch with her tongue, but we usually didn't force her to do that. I REALLY don't want to give her traumatic food memories that last a lifetime!!

When she turned 6, I told her she had to actually eat the bite for a fuzzy/to choose a new toy from the stash my neighbor gave us/to earn screen time the next day/snuggles with me before bed. (A lot of parents seem to love this, but I am usually ALL DONE, and it's not part of our regular routine). We've had some rough times, like when she tried a piece of grilled cheese and got herself so freaked out that she gagged till she threw up. The same thing happened with a piece of mac 'n' cheese. She would go for long periods without trying anything, and some nights we wouldn't give her a bite to try because it was easier not to deal with it. She recently has claimed she's a vegetarian because she loves animals, but so far she's still eating chicken nuggets.

On the plus side, she has "kind of" liked guacamole and pancakes, but not enough to eat them regularly, and after repeated exposure, she'll eat small pieces of bread or rolls without a fuss. There has been some real hope lately because she likes to help me cook and is often more open to trying the thing she helped make, like this French toast:

or this chocolate bundt cake: 

She actually ate a real portion of French toast the other night--hooray! She didn't like the chocolate cake, but ate a whole mini cupcake made of yellow cake (no frosting!), and said she liked it! Maybe things will work themselves out after all.

Quotes from 2016-18

In 2016, I started recording interesting quotes and thoughts I came across in a note on my phone. It's something I HIGHLY recommend; I would have forgotten 98% of this stuff if I hadn't written it down, and I feel newly inspired when I read over it again. The ones below are some favorites from the time I started until the end of 2018. At that point, I decided to start a "Quotes 2019" note and break the quotes down by year as there were too many of them.

"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." --Ralph Waldo Emerson via Jamie

"The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young." -Oscar Wilde

"Among the best things we can give each other are good memories." -Henry Nouwen

"Don't let perfect be the enemy of good"

"We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing wings on the way down."-Kurt Vonnegut via Pepper on FB

Small things often -Gottman Institute motto

Jerry Seinfeld wants his tombstone to read, “Whatever.”

"I think that little by little I'll be able to solve my problems and survive" -Frida Kahlo

"Feelings are just visitors; let them come and go." -Mooji

"It’s hard to hate someone up close." -Brene Brown

"Do it now; the conditions are always impossible." -quote on Sherel's fridge

"Sometimes the only way to go is to just go on." -from the TV show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

"Life keeps life-ing you."

"It goes against the American story telling grain to have someone in a situation he cannot get out of, but I think this is very usual in life...and it strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that a man can always solve his problems. There is an implication that if you just have a little more energy, a little more fight, the problem can always be solved. That is so untrue it makes me want to cry—or laugh." -Kurt Vonnegut, via Pepper on Facebook

"Nobody really knew anything, and the whole situation was absurd." -Stanley Kubrick about the Cold War (works for life in general)

I don’t know what falling in love means...but I do remember having a very clear sense that I wanted this to continue –Joan Didion on her marriage 

"Movies are like a machine that generates empathy." -Roger Ebert

"The rocks in the water don't know how the rocks in the sun feel." -Haitian proverb

"I have a real take-all-give-nothing attitude this year." -Andy Warhol

"Go to bed, you'll feel better in the morning" is the human equivalent of 'did you turn it off and back on again?' " -Shower thought on Facebook

"Failure is part of living a full life." -George W. Bush at the funeral of his father, George H.W. Bush

Bumper sticker: "If you’re not in awe you’re not paying attention."

Bumper sticker: "Don’t believe everything you think."

"Those who crusade not for God in themselves but against the devil in others, never succeed in leaving the world better, but leave it as it was or sometimes even perceptibly worse than it was before the crusade began."  -Aldous Huxley

"Forgiveness came not with the fanfare of epiphany but with pain gathering up its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” -Khaled Hosseini

"Even his griefs are a joy long after to one who remembers all that he wrought and endured." Homer from The Odyssey

"Our mind is devouring itself because it doesn’t have the distraction of sweating and toiling. -Adam Carolla from the book President Me

"My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had someone to live for, someone I must not disappoint." -Thomas Edison

"I want to give my kids just enough so they feel they could do anything but not so much they feel like doing nothing." -Warren Buffet

Progress = happiness -Tony Robbins via the Professor Blastoff podcast

"The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power." -Mary Pickford

"A year from now you'll wish you had started today." 

"I prefer the pain of discipline to the pain of regret." -Jake Gyllenhaal

"Trust is a confident relationship to the unknown." -Rachel Botsman

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased." -Ralph Waldo Emerson 

"This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do with it" -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If I am killed I can die but once, but to live in constant dread is to die over and over again" -Abraham Lincoln

"Great leaders use group consensus in data gathering, but not in decision making. Leaders aren’t in the group; leadership is often lonely and creates legions of critics. Leadership is known by the enemies it makes” -Abraham Lincoln

Via The Armstrong and Getty Show radio show and podcast:

"Problems shared dissipate; problems kept secret grow."

"Luck favors the prepared."

"Habits are hard to break, good ones too"

"Most lives extend in a curve. There is a rise of ambition, a rounded peak of maturity, a gentle downward slope of disillusion, and last a flattened grade of waiting for death." -from the book Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck

"Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -William Shakespeare from Macbeth

"What can't be cured must be endured." - from the book The Shipping News

"Luxury will only deaden your perceptions, numb your soul." -grandpa in the book Unorthodox 

"Trouble comes cheap and leaves expensive." -from the book Rock Springs by Richard Ford

"Of course individuals can make a difference, but the fact is that evil has had the whip hand in this world ever since Cain. Evil is not going to be vanquished. Our job is to resist it, and to plant the seeds of further resistance so that goodness never entirely vanishes from the universe." -from the book Little Bee by Chris Cleave

"How small we humans are. All our scrambling around trying to buttress ourselves against death. All our efforts to insulate ourselves against uncertainty with codes of behavior and meaningless busyness." -from the book Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

"Her irritation with the world had dampened into a cushion of soft melancholy that went with her everywhere." -from the book The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout

"I tend to think of human beings as huge rubbery test tubes with chemical reactions seething inside...it is a big temptation to me when I create a character to say he is what he is because of faulty wiring or because of microscopic amounts of chemicals which he ate or failed to eat on that particular day -Kurt Vonnegut in the forward to the book Breakfast of Champions

Oneida report after 40 years of communal living when they needed a new leader: "Our members are no longer industrious. They see no object in hard work while the earnings and profits are controlled by others. Without an entrepreneurial steak in advancing the company's earnings, members simply relax into living comfortably off the fat of the community."

Three myths people cling to that make it hard for them to spring back from adversity: 1) they're responsible for what happened to them 2) sadness must carpet their lives wall to wall 3) they will never feel any better. That adversity is personal, pervasive and permanent. -Sheryl Sandburg, FB COO who suddenly and unexpectedly lost her husband on vacation.

From the book Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson:

"Enjoy the non-shitty things now because shitty things are coming."

"My primary thoughts during the holidays are, 'Stab. Stab. Stab. Run away'."

From a college commencement address by Will Ferrell:

"My fear of failure never approached in magnitude my fear of ‘what if ’: What if I never tried at all?”

“After my first show [on Saturday Night Live], one review referred to me as ‘the most annoying newcomer of the new cast.’ Someone showed this to me and I promptly put it on the wall of my office, reminding myself that, to some people, I will be annoying. Some people will not think I’m funny. And that’s OK.”

(To those who don’t know what they want to do with their life): “Enjoy the process of your search without succumbing to the pressure of results. Trust your gut. Keep throwing darts at the dartboard.”

From the book My Life As An Experiment by A.J. Jacobs:

"Sometimes you can pay too much attention."

"Our society overvalues authenticity, the notion that we have to be true to ourselves. When I'm true to my basic instincts, I am a jerk--that's the easy road. The hard part is trying to stand up straight, refrain from injurous words, refuse to be glad at the misfortune of others, and remain skeptical of flying rumors." (from the essay about George Washington and referring to an idea from Richard Brookhiser)

"Don't go to sleep angry? Are you kidding? That's the best thing we ever figured out to do. It's like hitting a reset button. She wakes up fresh, I wake up calm, and we can talk about the argument or not talk about it--that works too."

"It's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting."

From the book Tribe by Sebastian Junger:

"Humans don't mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary."

"Humans need three things to feel content: feel competent at what they do, feel authentic in their lives, feel connected to others."

"The beauty and the tragedy of the modern world is that it eliminates many situations that require people to demonstrate a commitment to the collective good." (because we are protected by police and fire departments, moral behavior is codified into laws and penalties)

"Whatever the technological advances of modern society, the individualized lifestyles that those technologies spawn seem to be deeply brutalizing to the human spirit."

"Because modern society has almost completely eliminated trauma and violence from everyday life, anyone who does suffer those things is deemed to be extraordinarily unfortunate." (can create an identity of victimhood that can delay recovery)

Mom Mary Ann from the book The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe:

"I think parents should do their best not to be unhappy. That's the worst thing for children--to have unhappy parents. If you want to work outside the home, you should. If you can afford not to and you don't want to, then you shouldn't."

"It's almost taken for granted now that people should be encouraged to create. But mom was also content not to make things but just enjoy them. 'Everyone doesn't have to do everything. People forget you can also express yourself by what you choose to admire and support.' "

From the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson:

"Say 'I don’t' instead of 'I can’t' so it becomes part of your identity. I don’t drink, I don't miss a workout instead of I can’t drink or I can't miss a workout."

"If you’ve got a problem, chances are millions of other people of had it in the past, have it now, and are going to have it in the future."

"Your actions actually don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things and the vast majority of your life will be boring and not noteworthy and that’s OK."

"[Modern culture implies] you need to be great to be accepted in a world that broadcasts only the extraordinary."

"Constant positivity is a form of avoidance, not a valid solution to life‘s problems."

"We don’t actually know what a positive or negative experience is. Some of the most difficult and stressful moments also end up being the most formative and motivating. Some of the best and most gratifying experiences are also the most distracting and demotivating. Don’t trust your conception of positive and negative experiences."

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." -Aristotle

"Don’t just sit there, do something, and the answers will follow. Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s also the cause of it."

"We’re all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by life’s trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing.” -Charles Bukowski:

From the book Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster:

"It isn’t the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis or face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit."

"The feeling often comes over me that I am not at all remarkable...in all probability, I shan’t turn out a bit different from any other ordinary person."

From the book The Birth of the Pill by Jonathan Eig:

Margaret Sanger was "easily annoyed by the petty rivalries of her children" and kept them at a predictable distance.

"A successful man or woman is one who toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing onward through life goes with a clear conscience and a big heart." -Gregory Pincus

From the book Gilead by Marilynne Robinson:

-There's a lot under the surface of life...a lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either

-Writing felt like praying...you feel you are with someone

-Man would say, "I am confident I will find great blessing in it" about bad situations

-I got pretty good at pretending I understood more than I did, a skill which has served me through life

-When people asked pastor how God could allow (x), he thought "what would the Lord have to do to tell us he DIDNT allow something?"

-To be useful was the best thing the old men ever hoped for themselves, and to be aimless was their worst fear

-There is no earthly solution to the problems that confront me

-It makes young men happy to do a kindness so perilous and exotic in nature (rigging up antennae in roof for his TV)

-"Grant me on earth what seems Thee best, till death and heaven reveal the rest" (Isaac Watts)

-Age has a tendency to make one's sense of oneself harder to maintain, less robust in some ways

-Augustine says the Lord loves each of us as an only child

From the article "Learning to Love Criticism" from The New York Times:

"All substantive work brings both praise and criticism. Many women carry the unconscious belief that good work will be met mostly — if not exclusively — with praise. Yet in our careers, the terrain is very different: Distinctive work, innovative thinking and controversial decisions garner supporters and critics, especially for women. We need to retrain our minds to expect and accept this."

"Women can also benefit from interpreting feedback as providing information about the preferences and point of view of the person giving the feedback, rather than information about themselves."

From the book The State of Affairs by Esther Perel:

"Never before have our expectations of marriage taken on such epic proportions. We still want everything the traditional family was meant to provide—security, children, property, and respectability—but now we also want our partner to love us, to desire us, to be interested in us. We should be best friends, trusted confidants, and passionate lovers to boot. (We want everything) for the long haul, with one person. And the long haul keeps getting longer.”

"Not only do we have endless demands, but on top of it all we want to be happy. That was once reserved for the afterlife. Now happiness is no longer just a pursuit, but a mandate. We expect one person to give us what once an entire village used to provide, and we live twice as long. It’s a tall order for a party of two."

"Expectations are resentments waiting to happen."

Robert Johnson says romantic love has “supplanted religion as the arena in which men and women seek meaning, transcendence, wholeness, and ecstasy.”

From "Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person," by Alain de Botton in The New York Times:

"Marriage ends up as a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don’t know yet who they are or who the other might be."

"We mustn’t abandon him or her, only the founding Romantic idea upon which the Western understanding of marriage has been based the last 250 years: that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning."

"We need to swap the Romantic view for a tragic (and at points comedic) awareness that every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us — and we will (without any malice) do the same to them." 

"This philosophy of pessimism offers a solution to a lot of distress and agitation around marriage. It might sound odd, but pessimism relieves the excessive imaginative pressure that our romantic culture places upon marriage. The failure of one particular partner to save us from our grief and melancholy is not an argument against that person and no sign that a union deserves to fail or be upgraded."

"Romanticism has been unhelpful to us; it is a harsh philosophy. It has made a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not normal."