311 - Fun Things to Do!

311 - Take photographs of buildings that hold happy memories for you!

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The Little Bliss Building List!

Today I woke up and remembered that it was the day to post my "Little Bliss List" for my blogging course. All week long I have been noticing blissful experiences -- doing Zentangles with friends, going to the movies, hanging around with family - but this morning I got a different kind of idea. I thought of taking photographs of all the buildings in Akron, Ohio that I inhabited today that contained blissful experiences for me. That way I could have an unusual record of my Friday bliss list. If you would like to see where the idea for "The Little Bliss List" originated, and also participate in the "blog hop" with other bloggers who are also describing bliss this week, go to blog.livlane.com. "Bliss" is the word that Liv Lane has chosen to represent her year, and she has invited anyone who wants to join her in noticing bliss in their lives, too!

The photograph above is of Resnik Community Learning Center where I had the privilege of reading to my grandson Andrew's first grade class this morning in the library. What could be more blissful than reading fun, colorful, and happy books to a group of youngsters? Even the memory of it is delightful for me.

It was such a beautiful day today so I took my beloved car, Molly Marie McGee, for a ride through the car wash. I put on classical music and had a blissful time noticing how the music matched the spraying of the water, the dancing of the suds, and the swirling of the sponge strips. The hardest thing was not looking too exceedingly happy as we exited to get dried off!

My next stop was Highland Square Library, my friendly neighborhood book paradise, to return this week's books and get some more fun books for next week. I like to get books about peace, kindness, friendship, and adventure with great illustrations and appealing stories. It's easy for me to find bliss in the children's section. Take two Dr. Seuss books and call me in the morning -- I bet you'll be feeling blissful, too!

Off to lunch with my precious 94 year old Paparoonio, my wonderful husband Tom, and my terrific son, Kevin. (It's all right to say great things about your own family, isn't it?) Any time I get to spend with any one of them is blissful to me, but to have all three of them at the same time is triple bliss for sure! All the waitresses adore my Dad, and he loves being adored!

I spent the rest of the afternoon in my favorite coffee shop - Angel Falls, in my favorite neighborhood - Highland Square. With a big cup of rose tea, I set up my laptop and created a blissful office environment. I even had the pleasure of sitting at a big round table with two med students who were studying -- thank heavens there are young people who are willing to work so hard to enter such an amazing profession. Hooray!

Thank you, Liv, for giving me another opportunity to pay attention to bliss this week. Has anything made you feel blissful lately? I'd be so delighted if you shared in the comments!

310 - The Little Bliss List

Every Friday, on her blog - blog.livlane.com, Liv Lane is publishing her "Little Bliss List", which will consist of some of the blissful events she experienced for that week. The word she has chosen to represent her year is "bliss". Liv is also conducting an exciting blogging course, and has invited anyone from her class who wants to make little bliss lists to join in the fun. Count me in!

1. Watching a little gnome garden develop on my plant shelf this week.

2. Going to the library and picking out books for my grandson Andrew's story time at his school. It's a hoot to browse through little kids' books!

3. The privilege of sitting in front of a bunch of wide-eyed first graders who are listening with rapt attention as I read from my stack of fun book treasures.

4. Playing Connect 4 with my grandson, Nate and Andrew, and my husband Tom. I got beaten fairly every time, mostly because I was laughing too hard to concentrate.

5. Finding the perfect orchid for my 94 year old Papa for his indoor winter garden, and his darling appreciation. First I gave him amaryllis bulbs, then paperwhite narcissus bulbs, and now gorgeous orchids! Hooray!

6. Running into the warmth of the house after being out in the sleety rain and having a wonderful cup of tea in my favorite mug.

306 - 309 - Fun Things to Do!

306 - If you are feeling challenged financially, make a list of all the great things you already have. When I get myself into a quandry over financial issues, I remember I have a car, a house, food, a wonderful family, terrific friends, great neighbors, interesting activities, a meaningful job, and lots of things that don't cost me one single penny. Sometimes I even make a list in my journal to remind myself. Then I can move forward to make some changes or adjustments in a much better mood! Hooray!

307 - Make your own magnetic words for the refrigerator. You can get adhesive magnetic strips in a roll at the craft store, and type or print out any words you want, put them on the magnets, cut them apart, and have some fun. This is great for kids or adults as magnetic poetry or for just plain word silliness!

308 - Draw a "cartoon bubble" for a face or an animal in a photograph and add some humor for a card or a gift. You might look at the daily newspaper's comic section to get some ideas. Regular white labels can be cut to the right size to make the bubble shape. This is a great way to use some of those extra photographs you have around the house.

309 - Browse through the dictionary looking for words you don't know when you have extra time on your hands. If you find one that intrigues you, practice using it conversationally in a sentence until it feels natural to you. Increasing your vocabulary is a fun way to improve your word power! You might want to try this expeditiously, before you get out of the mood.

305 - Fun Things to Do!

It's a tradition at my church, Unity Chapel of Light, to choose a word to use as inspiration throughout the year. Since I had already chosen my theme, "Exploring Possibilities", I thought I was all set. But people kept talking about their words, what their words meant to them, and what they were going to do with their words, and I got hit with "one word fever"! I considered all kinds of words, and even made a spontaneous list of words that mean a lot to me, which I made into a word cloud that you can see in the last post. I typed "love" onto that list three times, which is why it came up larger than the other words. I drive a car with a LOVE decal on the back, and I believe that when all else fails, love always wins. We had a wonderful sermon recently entitled, "What Would Love Do Now?" which I just loved and have incorporated into my thought process. My personal symbol ever since I was in high school has been a heart. So finally, after encountering my love reminders at every turn, I declare 2012 to be the year of LOVE for me! Then, like a miracle, I found Fly Tribe Word Hop (click on that), where people have chosen their words for the year and are sharing in a blog hop from all over the country! And you can share your word in your blog, or in their comments section.

Since love will be my word, that opens up all kinds of possibilities to go right along with my "Exploring Possibilities" theme. This Saturday in Zentangle Club, my friend April is going to demonstrate Zentangle hearts -- that will be a great start for my theme year. And conveniently, Valentine's Day is right around the corner, so my theme already has a holiday for me to celebrate rambunctiously! Hooray! I wear a diamond heart necklace in memory of my beloved sister Barbara, so she will help me carry out my theme for this year, too. Now everywhere I turn, I see reasons to think of love, which is going to be a terrific way to conduct 2012.

I hope you will think of a word to power your 2012 and even consider sharing it here in the comments below. When you pick a word, you can do writing projects around it, creative manifestations of it, and think of all kinds of way to have it be present for you all year long. Or you can simply choose a word, and let it gently be there and see what happens. Love, Carol

302 - 304 - Fun Things to Do!

302 - Make at word cloud at Wordle.org It's free and you can use any words you want! This is my first one -- I didn't coordinate the colors exactly the way I wanted them, but I did play with moving the words around. I put the words "sock monkey" in, so I had to keep changing everything until sock and monkey ended up together. If you want, you can post your "wordle" to an internet gallery! Thanks to Just Mary Designs for passing along this very fun idea! You could make fun birthday cards, or even frame word clouds with just the right words as a gift, or use them on invitations, or make cool posters -- oh my!

303 - Notice the power of two word combinations. You can even play around and see if you can put two words together to create some of your own power and magic! Here are some of my favorite examples. In parentheses, I have acknowledged their origins where I know them. Creative Electricity (Jill Badonsky) - Regal Thinking - Courageous Patience - Wild Calm (Traci from Zentangle Club) - Joyful Preparation - Reclaiming Discipline (James) - Practice Bravery (Rae) - and some of the ones I have created (although other people may use them, too) - Calm Energy - Happy Trouble - Solidly Hopeful. If you have any two word combinations that you like, please add them by clicking on "comments".



304 - If you say something silly, back it up with more silliness! Recently I sent Winter photos of N.E. Ohio to a friend of mine who has the good sense to spend lots of time in Florida during the cold and snowy weather in an email attachment. I signed it -- from your Snow Bunny friend. He emailed back and wanted to know where the Snow Bunny photo was, so here it is!

Comments are much appreciated! Thanks.

301 - Fun Things to Do!

301 - A young woman out in Texas is naming a different song as her theme for each day for 2012, and you can do it too! Or you can pick a theme song for any chosen day, week, or month. You can use old favorites, or explore new territory -- check out what the library has to offer, explore iTunes, listen to the radio, or borrow some friend's music -- this can be a wonderful way to liven up your year. Thanks to Mary Ellen, my laughing friend, for passing this great idea along.