What I Love About You...

Today at lunch a friend shared that her and her love randomly do The Top 10 Things I Love About You to each other and not only does it immediately shift her mood it has brought them closer. Although she confessed she limits it to 5 so they're really good ones. She gave me full credit (which you know I love!) and it reminded me that next week is Thanksgiving so some thanking and some acknowledgment is perfect timing.

The Top 10 is a little thing I started in my twenties with my best college friends. We would go around the table at dinner and count down 10 things- a la David Letterman- we loved about the Birthday Girl or if someone was having a particularly hard day we would do a special one for them. Instant lovefest!

The funny thing about The 10 is that occasionally it winds down to things that might not be huge compliments but are still amusing things that people notice about you. There have been mention of great eyebrows, wonderful magazine subscriptions, nice feet, and actually one year I was "loved" for how I give her the best compliments.
I'll take it ;)  The thing is to have fun and be kind.

The ThanksGiving List is a tradition that was actually a branch off of The Top 10 which is where I call my closest friends the morning of Thanksgiving and thank them for specific moments in our friendship that year. It is my favorite two hours of the year and it literally makes my life filled with happiness. It is like I am the thankful-fairy getting for give out little bouquets of love. I know it sounds gaggy but try it and I dare you to prove that it doesn't completely change your life and your friendships.

The world is a little extra scary lately so whether you count them down or serve them up with cherry turnovers- the next week is a great time to dish out some love. Cheers to a fabulous Thanksgiving and I hope your gravy boat overflows with gratitude and love. XO

Save ThankingsGiving~ Stop With All The Stuff-ing!

Outraged! Outraged I tell you!!!

I spent my holiday breaks in college waitressing at a country club which included serving Thanksgiving dinners instead of partaking in the turkey and trimmings. I didn't mind horribly because I still got to see families, even if they weren't my own, enjoying a dinner together. And yes the time-and-a-half pay made me thankful for sure. It's a given that some folks will always work on Thanksgiving to help serve others whether it be at restaurants or movie theaters; but this year stores including Macy's, JC Penneys, and Target are opening on Thanksgiving to offer discounted shopping- WTH?!!!

Macy's I expected more from you... you owned the goodwill of this holiday and are now throwing it away. For goodness sake what would giant Snoopy say?

To open at 8am, then 6am, then 3am was crazy enough but at least is was technically after Thanksgiving. But shopping on Thanksgiving should consist of running out to get more stuffing not more stuff!

We as a country take one day a year to be thankful for what we already have and now folks want to spend the day getting more stuff that they don't already need. To me this is crazy and a sign we have tainted my favorite holiday.

Let's put aside that most Americans are in more debt then we can handle and focus on the fact that if we can't spend time enjoying the company of friends and family we can at least not clutter our lives with more stuff we do not need. Discounted or not. Gifts or not.

We spend a fortune renting storage spaces, upsizing our housing, working to buy the latest all through the year. This is the one day we should stop stuffing our lives with stuff and give thanks for the people and lives we have. And if we have situations were family and friends are not nearby then it is a great day to help serve the less fortunate and remember how lucky we are.

Sorry for the sermon-- but boy every time Christmas promoting gets earlier in the year I get annoyed; each time I see people, and now kids, focused more on their devices then each other my heart sinks; I refuse to willingly sit silent while stuff takes over ThanksGiving!

I beg of you all, don't give in: make yourself a Thanksgiving List and please, please put down the shopping list!

Thankful For It ALL!

November 19th: World Toilet Day

Every year I spend the days before Thanksgiving making my ThanksGiving List, where I note some specifics of what I want to thank my friends for during my traditional Thanksgiving Calls to them on Thursday morning. It takes some pre-thought to decide exactly what I want to say but it's easy and such a pleasure to spend the time thinking about all that I am thankful for in those I love. 

Gratitude for all the good and love in our life is easy; not everyone takes the time but if put on the spot each of us can without much effort think of at least a few things to be thankful for in our lives. The harder, more deeper, and dare I say more joyful exercise is to practice being thankful for it all. Everything in our lives! 

When I read about World Toilet Day it had a profound impact on me and upped my gratitude exponentially. Did you know that 2.5 BILLION people live without a toilet and proper sanitation?! World Toilet Day along with Charity: Water and Water.Org do great jobs drawing attention to the fact that there are BILLIONS of people living without the most basic of basics. 

When I have a bad day, feel something's lacking, or am just not fully present to the joys of my day, I stop myself and for one brief moment give thanks if I have nothing else in life... I have water and a toilet. To think there are so many that don't humbles me and makes anything I have to complain about seem small and trivial. So this Thanksgiving I'm not just thankful for the big things, I'm thankful for the smallest, simplist things too.

To be thankful for it all we need to evaluate any upset in our lives in reverse. I was annoyed earlier in the month about how friends were fighting about the election then I thought how awesome it is to live in a country we get to debate these kind of topics out loud, how great it is folks care enough to fight about what's important to them, and lucky I am to have passionate people in my life. Irritated I am getting a cold this week, I was reminded how lucky I am to be healthy most of time and how fortunate I was to be able to be there for people I loved when they were ill.

Only when we can be grateful for all life has in store for us are we really living in gratitude. Sure it takes some effort to find gratitude in the annoyances, disappointments, and suffering in life but like a friend who had gone almost two weeks without power said after the storm- at least we were safe and we were together. 

There are some shitty things that happen in life- things that can almost destroy us... but if we're here after we get knocked down we have, if nothing else, another day, hour, minute to be thankful for. 

I'm hoping you have the Happiest Thanksgiving ever and am wishing you gratitude for wherever you are, whatever you have, the strength to handle whatever you're dealing with and the joy to appreciate all that life brings next :)

Get Happy: Bright Side Up!

 

Today is Book Day for my friend Amy Spencer, her Bright Side Up: 100 Ways to Be Happier Right Now is being being released today- Yippeee! One of the blessings of my life in the last few years is getting to meet some awesome writers through my agent Laurie and many of them are now pals of mine. So when one of their books comes out I am usually very excited and supportive no matter what, but with Amy I am extra excited because... I am in it!

Yes, that's right it is my first (to my knowledge) mention in someone else's book so you'd think today is my book release date. BSU is all about optimism so when last year Amy was so kind to ask if she could include The Thanksgiving List in her chapter about gratitude I was thrilled. I had wondered if I made the final cut or if I was left on the editing floor but it has been confirmed if you check out pages 137-138 you'll see TTL is on its way to making people happier right now.         

Dating Optimism

The book has been getting rave reviews and is on many hot lists: Oprah, Shape, Star, Psychology Today, O Magazine, and numerous blogs. The thought that people are going to be thanking it forward makes me verklempt with happiness.

Amy lives her life as an optimist and whether it comes naturally to us or takes some effort I think there is no better way to go thru life- so I encourage you to watch her video, buy her book, follow her @datingoptimist and if nothing else bring a little bright side up into your life today :)

It's also a perfect time of year to add a little optimism to your love life, so check out Amy's first book too!

The ThanksGiving List

Over a decade ago I started my favorite tradition ever: The ThanksGiving List. It is a list of my closest friends and why I am thankful for them that year. It's specific and heartfelt and I work on it the weekend before Thanksgiving (or earlier) and it is the best thing I do all year.

On the morning of Thanksgiving I wake up early, make two Pepperidge Farm cherry turnovers, and begin my calls around 9ish. I have until noon until I need to start getting ready to go to my family's dinner. After years of cultivating what I now think of as an art form, I can get most all of the calls in within this time frame.

Working off my notes I take a moment to get present with my gratitude and then I call my friend Ann (the list is alphabetical) and begin the thanking. It is designed to be a quick call, there are no pleasantries or small talk, it starts: Are you ready? Ok, Ann this is why I am thankful for you this year....

I rarely allow them to thank me back (that is not the point of the call, then it would be me just fishing for compliments). It is all about the giving, the thanking.

This is such a big deal with my friends that they often pick up the phone on the first ring, and have been known to start calling early in the month to make sure they are still on the list. It is not a given. If I have not been in touch with someone all year and I am not feeling it, they are off the list.

Pure gratitude and thankfulness is rare and this ritual has made Thanksgiving by-far my favorite holiday of the year. It makes me feel so blessed to make these calls and I know from the silence, the laughter, and sometimes the tears, how much it means to those receiving them.

Do yourself a favor and make a list, and if not on Thanksgiving pick one day a year to call up and thank the people that make your life so wonderful. I promise... you'll be thanking me for it!
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UPDATE for 2011: I've begun some thank you tweets & emails to people I appreciate at work and in the social space I play in. These are quick little thank you's but keep in mind there is no bad time or way to thank someone. Get Thanking Today!

UPDATE for 2012: My pal Amy Spencer wrote a blog post about how much she liked The Thanksgiving List and then she included it in her new book Bright Side Up. Check it out on pages 137-138.

note: artwork blatantly lifted with thanks to Peanuts and creator Charles Schulz.