Happiness: Better Late than Never!

laughing Buddha, originally uploaded by prayerna.

Some of you may know that I've deemed 2010 the year of "letting my life speak". In January and February I've had many many chances to practice this. Part of my journey has been a little thing called The Happiness Project. Gretchen Rubin is the cause of all that happiness. It's a fascinating story that I encourage you to check out.

So, the reason for this post is not only to update you on my never ending search for personal happiness but to offer you the chance to increase your own. There are a couple of really handy things that Gretchen has put together that has helped me put my focus where it needs to be when it comes to my happiness. Namely, me....or you, if you are thinking about your own happiness. The first one is the Happiness Project Toolbox. It is chock full of fabulous self-esteem goodness! There are so many opportunities in there to help you "trudge the road of Happy Destiny". An aside, if you will, on the word "trudge" which means to "walk with determination". It makes trudging sound much better now don't you think? So, with determination I am walking the road of happy destiny.

The other support she offers comes by form of a pledge. Now, if you are anything like me, I've pledged my life away one too many times on things like weight loss, organizing, bill paying, exercising. Embarrassingly, my list could go on and on. This feels different to me...somehow, more attainable. Well, Gretchen's proposed to those of us pursuing happiness that 2010 be the year of the Happiness Challenge. Each month, she suggests an area of life to take on, and over the next four weeks, she proposes real and manageable resolutions to help you increase your happiness. So far over 7,800 people have taken the pledge to be in charge of their own happiness. You can join me on this adventure by going here and signing the pledge too.

And, finally, I wanted to take the time to let those of you (and you know who you are) know how grateful I am for the love and support you have given me over the past year. Moving to South Carolina has been challenging in so many ways and on so many levels. But you, my dear friends and family, have never failed to love and sustain me throughout it all. Know that I've got your back too if ever you should need it.

The Fairies of Summer, a special giveaway...

South Carolina summers are hot. Actually that's an understatement. They are really hot and really humid. Of course the fairies need a place to cool off and we had the perfect oak tree to shade them during those hot days. The same one we used for our fall fairy house. So Anna Mae and I went off to hunt for materials to build their summer home. She pulled the wagon all around the yard and here is what we found...



Mr. Ant decided to help us build the house. Anna Mae wasn't sure if he was a "good ant or a bad ant"...I looked to see if she was wearing her red slippers when she questioned his goodness.



We discovered a cute little mushroom in the yard too. South Carolina has the most interesting mushrooms. I may have to do a mushroom expose sometime here at Betty's. Now you know mushrooms pop up where fairies have been. So we knew that our summer home would be put to good use. We also found some pretty purple flowers to decorate the house with. Making sure to follow the rules of Fairy House construction the other materials used were moss, pine cones, rocks, sticks, a broken bird's egg, dried hydrangea flowers, bark, acorn tops and magnolia leaves.



Back in the spring Light-Beams Publishing read about the Unplug Your Kids Blog Challenge and they contacted me. They wanted to reward those who were participating in that challenge with the book, Fairy Houses by Tracy Kane. With great generosity, Light-Beams Publishing not only offered three books as giveaways in that challenge but also sent me an extra one to do another giveaway at another time. What better time to offer fairy house inspiration than with a book about fairy houses? So if you would like an opportunity to win Fairy Houses by Tracy Kane here's what you need to do:

1. Visit Light-Beams Publishing and leave a comment about their website.

For additional entries do the following:

1. Click the "Tell a Friend" button at the end of the post and tweet about this (with a rt@laterbetty) plus follow me on Twitter. Then leave a comment with your user name and if you tweeted.
   
2. Click the "Tell a Friend" button at the end of the post, choose another social network (our favorites are technorati, kirtsy, stumble upon) and show some love. Then leave a comment with what you did.
3. Follow me or subscribe to my feed and leave a comment that you did.
4. Go over to Later Betty's Bargains, check it out and follow that blog; leave a comment here that you are following that blog
   
5. The big one worth 5 entries: Build a Fairy House and blog about it; leave a comment with the link.

Leave a comment for each entry. Be sure I know your e-mail address to contact the winner. Giveaway is open to anyone in North America and closes at midnight est on Tuesday, August 18, 2009. Winner will be chosen from Random.org, will be emailed and has 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be drawn. Thanks for entering! On your mark, get set....go!

Anna Mae can't wait to see your fairy house!

Did We Survive the "Turnoff Challenge"?

At Unplug Your Kids the challenge was issued and we made the foolhardy to decision to accept. I say foolhardy because how was I to know my back would decide to go out on me only one day later. Ugh. Now this meant no computer time for me. But I did watch more television than planned because I was flat on my back on the couch or bed for a good two days. But we did manage to cut down on our television and computer consumption significantly. Here are some of the things we did instead:

• The kids discovered that magnolia trees are very easy to climb. I spent most of my time yelling "that's high enough"...
  
  
• Painting Imagination boxes. Both the kids were wild about this craft project. Check out Later Betty's Bargains for a review and giveaway.
• Lots of chalk drawings and hopscotch tournaments
  
• Baseball games
• Board game night
• Spring Fairy house construction was in full tilt. We gathered the materials one day and built it another day. Look soon for a post dedicated to this activity. When we built a Fall Fairy House last Fall I contacted Light-Beams Publishing to let them know how much their Fairy House Series and website contributed to our kids' (and grown ups') imagination and creativity.

Well, when Light-Beams Publishing read about Unplug Your Kids Blog Challenge, they contacted me. They want to reward those who were participating in this challenge with the book, Fairy Houses by Tracy Kane. With great generosity, Light-Beams Publishing is offering three copies of this book to those who participated in the challenge. So if you would like an opportunity to win one of three copies here's what you have to do:

1. Show me some Mr. Linky love and give me a link to your post in the Mr. Linky widget below or to those who participated by e-mail if you e-mailed uplugged mom and she publishes what you did, a link to that in the comment section is also fine. In addition I need a way to contact you if you are chosen so make sure I have access to an e-mail addy one way or another. This giveaway closes on May 5th at midnight est. I will announce the winners (that's right there's three books!) on May 6th. It is open worldwide (even though I'm paying for the shipping!).
   

After doing the required entry, here are ways to gain additional entries:

1. Follow me or subscribe to my feed (leave a comment that you did)
   
2. Click the "Tell a Friend" button at the end of the post and tweet about this (with a rt@laterbetty) plus follow me on Twitter. Then leave a comment with your user name and if you tweeted.
   
3. Click the "Tell a Friend" button at the end of the post, choose another social network (our favorites are technorati, kirtsy, stumble upon) and show some love. Then leave a comment with what you did.
4. Leave a relevant comment on my Fall Fairy House post and comment back here that you did.
5. The big one worth 5 entries: Build a Fairy House and blog about it; leave a comment with the link.

I look forward to seeing what everyone else did or didn't do last week!

Those Naughty Leprechauns!

Having married ethnically pure, it is nearly a requirement that St. Patrick's day must be celebrated in our little house. And thus the visit from the leprechauns began. When Mama was working, it was a trail of gold chocolate coins leading from the kids' bedroom to outside. Now that Mama got some time on her hands those leprechauns have stepped up their game!



The first thing the kids discovered when they awoke is that their webkins animals were all sitting on the paddles of the ceiling fan in the living room. Then the excitement really began because they realized the leprechauns had visited them. Running back to their room they began to follow the trail of gold coins and found several in their room and in the bathroom too. Those leprechauns had turned the toilet water green! Gavin wondered if leprechauns pee green...hmmm, quite a query to ponder don't you think? They followed the trail into the kitchen where they found that some of the milk had been turned green and Lucky Charms cereal was sitting by the fridge. Gavin refused to let us drink the milk stating, "It might be poison!". Those naughty leprechauns! Finally, the kids found little notes written by the leprechauns themselves and had left parting gifts of green tic tacs and green chewing gum. The notes revealed that our leprechauns' names were Doogal and Darby.



Anna announced, "Those leprechauns were very messy and naughty but I am amazed at that mess.". We all dressed in green and got Gavin to school. At lunch he discovered that he had bright green jelly belly pudding in his lunch box which he thouroughly enjoyed (between you and me, it looked toxic). Dinner consisted of Spinach fettucini with pesto, green salad with avocados, a bright green Mexican soda, and lime green jello for dessert. I'm sure enough green die was ingested that day to bring out the inner leprechaun in each of us.

How did you celebrate St. Patrick's Day at your little house?

The Christmas Magic of Elfie

This Christmas tradition started when Gavin was 3 years old. I had a client who had told me about how as a child during the Christmas season they had an elf ornament called "Elfie". Their mother would secretly move Elfie around after they went to bed each night. In the morning they would get up and search for him. The kids were told he reported back to Santa if they were being naughty or nice. Well, I recently discovered she was not the only family with this tradition. Everyone can have an elf on the shelf.


Our Elfie has some personality thanks to Great Uncle John who gave Gavin the quirky plush elf when he was too young to remember the gift.

Elfie arrives in our house on St. Nicholas Eve night. The children set a pair of shoes outside their bedroom door before they go to bed. And then when they are fast asleep Elfie works his magic and usually leaves a treat or two and an Advent Calendar for each of them. Well, there was a snag or two this year.

The first snag was Elfie could not locate any advent calendars in our little town or any surrounding towns. So "Plan B" had to be put into place. That involved mama elf wrappping individual pieces of candy with a tag attached that had a number on one side and a "random act of kindness" on the other.

After twenty four pieces of candy were wrapped and labeled for each of the kids, mama elf put them into a cute Santa mug

As you can cleary see, mama elf has way too much time on her hands these days. The better to create memories with I guess, huh? So now a way to collect the tags and visually count down to Christmas had to be created too. Green foam core board, a sharpie marker and silver map tacks did the trick simply.

But all this had to be postponed because on St Nicholas Eve night we met with snag number two: unruly children who wouldn't behave...not even for the pope himself I swear (And I think I did a couple of times that night). Even with the threats that Elfie might not show up if they don't straighten up didn't work. The kids put their shoes out but Elfie didn't show. Instead he left this letter for them:

Well, two days later the kids set their shoes out again in hopes that Elfie would show up the next morning.

This time he did show and left them their mugs and candy. I wish he would have run the sweeper while he was at it. Jeez, you just can't get a good elf these days!

Fall Fairy House or What to do on a Saturday Afternoon in a Small Town when there is nothing to do

After a chilling fall rain the night before, the day was washed clean and the sky, blue and sunny. And the age old questioned that arises every Saturday morning in our little house arose again without fail, "What are we gonna do with the kids today?". Neither of the parental units were feeling too parental that morning so cartoons would have to do until lunch was the next activity of the day. With lunch done and the dishes cleaned up we were begging them to go outside...please! I evened opened the front door pointing with great momma intimidation to get...out....side...now! When that technique failed to work I succumbed to interacting with them. Yes, mom of the year award once again.

I stepped outside with the kids and looked at the decaying jack-o-lantern. It was then I remembered seeing a fairy house constructed out of a pumpkin. I brought the kids back into the house for a brief moment to review the rules of constructing a fairy house:

• Fairy Houses should look so natural they are almost hidden. A location close to the ground is best.
• You should use only natural materials. Dry grasses, leaves, sticks, pebbles and pine cones are just a few examples of materials to choose.
• Be careful not to use or disturb any of nature's materials that are still living, especially flowers, ferns, mosses and lichen. Fairies do not like to disturb or destroy anything that is growing in nature.

So outside we go to collect natural materials to add to our pumpkin house. Here is some of what we came up with:

Now, I have to confess we used toothpicks to attach some items. But they were once natural material, right? Gavin decided the decaying pumpkin was not too inviting for fairies to sleep in so he gathered very colorful leaves and layed them inside the pumpkin.

He also, I might add, was highly concerned that the lid of the jack-o-lantern would leak on the fairies if it rained. So he gathered leaves that still had their stems attached and stuck them through the lid opening creating a canopy of beautiful deep red leaves on the orange pumpkin. Mother Nature really is a great designer! Anna created the pathway to the house with pebbles and small rocks.

And I created the ladder leading up to the house.

The kids stood back and appreciated their creation. They walked around the tree and peeked around several times to see if they might be able to sneak up on a fairy.

Then I suggested they say a little something to dedicate their house to the fairies. This is what they came up with:

I must say, the magic of childhood is one of the best things about being a parent. And to think I had begrudgingly stepped outside with them. How lucky am I to be given the opportunity to share in that magic? What a gift. We are already planning what our winter fairy house will look like.

May you find some magic today too!

Fairy Doors Appear on Calvert Avenue

Last week while Gavin was in school and Anna & I were grocery shopping fairies have appeared to taken up residence in our little home on Calvert Avenue. Much to our surprise there were two fairy doors in Gavin and Anna Mae's room. Now you may be asking yourself, "A fairy door? What is a fairy door?". Well, Jonathon Wright, a storyteller and illustrator from Ann Arbor, Michigan believes that Urban Fairies "were living in nature but have been displaced by urban sprawl". We are so fortunate to have been chosen by two fairies looking for a new home in Clinton, South Carolina! Gavin's fairy looks as if he may be a part of fighting evil and working for the good of the universe. While Anna Mae's fairy is closely connected to Klonnie kitty and seems to be able to communicate through her stuffed animals. Apparently one can leave little trinkets, gifts, candy and coins for the fairies to let them know how pleased you are that they have come to live with you. The first morning after the doors appeared Gavin promptly got up and looked under his pillow for a possible gift that his fairy might have left, but no such luck. Anna Mae prefers to invite her fairy to sleep with her at every nap time and bedtime. These wee folk and their doors have brought a bit of joy to Calvert Avenue. We are always on the lookout for a fairyspotting. They are elusive little creatures. Most all your questions and some you never thought of can be answered by Jonathon Wright an expert in Urban Fairy behavior, known to many as a non-certified fairyologist. Happy fairy hunting!