I tucked the empty seed bags under my arm and leaned over to pick a daffodil. It was the oldest signal of hope I had ever known. My grandmother, Mimi, had loved her “daffies” so much, she’d painted her kitchen—and…
Peonies: Debutants in Ball Gowns
On Monday, May 8, 2017, I wrote about peonies in my old blog, Rattlebridge Farm. I compared them to debutants in ball gowns. Here’s a snip from my old blog post: My mother and grandmother always referred to peonies as…
The Official Travel Guide to Joy
Have you ever questioned the definition of joy? The word is used as a synonym for happiness and contentment, but are these ideas interchangeable? And what about other nouns that are stirred in–hope, grace, mercy, and gratitude? Are they just words? All…
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A 60-Second Joy Lesson
What if joy was a rare event, occurring only once a year? Not only would we look forward to that day, we would also worry that something might steal it. Oh, Lord, what if we got food poisoning? What if…
Do Thoughts Shape Our Destiny?
I once knew a lady who hunted disappointments the way a squirrel searches for acorns. As the woman repeated a litany of daily insults and horrors, her black mood seeped into me. When I finally stopped listening to the emotional…
The Art of Giving
I remember a Thanksgiving in the blue mountains of the Cumberland Rim, the kitchen spiced with the aromas of roasting turkey, sautéed onions, browning rolls. Visitors came and went, catching up on stories. One of my mother’s friends dropped off…
An Introduction to Joy Lessons
Joy Lessons is all about cultivating stillness in a chaotic world. My introduction to simple pleasures began nearly seventy years ago in my grandmother’s Mississippi garden. It was 1958. I was six-years-old, a scruffy girl with an abiding love for…
How to Rewire Your Brain
What if joy was a rare event, occurring only once a year? Not only would we look forward to that day, we would also worry that something might steal it. What if a catastrophe ruined our special day? What if…
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Unexpected Joy
During my search for a slower, sweeter lifestyle, I kept track of daily speed bumps–a whole cluster came from social media. I just couldn’t believe it. After all, I am a Facebook Failure and a Terrible Tweeter. I prefer Instagram,…
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1-Minute Joy Lesson
Joy has its own music, a spiritual hymn with movement and melodies, the notes playing through our days. And it can be muted by the sheer busyness of living. Without realizing it, we can become tone deaf to positive feelings….
