What makes you happy?

So in the spirit of starting somewhere and completing a journey I decided to begin with a very basic question.

"What makes you happy?"

I could easily answer this hundreds of different ways, but the first three that came to mind were these:

• Feeling healthy & strong.
• Helping people & building relationships
• Writing

I instantly came up with several reasons I was "too busy" and then shot them all down. In a moment of rare clarity I put this spin on my query: Imagine that your kids are all grown up, your career no longer needs constant nurturing, and you have plenty of spare time. If you could do anything at all with your spare time that wouldn't cost you money what would you do?

There are plenty of things I want to be better at in life, but because I'm starting small I'm going with the three that are in my top priority list for now. Here are my "small goals" to start out.

• Walk at least a mile every day
• Write something every day
• Set a meeting with an old friend (or past client) at least once a month and see how I can help them.

So far, it's going pretty well. I've been walking for over a week now, and writing just a few days. I'm setting appointments with friends and clients for lunches, dinners etc that keep me circulating socially and make me feel good about all the connections I've made in my life. I know some pretty strong, amazing, capable and caring people.

So, what makes YOU happy?

What are your first day of School Traditions?

Ah, it's that time of year again. Supplies purchased and teachers met, we send our little lads and lasses off to a land of endless erasers and glue-sticks to rekindle old friendships and hopefully forge new ones. (Preferably with kids we will actually enjoy having over from time to time).

Today was the first day of school in Fairfax County, Virginia. Many of our surrounding counties started a week or so ago, but we continue to cling to the day after Labor Day start date.  I actually prefer it that way, we can let Summer go with a "bang" if we choose to...though we typically prefer to be at home getting ourselves ready for the first day.

Each year in the weeks leading up to this we follow a few simple traditions which the kids really despise...but I maintain that they make us all happier in the long run. We make them clean their rooms so they have a place to do homework, we reduce screen time and we wake them up earlier in the week or two before school starts. I find that the first day is significantly less miserable for all of us if they are "ready for it" at least in the sense that their bodies aren't wanting to sleep till 10am on a day when they need to get up at 6.

Then once the wee little dumplings are all shuttled off to their educational facilities, we scroll through Facebook at the millions of First Day of School pics that I'm sure drive our childless and single friends every bit as batty as their "I accidentally took a 4 hour nap...and I'm still tired" posts drive us. (What is it like having that much spare time? Honestly...I think I would go mental)

This year the lads decided to avoid the photos, which made taking them actually a bit more fun. My eldest tried to sneak out the door with a charming little smirk. The Youngest actually attempted to crawl into the back-end of my car; perhaps he thought it was an escape pod like you see in those sci-fi movies. "Send me into orbit and out of the reaches of that infernal camera!" It made for entertaining photos