happiness report Archives - Dine and Dish

The Happiness Report #37

Kristen — Thu, 28 May 2015 23:13:34 +0000

Tattoos, styling wands, hand painted aprons, 1 second a day videos and more… here are a few of the things making me happy lately!

Hi friends and happy summer to you! We’ve been out of school for a little over a week and have had some super fun days so far. The weather has been iffy on cooperating but we are squeezing out ever sunny moment we can and are taking full advantage of it!

Many of you have asked about our Summer Bucket List for 2015 and I think we’ve decided not to do one this year… unless we change our mind, we’re going to be crazy and navigate the summer without a list. Oh don’t worry… that doesn’t mean my kids will be sitting in front of the TV all summer. I have plenty of ideas for ways we’re going to have the best summer yet… I just am not adding them to a list. You can find our 2014 Summer Bucket List Here, our 2013 list here, and our 2012 list here. I hope you get some inspiration for a fun summer from those lists!…

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The Happiness Report #36

Kristen — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 14:02:24 +0000

Let’s talk about what’s been making us happy lately!

Hi friends! I hope you all are well and are ready to have a great weekend! The girls and I are headed to Oklahoma City for the weekend to hang out with my sister and to celebrate her youngest daughter turning 18. I may have cried on my nieces birthday… what does that mean I’ll be like when my own kids turn 18? I can answer that for you… a big, teary, mess!

Anyway, I thought it would be a great idea to start the weekend off with a little bit of happiness. How’s that sound? Great! Let’s do it!…

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The Happiness Report #35

Kristen — Fri, 05 Dec 2014 23:53:33 +0000

Hi Friends!

I hope you all had a wonderful week recuperating from all the pie and turkey eating last week.

We had an amazing Thanksgiving with my brother and his family…but I ate way too much pie. And turkey. And broccoli cheese casserole. Good stuff!

We played lots of games (Monopoly and Chicken Foot!), and my sister-in-law helped me sew my Kindness Elf. I think she turned out to be such a cutie, don’t you? Of course, now I have the sewing felt stuffed things bug and came home and bought about 10 more patterns from this adorable Etsy store! Apparently my plan is to sew the month away. Sounds good to me!

Shall we talk about what else is making me happy lately?

…

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The Happiness Report #34

Kristen — Sat, 22 Nov 2014 03:13:15 +0000

A post full of happy things I’ve thought about, discovered and done this past week! Come share your happy things with me!

Happy Happiness Report Day, everyone! The photo you see above is of Leah this past spring at Ella’s first communion. I found it while I was looking for an old photo of a recipe I needed and it made me realize how much I miss sharing my Project 365 photos. This photo along with the ones below would most likely suffer the fate of sitting on my external hard drive, never to be seen and enjoyed by anyone. What’s the point of that?

To rectify the situation, I’m starting a “no-rules” Project 365 project for myself. No rules meaning… if I accidentally skip a day of taking a photo, I’ll say oops and move on. If my photo is taken with my camera phone instead of my DSLR, I’ll say oops and carry on. No rules meaning I’m not waiting until January 1st to start. I’m going to start on December 1st…or if I feel like it, tomorrow or whenever. No rules is not within my comfort zone, but the thought of a no rules photography project makes me very happy! I actually think I’m going to call it just that “The No Rules Photography Project”. Sounds easy enough, right?

Here are a few of the photos that I saved from external hard drive purgatory……

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The Happiness Report #33

Kristen — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 02:08:02 +0000

The Dine & Dish Happiness Report #33 – come share what’s making you happy lately!

Hi friends!

I hope you all have had a great week! Are you ready to share some happy things? Let’s do this happiness report thing!…

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The Happiness Report #32

Kristen — Sat, 08 Nov 2014 02:09:26 +0000

My new motto…”If at first you don’t succeed, pie, pie again.”

Happy Friday, friends, and happy Happiness Report! I hope your weekend is off to a great start. This is such a busy time of year for most people…I think it’s so important especially when times get busy to take a few minutes out of the day to reflect on what is making us happy! So here we go!…

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Happiness Report #31 – NaBloPoMo Edition

Kristen — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 20:26:36 +0000

The Happiness Report #31 is also my first post for NaBloPoMo, where I’ll be sharing content each day this month.

Hi friends and happy first day of November (and first day of NaBloPoMo)! It is all of a sudden freezing cold here in Kansas. Yesterday was chillier than we expected… maybe even one of the coldest Halloweens we’ve had. That didn’t stop the kids from heading out and getting way too much candy.

What do you all do with all the candy after Halloween? My kids dentist and his vacation house would probably like it if I let them have a free for all, but I typically let them eat all they want the night of Halloween (which never ends up being as much as I would think) then the day after they each get 20 pieces to keep. I hold onto some of it for currency (like clean your room, you get candy, etc) but other than that, I try to get as much of it out of the house as possible. I LOVE candy… I always have. It is one thing I can’t have around the house, or I am the one eating it all day! The good thing is, my kids will do just about anything for candy, so if I play my cards right my house should be very clean by the end of this week without me having to lift a finger!

I thought today would be a perfect day for a Happiness Report. It’s the start of a new month (hello, November!) and I’m feeling all kinds of peppy this morning. So here we go……

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Happiness Report #30 – Thoughts on Phoning it In

Kristen — Sun, 12 Oct 2014 16:55:22 +0000

This morning I was sitting at my kitchen table, reading the newspaper and drinking my made at home latte, mulling over in my mind what I am going to say during my talk at the upcoming Chopped Conference. The topic of my talk is something I am really passionate about in the blogging world, which is basically blogging beyond your stats. My unofficial mantra has always been “what kind of blog will you have if you don’t have a life to blog about”. Meaning, we need to stop sitting behind our computers all day, refreshing our stats, scheduling our posts, trying to get ahead or at least how I feel, not get completely left behind.

I’ll admit that I came back from a really refreshing retreat with friends in Tahoe recently and was pumped to get organized and get working. Dine & Dish has and always will be a space I love and treasure, but over the past year or so I admit to not putting my whole heart into it. I got tired of the blogging games that we are all doing to “get more traffic!!”, “grow your readership!!”, “get more likes!!!”. So instead of doing something about it, I just kind of threw in the towel and said “oh, well…”.

And so you’d think when I threw in the towel and just started phoning it in, my life would have been richer and more fulfilled. Not so. I’ve slowed down on reading books, which you know reading brings me happiness. My office is an absolute mess, which for a former FlyLady group leader, is unthinkable (my desk, right now above…ugh). My mind seems to be in a more chaotic state than ever before. Without some structure in my blog, my life had no structure. Phoning it in is harder than it seems… you see, I’m a motivated, hard working person. Even though I don’t like stats and the race to be the best, I still need my work to be good and meaningful. I’m not a sit on the curb and watch the rest of the world go by kind of person….

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