Welcome to My Happiness Project

Welcome to my Happiness Project. I recently read the Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. It had some really interesting thoughts and ideas about how to improve your life happiness even if you are seemingly, or outwardly happy. Not all of the ideas were for me, but it did make me think a lot about my happiness. Generally, I am a happy lady but the idea of being more appreciative, more thankful and more aware of the important things in life appealed to me.

I recently saw a crafty, thankful project on Facebook. The general idea was to put a note in a jar every day of 2015 with something good, sweet or something that makes you smile that day. Then on the New Year's Eve 2015, you are supposed to read all the little notes. I liked the idea of being thankful for or happy about something every single day and being conscious of that. BUT-- I didn't like the idea of having a jar around... and then I am never sure to be home on New Year's so a jar is a lot to carry around for that.

This blog is my version of that jar. Let's call it a virtual jar. Every day my post will represent those little notes I'm supposed to put in the jar. My perfect little happiness project.

So here is my first happiness post of 2015:

We are in New York celebrating Christmas and New Year's with my family. We are staying in East Hampton with my sister. My very oldest and best friend in the world is Amy (who is a fabulous cook and writer!) and she invited us to dinner at her house in Greenport that evening.

I hadn't seen Amy's house since she owned it--almost 2 years--and I hadn't seen her awesome and fun husband in almost as long.

Amy made us a wonderful dinner. Risotto with bay scallops and a starter of rillette of pork and smoked fresh mozzarella. The dessert was pumpkin bread pudding. I brought the 2 pounds of bay scallops that I received as a Christmas present from my fisherman cousin, Tommy, and we added that to the beautiful risotto. Amy had an awesome Bourbon from upstate New York that we sampled after dinner.

The food and drink was exceptionally good, but the catching up, the laughs, the guitar playing by Dan, and the general awesome feeling of being with people who know you, who get you and who you love (and you feel the love back) is worth everything in the world to me.

Here are a couple of pics from the evening: