Happiness is a Plan

~ Jenny

We are far enough in (very far in) to Rest in Pink to know where we’re going now (sort of). It means that at this point, we pretty much have a plan. We’re still exploring ideas, but 70,000 words in, we’ve got a general direction. We have a plan.

I don’t think plans get enough credit for happiness. The way forward is always unknown, surprises around every turn, and a plan gives you a map, whether it’s for a book, a garden, a quilt, a dinner, a party, or an upcoming good time. Plans, they’re a good thing.

How did you plan for happiness this week?

69 thoughts on “Happiness is a Plan”

  1. We are going to the Coast, i.e. Pacific Ocean, to join friends who are finishing up a car rally ( part of my happiness is not spending all day driving around trying to decipher whether you turn right or veer right ). We will eat seafood, walk on the beach and sit around sipping martinis (before dinner) and sipping scotch(after dinner), watch the moon above the ocean ,if there is no cloud cover, and perhaps play a few games of boggle.

  2. I can’t plan for happy just now. I have an appointment with my Urologist tomorrow to find out the results of my prostate biopsy. In the meantime, I am not unhappy. Unless and until I have cancer, I don’t have cancer. There’s a comedy sketch – only two things to worry about – that applies. The sketch ends with, “so why worry?” That’s me.

    I’m mostly happy. I’m dieting and exercising. I’m indoor farming. I’m reading with my good eye or listening to books. I’m cooking. I’m eating my cooking. I’m surviving eating my cooking. šŸ™‚

    I’m as happy as a ombie Biker in a Crusie/Mayer book. šŸ˜€

  3. Thank you for fixing the Newsify feed! Turns out Iā€™d missed three or four posts just in this last week, so Iā€™m delighted to be fully connected again.

    Iā€™m happy to be feeling better: Iā€™ve got a story that works and Iā€™m taking homoeopathic remedies as well as the doctorā€™s prescription, plus going for an hourā€™s walk every day. Still really happy to have finally cracked making apricot jam. Went to a talk on the local hillfort and its landscape, which sparked ideas for my storyworld, so Iā€™m feeling more connected to that project. And itā€™s hot and sunny, so Iā€™m spending most of each day sitting in the garden, reading. Oh, and my late strawberries have started, just as the early ones finished – theyā€™re huge and crimson and taste delicious.

    1. That must have been Mollie. I e-mailed and asked, so she must have just fixed it and gone on with life.

      1. I asked and she said she didn’t do anything, it must have been a Newsify glitch they fixed themselves.

    2. I had the same experience, and my week did not go as well. Then there was all this to catch up with! Finally I am to the last one- today!

  4. I went for physiotherapy to an acquaintance. We have mutual friends. I do not regret it. But then I am good at information sharing in medical settings. They need to know so they can develop the best treatment plane so that I can get well.

    I think I’m finally going to get a number of my long-term issues sorted out. This feels so uplifting. I’ve been for regular massage, chiro, sports massage, and recently physiotherapy for a specific issue.

    I think this time, with this approach, along with Tai Chi and Yoga, I have a chance of actual success. Joy, y’all. Glee, even.

    2. PT got me off the cane and that added great happiness to my life. May it have a huge impact on yours.

  6. My plan moving forward involves lunch. I’ve been going back to the office to train the new employee, which means I can’t just toss a salad together when I’m feeling peckish. I need to get it ready the night before so I can take it with me. That will make me happy.

    I’m also still working on finishing up my UFOs, part of my group’s plan for the summer. Seeing things come together makes me happy too.

  7. I need a plan. My local tea shop asked me to do their window again for September into October. I have been doodling ideas in my very limited down time at work. It’s lovely to have a new project with a deadline to look forward to. Of course now I have to get serious about the one coming up in November, so I don’t feel rushed for any of them, but I think that I can manage it.

    And I have a little mini vacation coming up in a week. It’s like a light at the end of a tunnel. And I am going to get my hair cut, just as soon as I can decide on a hairdresser. The days are just packed.

          1. You may be the bane of my existence. Haven’t decided yet… Goes back to reading Alessandra Hazard. Grumble grumbles

    2. Finding a hairdresser is fraught!!! I finally found a hairdresser/wizard, and life it so much better! Good luck to you.

      1. When I moved to go to grad school my method of finding a new hairdresser was to ask every woman I saw whose (short) hair I liked where she got it cut. Most of them had also just moved to go to grad school, but when I found a local, I went to her hairdresser and stayed with her for twelve years until I moved again.

      2. Thanks! I had one who I really liked, but she moved. I have had one terrible and one mediocre cut since.

        1. About ten years or so ago I bought a WII game for the house for when the grandchildren came. Well my granddaughter profiled me for my place in the games. To my utter surprise she pictured me with a granny haircut all white and poofy and then saw myself as she pictured me. I always thought that older women should have shorter hair but then the pandemic came along and haircuts were fewer and farther between. Now I sport a longer style and can just brush and flip it underneath for a page boy style. If we still had that game I would have her do me again.

  8. My birthday yesterday was fun. My daughter made really delicious New-Haven-style pizza. We watched a documentary: Pizza, A Love Story. It was entertaining and educational.
    Someone here mentioned Portrait Artist of the Year tv series and we have really been enjoying that.
    I’ve been writing and I have plans for more.
    I have a treatment plan in place for my teeth. First appointment is Monday. Yikes.

    Good luck for good health to everyone who has medical tests and illness in the near future.

  9. Thursday I was just 20 to 30 minutes away from the final episode of Amazon’s The Terminal List with Chris Pratt when the network went blank. The same thing with Netflix. My husband had already gone to bed and I didn’t want to wake him. Chris Pratt has not gotten good reviews from the critics for this series and I asked my son about him because I’m clueless about actors now. He told me he was on Parks and Recreation. I told him I’ve never seen it but knew it was a comedy. Now I realized why he played such a one dimensional character plus the fact that he had lost his family and his unit and was focused on his revenge mission. I get it now.

    Friday again I was watching TV and the picture went blank and that leads me to yesterday when we decided to get a new one. We went and picked it up, brought it home and then that’s when the fun started. We realized we got the dumbed down version of a smart TV. There were no instructions with it I think because manufacturers must feel we are competent enough to figure it out our 77 year old selves. To get to the help function the TV has to be up and running. Second born son came home from work and he and my husband starting connecting the wires. A little later first born son came over and he started playing with the buttons of the remote and found the local channels. Today’s quest or plan is to locate the passwords to cable channels.

    With reading all you have to do is find a comfy spot, open book and lose yourself in another world.

    1. Chris Pratt was the clueless hero in Guardians of the Galaxy, and he does a great clueless hero. Drama, I wouldn’t know about, but I can recommend the first Guardians.

  10. This starts with a sad story, but is a Happy. I am sure I have complained before about the National Association of Social Worker’s continuing education department. Their application form says the process takes 4-6 weeks. I know everyone is understaffed, but after 6 months of polite chivying, and promises, plus an in person visit to their office by our social worker who lives in DC (which is the only thing that produced any progress), I tracked down an email address to their governance board, and sent a message asking for help. I sent it at 5:30pm, within half an hour, my contact had emailed me back saying she had sent our applications on for the next step, half an hour after that I got a message from someone on the executive committee saying she was forwarding the matter to Blahblah to look into, and by 11am the next morning, all 4 of our workshops had been approved.

    I had really been trying to avoid complaining about this person, because I didn’t want her to have an attitude toward our organization, but it was causing a fuss or never getting approved, as far as I could see. And these are workshops they have continually approved for 18 years, so not like there was anything questionable about it. Anyway, I am SO SO glad to have this completed. Until next year. When someone else is going to do it.

  11. This week the plan was that my BFF and her husband came for a visit for a couple of days, and although due to airline difficulties they came on Tuesday instead of Saturday, arrive they did. And we talked and talked and laughed ourselves sick! I had to rest they day they left, from happy overstimulation.
    They are the first of a series of visitors this month, but so far people have other places to sleep, which is helpful for my parents, they can keep some of their schedule and nap when needed.
    Just as I was pricing them out, a friend gave us one of those large, adjustable, weighted umbrellas. She bought herself an awning, since the umbrella wasn’t working. But it will work great for our porch, and give us a great place to sit out, and be able to read, etc., an extra living space in the heat.
    Also, it’s day lily season, also black-eyed susans, so everywhere is beautiful!

    1. Iā€™ve just unearthed my mumā€™s lemon-yellow garden umbrella, and found it creates the perfect balance of warmth and shade.

    2. My cone flowers are starting to bloom. And my butterfly bush is attracting a lot of bees. Not so many butterflies.

  12. I’m on a training course all weekend so happiness is when it’s over today and I can go for a lovely walk with my husband and dogs.

  13. DH and I planned our trip to the Maritimes. I wanted to attend my great Auntā€™s 90th birthday celebration in New Brunswick in mid-August. We decided to combine it with a driving tour of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. One of my closest friends booked airline tickets to Eastern Canada at the beginning of August – havenā€™t seen her in over 2 years so excited about her visit.

    I volunteered to supervise a group of students who will be volunteering in the community garden. I was a bit worried about the time commitment but reassured after an initial meeting this week. They are very keen and enthusiastic and Iā€™m looking forward to learning from them.

    I made scape pesto from my own scapes. I usually have lots of basil in my garden by this time of year but a cool, wet start to the gardening season killed some basil and delayed the rest, so I had to buy it. I was gifted a large bunch of scapes later in the week – more pesto! I make it without cheese and freeze it in small containers and use when we have home-made pizza. Iā€™m in my last container from last year so happy to have a yearā€™s supply.

  14. Happiness is my first foreign holiday in many many years with my husband and two of our kids. Extra happiness is doing it with my brother, his wife and their daughters. Extra extra happiness is my other brother and our eldest son and his girlfriend joining us now. Bliss.

  15. I replaced the plastic-y looking garden border in my backyard with a brick border, using bricks souvenired from the house I grew up in (which is being sold). It looks much nicer and now I have something that reminds me of my parents whenever I see it.

    In other news, the puppy and I made it through another day with only minor bleeding (on my part). Those teeth and claws are wicked sharp and I am apparently fragile. Weā€™re off to puppy training class in an hour, where I will continue to learn how to dispense treats and give lavish praise for even the slightest whiff of good behavior .

  16. I used a vacation day (my last this summer) to go visit my mom and go to the county fair and a show. Pretty chill experience so far.

  17. Weā€™re in the midst of our summer quarterly report process, so of course I am busy planning my September getaway to Yellowstone. Iā€™ve had the cabin reservations for a year, but had so far neglected to buy plane tickets. That will cost me, but it will be worth it.

    Itā€™s almost exactly 5 years until retirement, when I plan to be a person who travels all the time.

  18. Spending time with my dd today was happiness: she’s got tickets to see Harry Styles tomorrow and today we went to get merch. Long, long queue of excited young people. Very peaceful atmosphere. DD = very excited young adult, lovely. It was great to be allowed to share this with her. Bliss.

  19. I started writing a new book June 10 and had a plan (ha! ‘plan!’ call it wish / hope / intention) to finish in a month. I had a plan for the writing, and I stuck to the plan, and the book is finished. Yay plans!

    In other happiness, the first week of Day Job Hell Month 2 (which was supposed to be a mellower month – ha! again) is over. This next week promises to be truly hellish but at the end of it I get a three-day weekend because I scheduled the 18th off. I plan to go get my filthy car washed, and also to get a new shot of Dysport in my face (if my dermatologist can fit me in), because this frown line can f**k right off.

    In garden happy, all three of my honeysuckles are blooming beautifully. The hummingbirds approve.

  20. Most of my plans have been sidelined by almost 3 months of constant headaches, almost certainly due to eye issues. We’ve been working on it (testing, changing prescriptions, etc.), but so far not making much headway. Which leads to me not making much headway on writing. It’s not great.

    On the bright side, I am planning the yearly trip with the gang (we’ve have been on-and-off taking long weekends together with the women in my coven and their families, those who have husbands and children for nearly 20 years–minus a few years when people were too busy, too broke, and of course, the 2 years we lost to covid). Instead of camping, we’re renting a large AirBnB house about an hour away. Our two requirements are water of some sort and a fire pit to sit around in the evening. This one is on a small lake, which should be lovely. I’m in the process of making lists of what food to buy and bring, and what else to pack. Just Friday late afternoon through Tuesday morning, but I’m really looking forward to it. And hoping that a few days of no computers and very little phone screen time will help resolve some of the eye strain.

    Sadly, I’m also planning to take my laptop to my computer guy first thing Monday morning, because it died on Saturday afternoon. I definitely hadn’t planned on replacing a laptop. We’ll see how it goes.

    1. Um, just in case, maybe you should check your environment, that your house doesn’t have any issues? Someone I knew of was suffering greatly until they accidentally found out her house had a carbon monoxide leak, she’s only alive, because she sleeps with an open window.

  21. I had this really great plan to do NO fiction writing during birthday week (the first full week of July), and instead to play with fabric a lot and do a tiny bit of long-delayed housework.

    Of course, what I ACTUALLY did was a tiny bit of quilting (made about half the blocks for a lap quilt, link to IG below), a good bit of long-delayed housework, and the beginning of a new cozy mystery series when I had a sudden idea for something that, for once, may actually fall smack-dab inside the genre instead of being a little off-kilter (at least until I start writing and then surely it will go off-track; sigh).

    But despite not quite following the plan, I’m happy to have done some quilting, and getting the house tidy enough to not b e quite so annoying, and having a new WIP to play with (like I didn’t already have a plan to finish up several older WIPs on my hard drive, which will take a good three years to do).

    https://www.instagram.com/p/Cf108hQO1tg/

  22. I met with the web designer working on my website and learned how to scan photos and artwork for it. (Love my public library!)

    1. Sweet! Does your library have the scanner or host the person who does the designing? As an ex library employee, I am always interested in what others are doing to serve their community.

  23. I spent the week on Deer Isle in Maine in a cottage from the early 1900s that is on the water. Islands, birds, schooners, lovely weather. Over the years we’ve made different sets of friends, and we were busy visiting or having visitors from the evening we arrived. I bought all my clothes for at least the next year from a friend’s shop. Now back at home, my gardens are loaded with flowers, bees, butterflies, and dragonflies, and the birds are chirping away as if I’d never been gone. I’m very happy.

  24. Happiness will be sleeping in my own bed tonight, with my cats right beside me. I love my family dearly but thereā€™s only so much I can take before I remember why I live two states away.

    Iā€™ve been planning to start running again since the last time I stopped, and have put it off for various reasons, including all this yearā€™s health issues. But I was reading about low heart rate training this week, and it sounds like something I can just DO, even with the new asthma, because itā€™s barely a step up from walking. No intervals, no sprints, just really, really slow running. So thatā€™s my new plan to get back into running – run like a tortoise.

  25. Very happy to be home after the vehicle repair and five days in a motel. Very, very happy to see my wonderful friend who retired to live in Mexico. She was here for her twin sons weddings, a week apart. Attended the eldest twinā€™s lovely wedding on Friday. They each married smart and beautiful women. The best happy is sleeping in our own bed. Bliss.

  26. Sometimes being able to plan is a luxury. I’m not happy and I’m not in a position to plan to be. There is nothing I can say this Sunday. šŸ™

    3. One day (hour) at a time.

      It’s not good book Thursday, but I’ve just reread the excellent Glitterland by Alexis Hall. It might be hopeful.

    4. Oh, and this, from my favourite Poetry Pharmacy.

      Nobody by Michael Laskey

      If you cant bring yourself to build
      a snowman or even to clench
      a snowball or two to fling
      at the pine tree trunk, at least
      find some reason to take you out

      of yourself: scrape a patch of grass clear
      for the birds maybe; prod at your shrubs
      so they shake off the weight, straighten up;
      or just stump about leaving prints
      of your boots, your breath steaming out.

      Promise. Don’t let yourself in
      for this moment again: the end
      of the afternoon, drawing the curtains
      on the glare of the garden, a whole
      day of snow nobody’s trodden.

  27. I just remembered a post to my blog. I used the word, planungvergnĆ¼gen. It’s from the German words for planning and pleasure. The pleasure of planning. Isn’t that what this thread is all about?

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