Serenity week comes to a close.

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SERENITY - the state or quality of being serene, calm, or tranquil; composure, peacefulness, peace. [Serenity week begins here. Click for this week's Bliss Initiatives.]

Welcome Magic Carpet Riders! Looking for my One World One Heart Giveaway? Click here to go to my open house post and the giveaway! 

Wow, this week has flown by!  I am typing this post with a bit of a headache. Yep, it is official, I had too much to drink last night. Those pomegranate martinis my sweetie made for our dinner party were just too delicious!  I am such a total lightweight these days. Half a glass of wine and I'm ready for bed so having a perpetually full glass last night was really over the top! Fun it was however. This was our first party in the new house and I have to say it was great. Jessie and I have been going to the park and having playdates with same group of mommies and kids since she was 6 months old. We just started adding a monthly pot luck to include the daddies too and it has been really fun. A rather raucous end to serenity week!

Actually serenity is more of an internal thing and all in all I have to give myself a much better score then last time out. For you new readers of my blog, once a week I evaluate myself on the virtue of the week. Ben Franklin conducted his experiment very differently and  measured his progress daily. I, instead, check in at the end of my week and give myself a rather arbitrary score on the week based on a 10 point scale. It is a kind of gut check and now that I am into the second go around on my virtues (I will cover each of my virtues 4 times in a year) I also compare my result to the last time around. Recently I've also added Bliss Boosts to measure  any increase of Everyday Bliss, more about that in a minute.

Last time out I gave myself a 2 out of 10. All in all this week was much more successful and I will give myself a 5. The brilliance of starting where you are was the biggest factor in my increase. I caught myself  saying it like a little mantra this week. "Start where you are Kath" gave me a lot of power and miraculously made me feel pretty good about where I was!  Previously I was really picking lofty Bliss Initiatives that were designed for some type of ideal I had no hope of attaining. This serenity week was much more serene! I still didn't do everything I set out to do but I'm not beating myself up because of it.  I think I will be considering start where you are  as I design all of my Bliss Initiatives in the future.

I'm also going to give myself three bliss boosts. I just started measuring the actual increase in Everyday Bliss. Unlike my 10 point scale which considers how I performed on the particular virtue, I've decided to measure if I've had any increase in bliss. This is not a 10 point scale.  I just look back at the week and ask myself, "Did I experience more bliss in my life?"  and all in all, for this week that answer is a yes!

I'll close the week with an image that I hope causes you to pause and breath deeply for a minute. 

(It is a picture of a Lake Serenity I found in Google Images, how fitting!)

Next Post: Inquiry week begins!

My 13 bliss virtues: joy, order, creativity, passion, whimsy, serenity, inquiry, community, romance, gratitude, moxie, humility, surprise

Serenity Meander - some thoughts on meditation

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SERENITY - the state or quality of being serene, calm, or tranquil; composure, peacefulness, peace. [Serenity week begins here. Click for this week's Bliss Initiatives.]

Welcome Magic Carpet Riders! Looking for my One World One Heart Giveaway? Click here to go to my open house post and the giveaway! 

Image found on Trip Advisor, photo of Sea Mountain Inn Resort

I have shared previously in this blog that I once participated in a 10 day silent Vipassana Meditation retreat. The experience was fascinating. I started the week feeling like a crazy person. The voices in my head were so loud and I had to constantly bite my tongue. I'm so hard wired for talking. It was especially difficult to forego the pleasantries, please, thank you and excuse mes were not allowed. Other people were there with you but you were instructed to completely ignore each other.

By the end of the week my mind had quieted to the point where I had small experience of a totally quiet mind and when it was time to talk again normal chatter wasn't possible. For the next couple of weeks I found it difficult to resume, at the time, my usual social schedule of gathering at the local pub and commiserating on anything and everything with my friend Tamara. In the days immediately following my retreat even my own voice seemed loud and assaulting. It was a surreal and oddly calming experience overall.

The thing I haven't mentioned before is how much I loved it. Vipassana offers 30 and 45 day retreats and I aspired to participate. The taste of that silence I had glimpsed was compelling.  The retreats don't cost anything. Really, they are totally free. At the conclusion of the event each participant pays what they can/want to support the center and any contributions are completely anonymous. Even with the very attractive no fee participation costs I could never figure out when to do it again. I didn't want to use 10 or more days of limited vacation time and since I left the full time working world to be a stay at home mom, it is unfathomable to consider that much time away from my family. It remains on my "someday in the future" list.

I shared all this as a prelude to my meander around the internet to look at meditation practices. As a result of my Vipassana experience I have become some what a meditation snob. What I mean by that is I made up that if I can't devote hours a day to the practice then somehow it doesn't count. I've been inspired by Ken Wilber's multi decade habit of a lengthy morning meditation not to mention all the sages who have  practiced over the millenium. Here again however, I have not started where I am. I do not have the time, discipline or even inclination for this type of practice at this point in my life but to reject meditation all together because I don't have the time to "do it right" is keeping me from enjoying the little joys that even a few moments of solitude offer.

If you are like me, and are interested in adding a meditative practice but are not sure how to get started where you are, I've found a couple of terrific resources. 

• Spirituality and Practices web site has Meditation Resource Guide

• The World Wide On Line Meditation Center offers on line guided meditations. More serious then I am ready for, it does offer some interesting training.

• A new favorite site is Grand Master Art Mason's Buddha Nature website. Art Mason is a grand master martial artist and a professional Full Time Martial Arts School owner and operator dedicated to bringing the benefits of martial arts training to his community.  Each Post on his terrific website is a daily meditation in itself. He covers all sorts of topics like serenity and happiness but what really peaked my interest was his post called The Sound of Silence in which he says:

You don’t need to sit for hours on end in meditation. All you need do is spend 15-10 minutes in the morning sitting and learning to become a witness. While sitting or lying quietly simply observe your thought as the run though the mind. Don’t pay any attention to anyone of them. Just let them enter the mind and move on.  You become a voyeur, only watching the thoughts. After some weeks of practice you can begin to apply this all day long. As your mind tries to distract you with irrelevant chatter and problems you can become the witness to these moments. Not giving any opinions or comments. Simply letting them sale by like a ship at sea.  At first these thoughts will escalate, because the mind will fight back for control, but soon it will begin to quiet and your life will start to wind down and become far less stressful.

I practiced this for 10 days those many years ago and it was amazing. I won't be able to do the same again until Jessie is much much older so starting where I am and spending 10-15 minutes, maybe only once a week,  is something I can do. Eventually I may transition to something more formal. You know, REAL meditation. :)

Next Post: Wrapping up serenity week

My 13 bliss virtues: joy, order, creativity, passion, whimsy, serenity, inquiry, community, romance, gratitude, moxie, humility, surprise

Visual Serenity Part two!

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SERENITY - the state or quality of being serene, calm, or tranquil; composure, peacefulness, peace. [Serenity week begins here. Click for this week's Bliss Initiatives.]

Welcome Magic Carpet Riders! Looking for my One World One Heart Giveaway? Click here to go to my open house post and the giveaway! 

I'm calling this "part two" because I had a post of this name last serenity week.  We've all heard the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words,"  well in the case of serenity I'd have to say a picture is worth a thousand silences. No matter how busy, frenetic or otherwise crazed I am in any given moment, the right image can slow me right down. If it is only for a moment it still makes a diference. The ones that make me pause a little longer... well they are treasures!

As I was busily blog hopping in the One World One Heart Giveaway a couple of photos caught me by surprise. I lingered. I enjoyed. I hope you do too!

The photo above is from the header on Kathleen's blog 
Four Miles North of Nowhere.

She says the sunbeams through the tree are her gift on early mornings. 

If I could see this EVERY morning I would become a morning person!

This photo was taken on Jekyll Island by Lavender Dreamer. 

Visit her blog Lavender Dreams for more beautiful photos from her recent trip.  Growing up an east coast gal made this a very welcoming photo for me.  I have never been to Jekyll Island but it or one of its eastern beach cousins is calling for a visit!

Next Post: A Serenity Meander

My 13 bliss virtues: joy, order, creativity, passion, whimsy, serenity, inquiry, community, romance, gratitude, moxie, humility, surprise

Starting Where You Are

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SERENITY - the state or quality of being serene, calm, or tranquil; composure, peacefulness, peace. [Serenity week begins here. Click for this week's Bliss Initiatives.]

Welcome Magic Carpet Riders! Looking for my One World One Heart Giveaway? Click here to go to my open house post and the giveaway! 

What a delightful whirlwind this One  World One Heart  event is for me. Every time I check back 10 more people have visited my little corner of the internet and many have chosen to become followers and fans of the blog. It is truly exciting. And the places I have traveled on this magic carpet ride... incredible! There are types of creativity I could never have fathomed and at this point I've only made it to about 100 of the almost 700 (so far) participant's blogs. I now understand why the event lasts three weeks, I'll need every minute to get to everything! (If you don't know what the One World One Heart event is and/or you haven't stopped by yet, do click on over to Lisa's Whimsical Bohemian site and start your own tour today!)

As I have been playing during this unique frenzy of activity I thought, more then once, what a funny week  for serenity week. Then I happened upon Amusing Muses on my blog tour. In her giveaway I saw this print:

 (Click on the print to visit the delightful Amusing Muses site.)

Oh my goodness that is EXACTLY what I needed to see. It also affirms that I was on the right track with my Bliss Initiatives yesterday. I realize now that during the weeks I don't perform  well (meaning scoring high on my arbitrary 10 point scale) it is mostly because I haven't been starting where I am. I made the mistake several times of creating weekly initiatives that were VERY lofty and  were designed for where I want to be rather then where I am. This time I am actually starting where I am. Brilliant! And probably why I actually caught myself feeling some serenity in the most unlikely of places, like at the Children's Museum with Jessie where the bubble room occurred like a small oasis rather then the crazy soap pit of past visits! 

My initial intention for this post was to share some serene images (much like I did last serenity week) but where I am is not quite ready to do that. I've found a couple of delightful images I will be sharing but my "collection" isn't quite complete. In the past I would have tried to force it, conducting a frenetic search around the internet and possibly picking mediocre representations because time was running out. How crazy is that? 

Anyway, armed with this great advice I headed to the internet, loyal followers you know this feeds my bliss of INQUIRY, and poke around. I knew others must have had there own aha moments (thanks Oprah) about discovering this magical precept. I was not disappointed.

First up I found this:

Click on book cover for more information about the book

He's the real life guy the movie The Pursuit of Happiness (oh yeah they spelled it Happyness!) was about. I'm certain he probably has a lot to say on the topic!

I also found another book of the same title with an interesting review by feministing.com (I must get back there again sometime!) In the post called Not Oprah's Book Club: Start Where You Are Courtney reviews this book: 

Click on book cover for more information about the book

Written by Buddhist Nun Pema Chodron, the gist of the book is the notion that all of our experiences--both delightful and disastrous, all of our emotions--both joyful and wretched, are a lesson and a gift. The range of experiences we encounter are our tools for becoming more awake, more kind, and more present. Nice! I just may put both these books on my reading list!

What about you? How often do you force something rather then just starting where you are? How about joining me and begin where you are?

Next Post: Visual Serenity

My 13 bliss virtues: joy, order, creativity, passion, whimsy, serenity, inquiry, community, romance, gratitude, moxie, humility, surprise

Ahhh the ease of Serenity Week!

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SERENITY - the state or quality of being serene, calm, or tranquil; composure, peacefulness, peace.

Welcome Magic Carpet Riders! Looking for my One World One Heart Giveaway? Click here to go to my open house post and the giveaway! 

I am beginning to think that I should have listened to my heart when I felt it calling for Serenity week last week. This week would have been very well suited for whimsy week since I am getting the fabulous opportunity to visit hundreds of creative and whimsical blogs!. Thank you so much all you inspiring Magic Carpet participants. My blog isn't  about  my art but visiting all the fabulous magic carpet blogs makes me want to get my crafty game on! I actually bought some stamps and plan on making some handmade valentines with Jessie. Now I'm not expecting an almost 3 year old and I to come up with anything nearly as exciting as I've seen on the blogs I've visited but who knows we just might get hooked! Jessie has already been inspired by art I have visited during my project so I'm expecting some fun results!

Anyway, I digress! My topic at hand is serenity. I selected it as a distinction of bliss because I have felt entirely blissful during serene moments. Looking at a beautiful vista, catching the quiet of first light, holding hands with my sweetie not needing to say a word, or watching Jessie as she sleeps are all restorative as well as blissful. If you are a follower of my blog, you may remember how I have been trying, rather unsuccessfully to incorporate a morning ritual of solitude. I did manage to do it for three days as part of my creativity exercise with "The Creativity Book:" by Eric Maisel but still it looms as an item unaccomplished. I have managed to carve out a few minutes for myself weekday mornings ever since I declared I would be writing a book but the ritual is still not happening. I'm not giving up on it but for what ever reason, I am not ready for it so rather then making myself continually wrong about it I will just give myself the space to let it be. Ahhhh. That feels more peaceful already. When I am ready I can consider it again. Until then I will look at other initiatives to inject more serenity into my life!

This week's  "Bliss Initiatives," are color coded in purple for quick identification. They are specific things that you too can try, if you want to play along with me.  However, because as Earl Nightingale says, "you become what you think about,"  even if you only follow along,  and never take on any of the bliss initiatives,  I expect some positive results. I will be exploring and encouraging SERENITY this way:

• Pause 1-2-3 experiment. I am revisiting this idea from last serenity week. This week when I feel myself start to react to something I am going to take a pause and count to three. Jessie can only benefit from having a mommy who can do this as a habit!  A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. - Proverbs 15:1(NIV) How many times a day do I react before pausing? I have no idea, but if I can stop even a few I am certain I can foster a bit more serenity in the process!

• Serenity Study - I will take time to look for serene images. Finding and having an arsenal of images that encourage me to breath deeply will definitely make serenity a bit more attainable. Last serenity week I was particularly inspired by this photograph:

Island by Michael Dreese

• Meditative Study -  Last Serenity week I had the lofty ambition of adding some type of meditative practice to my routine. I would love to put it on here as a bliss initiative  with the expectation of actually doing it but I know myself better then that and I don't want to make myself wrong on another front! Wow that IS progress already! Instead of forcing a practice I will spend some time researching different meditative practices. I have no expectation of adopting any new behaviors, even so learning more about them should add some serenity to my life!

• Serenity field trip. I will take time this week, on at least two occasions to spend some time in nature. Jessie and I can walk through a park or we can take a little hike together as a family. Nature is serenity's greatest teacher and advocate, I plan to learn from her.

Next Post: Serenity Study

My 13 bliss virtues: joy, order, creativity, passion, whimsy, serenity, inquiry, community, romance, gratitude, moxie, humility, surprise  

One World One Heart EVERYDAY BLISS Open House

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ONE WORLD ONE HEART - An inspired and fun blog game certain to increase Everyday Bliss if played. [Take a moment and breath deeply....Serenity week to unfold more fully tomorrow]

Please let me begin by welcoming the world to Everyday Bliss. This blog hopes to be an inspiring stop on your magic carpet ride. Everyday Bliss is an experiment based loosely on Ben Franklin's life long practice to focus on his thirteen virtues for living a good life. Instead of "the good life" my project is in the pursuit of Everyday Bliss. I've distinguished what I am calling the virtues of Bliss and each week I concentrate on one of the virtues. Last week was WHIMSY week and you have stopped by during SERENITY week.

Everyday Bliss is excited and delighted to be participating in this year's One World One Heart Magic Carpet Ride!! Over in the sidebar, I've gathered one of my favorite posts on each of the 13 weekly topics if you are interested in poking around the blog for a little fun or inspiration.

And now on to the giveaway!

MY GIVEAWAY (Or should I say giveawayS) is open to any of my faithful readers or anyone having an active blog around the world.............TO ENTER please leave a comment in THIS POST for a chance to win one of the fabulous prizes below. The winners names will be announced on February 15th and I will also contact each winner to let you know you've won....so be sure I have a way to link back/contact you. Even if you are a blogger not hosting a OWOH giveaway yourself you are MORE THAN WELCOME to enter your name to win! 


*** New special bonus! If you area follower or fan of the blog you will get an extra chance in the giveaway. Leave a comment for one chance, become a fan (on Facebook) for one more chance and/or become a follower and get one more chance! That is three possible chances for all four giveaways  -- that is 12 chances in all!!! ***

Giveaway #1 Includes Wish Paper, a copy of Ben Franklin's Autobiography, Small Genius Ideas Journal and Pen, Inspiration Cards to Share, a Black Bag of Passion Starters and two Heart Shaped Cookie Cutters.

Giveaway #2 includes a coppy of Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth, a Small Genius Ideas Journal and Pen, What Happened Here Cards, Flower shaped Paper Clips with sweet carrying case,

 Organizational Task Clips and a small vial of Fairy Dust.

Giveaway #3 includes a mini Zen Garden, whimsical box made by 2.5 year old Jessie Sprinkle, Pocket Heart Rock, Bliss magnet, Fun Journal and Inspiration Cards to share.

Giveaway #4 Includes a fun striped Journal, Creative Everyday Cards by Eric Maisel, 

Votive Candle w/holder, Wish Paper and a small vial of Fairy Dust.

Please remember to Enter you must post a comment in THIS POST and please include a link or contact info so I can get back to you to let you know that you have won. If you have a first choice gift do let me know that too! I will pick a random winner for each of the four prizes so your one entry makes you eligible for all four giveaways! 

COMMENTS WILL BE CLOSED 10 PM PST ON SUNDAY NIGHT FEB. 14TH SO THE WINNERS CAN BE ANNOUNCED ON MONDAY FEB. 15TH.  GOOD LUCK!!! AND THANKS FOR STOPPING BY EVERYDAY BLISS!

Next Post: Serenity Week gets started.

My 13 bliss virtues: joy, order, creativity, passion, whimsy, serenity, inquiry, community, romance, gratitude, moxie, humility, surprise

Whimsical Conclusions

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WHIMSY - extravagant, fanciful, or excessively playful expression; an odd or fanciful notion. [Whimsy week starts here. Click for this week's Bliss Initiatives.] 

Once again my experiment has surprised me. During the most recent Creativity and Passion weeks I experienced a palpable increase in Bliss and awarded myself with three and five bliss boosts respectively. In the case of Passion week I actually graded myself lower on my weekly grading scale then during the previous week but even so, my experience of Bliss had gone up. I thought I would easily continue the trend but I can't say that was the case. I just didn't get in the whimsy groove as much as I was hoping. All in all I am not awarding myself any bliss boosts and will be giving myself a 2 on my 10 point scale.  I think  the highlight from this week was my little Whimsy Study and I did start to get in the groove with some flash Inspiration searches yesterday but it didn't really amount to the whimsical breakthrough I felt last time  out.


If you are interested in reviewing last whimsy week's fun click on any of the following:

Wonderful Whimsy

Whimsy Musings

Jessie's Towder and Nests

Wearable Whimsy

More Wearable Whimsy

Corporate Whimsy

Kitchen Whimsy

Practical Whimsy

I find myself thinking about Ben Franklin here. Considering that he concentrated on his various virtues over the course of a lifetime, I have to believe that success was very different from week to week and virtue to virtue. Ben and I are conducting our evaluation in very different ways. Like me, Ben concentrated on one specific virtue each week, but he also kept track of each virtue on a daily basis.


His chart looked like this:

The  top of the page showed the virtue he was concentrating on for that particular week and had a column for each day of the week. The rows had each of the virtues listed and then each night before he went to bed he would give himself "a black mark" for every virtue he violated. His goal was to live a "clean" mark free life so the fewer dots the better. Franklin admits never living a completely vice free life, he was particularly known for womanizing and drinking after all, but over time his pages were cleaner.


Ben had this to say about his project:


"I conceiv’d the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish’d to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into"


Perhaps it would be boring if the trajectory were always in one direction or another. Regardless of the outcome each week it is always interesting to be playing. I love having a context for looking at things and even if I can't always score myself highly, like Ben, 


"Tho’ I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it."


Just playing the game definitely makes me happier!

Next Post: Everyday Bliss Open House... tune in for fabulous prizes!

My 13 bliss virtues: joy, order, creativity, passion, whimsy, serenity, inquiry, community, romance, gratitude, moxie, humility, surprise

Whimsy unleashed!

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WHIMSY - extravagant, fanciful, or excessively playful expression; an odd or fanciful notion. [Whimsy week starts here. Click for this week's Bliss Initiatives.] 


Whimsy unleashed. Ha! Yesterday I wrote that as my "next post" primarily to kick myself into a higher gear. I've definitely been a little light on the whimsy this time around. I think primarily it is because I haven't really done anything I set out to do with my Bliss Initiatives. Last time I got really inspired by my "Flash Inspiration" searches and while I recommended doing them this time around  I haven't really taken the time to do so.  That is changing today!


Jessie has asked to work with her clay so while she does that Im starting off the search with "whimsical clay" and the first thing to show up was "whimsical clay houses." Here is the Wiggly House by Tod Van Duren.

Next up, since I'm working on my open house giveaways I searched "whimsical gifts" and found Catching Fireflies which promises whimsical goodies to brighten your day.  Some fun quirky items including:

I love the the bone shaped paper clips especially!


We're having a fire in our fireplace tonight so I tried Whimsical Fire and found this photo called Whimsical Fire Works by Brian Trainor:

And typing Whimsical without anything else revealed whimsical quotes in a drop down menu. Whimsical Wits offered the following:


"Preposition: An enormously versatile part of grammar, as in 'What made you pick this book I didn't want to be read to out of up for?'"
~ Winston Churchill ~


"What's my loftiest ambition? I've always wanted to throw an egg into an electric fan."
~ Oliver Herford ~


"I wanted to be an atheist, but I gave it up. They have no holidays."
~ Henry Youngman ~


Thinking about some craft projects with Jessie and the subsequent cleanup led me to these aprons by Milalu and gloves by La Doux - The  girl's gotta have it!

And check out this Whimsical House I found at Trendir Modern House Designs:

I'm ready to move in now! Wow! Do click on the link to see all the photos from this amazing house!


Phew! I feel much more whimsical already. 


Next Post: Whimsical conclusions

My 13 bliss virtues: joy, order, creativity, passion, whimsy, serenity, inquiry, community, romance, gratitude, moxie, humility, surprise