Making Mums Happy: day 3
Thought for the day: 'Growth itself is the germ of happiness' – Pearl S. Buck
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10 Happiness principles
- Count your blessings
- Have a good laugh every day
- Do a good turn with a daily kindness
- Treat yourself every day
- Cut TV viewing and make time
- Say hello to a stranger
- Look after something you've planted
- Get physical
- Phone a friend
- Indulge in some talk time
- Day to day happiness
Welcome to Day 3 of Making Mums Happy
How are you getting on? Have one or two of the tasks so far surprised you? Are you keeping up? It's a bit like any new programme (diets/exercises/learning) if you do a little bit every day, then it gets easier and it becomes habit.
Talk to other mums taking part in Making Mums Happy, in the Happiness Club.
Here are your happiness tasks for the day!
Write in your happiness diary
It's food day today.
Every time you eat and drink something today, really notice it and think about it. Where did it come from? Wonder about who was involved in its preparation. What was involved in planting it, growing it, tending it, picking it, making it, packing it? Smell and taste your food and drink. Really appreciate it.
If you are cooking, think about the ingredients and where they came from. Smell them. Notice how they feel. Enjoy preparing and eating good food.
Take out your happiness diary and write a list of the good food you enjoyed today - it's not time to feel guilty if you're on a diet, or didn't eat well enough - think instead of the things you enjoyed eating.
Turn off your TV
Do the "turning off the TV thing" again and catch up instead with one of those rainy day jobs that you'd love to do if only you had the time... What about experimenting on the computer creating a photo album or designing an invitation for one of your children's next parties? Giving yourself time to be a bit creative can be so much fun and we all know we watch too much telly. It's fine if it's something you really want to watch, but how many times do you find yourself sitting there channel-hopping and watching rubbish? Go on... do something different.
Have a daily laugh
Laughter is infectious, so if it isn't coming easily to you, get your kids laughing... then you can catch it from them. When did we forget to laugh? Laughter comes so easily to children ... So chase them, or tickle them, or bounce them, or spray them with water and get them and you giggling. Or, see what other mums are up to and catch a bit of their laughter in the Happiness Club for your daily laugh.
Remember the laughing policeman? Can you laugh along with him here. It doesn't matter if you feel silly - there is no one watching (honest!)
Be friendly
Smile and say hello to a stranger. So, we smiled at an elderly person on day one and at another mum on day two. Today, make it your choice. Try to make it someone who looks possibly lonely or having a bad moment (mum with screaming child? Or someone at a bus stop?)
Take the time to look around you at other people to identify your 'target'. Once you've smiled and said a warm hello, you could add something, even if it's about the weather - "Nice day isn't it?". It's about reaching out and connecting with another person on this planet. For no other reason than you are both human beings, in the same place at the same time.
Mother Teresa was a great advocate of the smile:
"We can never know how much good a simple smile can do" she says in her book The Joy of Loving
Get growing
Gardening, even in a window box or pot, has been shown to be good for the soul. And children love gardening too, so it's a great activity to do together. Like cooking, it's a chance for them to get their hands dirty and you can sometimes eat the results!
Why not get some seeds to grow your own tomatoes? Or alternatively, you could buy some young plants from the garden centre and with a bit of daily watering and some liquid feed, you'll be eating your own home-grown tomatoes before you know it!
If you want to start with something a little less ambitious, try growing your own herbs. There's a nice easy trick for growing your own basil on our gardening pages.
Or why not try sunflowers? They're easy to grow from seed - just pop them in a pot, cover with cling film until leaves start to appear and then plant them out in the garden. The children could have a competition to see whose sunflower grows the tallest.
Why not give lettuce a go? Lettuces are really easy to grow almost anywhere, they grow quickly from seeds and can be planted throughout the summer. Here's how:
- Make sure the earth is well dug (it should look as much like sand as possible and not have any clumps in it) or if you're planting in a container, fill it with a rich growing compost
- Create a channel in the earth with your finger or a trowel, about 2cm deep
- Drop the small round pellet-like seeds into the channel and cover with earth
- Water daily and watch your seedlings appear in about 5 days
- Pull out the seedlings that are too close together so that each lettuce has room to grow
- Keep watering to make sure the earth or container compost doesn't dry out
Ta dah! That's all there is to it. In 3-4 weeks you'll be picking your very own home-grown lettuces. If you have room, plant another row 2 weeks after you've planted your first and then 2 weeks after that and you'll be eating lettuces all summer! All from just one packet of seeds!
We've lots more ideas in our gardening page.
Get into nature
While you're in the garden or alternatively how about going to the park, can you find an ant's nest?
Find an ant and follow it home or turn over a stone and find a family of woodlice. Or if you can't bear creepy crawlies, put some bread out for the birds. It doesn't matter which type of creature you choose, what we want you to do is observe the busy lives going on around us. Each ant has a place in this world and a part to play in it's community.
Some ant facts: Did you know?
- Ant colonies can have as many as 40-50,000 ants
- Ants 'talk' to each other using scent, sound, touch and sight - they 'talk' by touching antennae
- Ants gather together in groups (planning committees perhaps?)
- Ants are all female. Male ants are created only as needed by the queen of the colony for reproductive purposes and they die shortly after mating
- Ants have a very keen sense of smell (through their antennae) - each colony has its own scent and this helps them find their way home!
