Happy
- A potato pancake, ,hot chocolate, and flannel pjs in bed
- The love of the good things we ate in our childhood
- Bringing beauty and meaning into life
- A really good haircut
- Carrying a map
- Tobacco stores
- “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”
- Answers
- The taste of cake batter
- Waking up early and having breakfast together outside
- The art in everyday life
- Rearranging
- Bracelets
- Dunkin’ Donuts Stores
- Part of you always being a child
- Construction paper
- Trampolines
- Strawberry-frosted doughnuts from Dunkin’ Donuts
- Huge dunes
- When the lights come up
- Remembering when the leaves were raked, jumped into, or burned and not put into plastic bags or giant vaccuums
- New York City
- Buttering toast generously and immediately so that the butter melts and sinks in
- Hole-in-the-middle cake doughnuts
- Personally witnessing a happy event in history
- An ideal picnic spot
- Angora cats
- The trade winds
- Thoughts while ironing
- Camp shorts
- Playing among big trees and rocks
- Pink grapefruit with tons of sugar
- Listening for the sound of a key in the lock
- Cherry pie a la mode
- Life choices
- “Im OK, you’re OK”
- Not worrying about having what everyone else has
- Pelicans
- Silences in chess games
- The rising or setting of a star at sunset
- T’s and jeans
- Kansas wheat
- The act of entering a room and forgetting why
- Preparing your Christmas card list before Thanksgiving
- Toast and honey butter
- “Away in the Manger” (carol)
- Starbucks’ caramel macchiato
- Kids and video games
- Cat hammocks
- Rising early
- Workworkworkworkwork
- Tidings of comfort and joy
- Downloading music
- A charismatic TV weatherperson
- Giving your hands cold-weather first aid
- Snow in March
- Late Sunday breakfast
- Brick floors
- Homey touches
- Reliability
- Oven fries
- A submarine sandwich of roast beef, shredded lettuce, mayonnaise, and salt and pepper
- “Skit night” at camp
- Getting snow caked on socks and in jean cuffs
- Painting a mural
- The beach in the fall
- BLTS and potato salad
- Library tables
- Skipping waves
- Large seashells
- The Dalai Lama’s smile
- The NFL
- A night without you or your partner snoring
- A smile, a sunny day, ice-cold Coca-Cola, and a best friend to share them with
- Boiling water for coffee
- The unique smell of new Play-Doh
- Orderliness
- Ferry boats
- Sun-touched shoulders
- Cats in between ripples of blankets
- Color film
- Cheese soup
- Bags
- Bay swimming
- Reading a favorite magazine
- Living with the knowledge that you’ve done your best
- Salt packets
- Padded bicycle seats
- Old-fashioned summers
- Bread and butter with pots of jam and honey
- Challenging yourself with a jigsaw puzzle or electronic game
- Bingo games
- Crabmeat with sherried cheese sauce
- Payday
- Going barefoot in grass cropped close as fine baby’s hair.
- Tall people
- July: National Ice Cream Month
- Tennis Courts
- Resting under cool trees
- Not being embarrassed easily
- The order of colors in a Life-Savers candy roll
- Singing to the radio when you drive
- Writing a final sentence
- Showing sensitivity or concern
- For a happy marriage: never speak to loudly to one another, unless the house is on fire
- Being knee-deep in foam and icy saltwater
- Archaeology buffs
- Children singing
- The splendor of fall
- Finding clarity
- Old architectural details
- Friendliness
- That vacation feeling
- An orangutan bargaining for treats from the zookeeper
- The “upper crust”
- Upper New York State
- Doing well on the SATs
- Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin, Kanga, Baby Roo, Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet
- Kids saying “Micky D’s” and “BK”
- Penthouses
- How lucky you are
- Shadow boxes in kitchens
- Motivation
- Squeezing one more brushful out of the toothpaste tube
- Snickerdoodles
- After supper, lying in the grass and watching the fire die
- Bunsen burners
- Elevators
- Always looking people in the eye
- Long winter weekends
- “Life is short. Eat dessert first.”
- Squirting someone with a squirt gun
- Waking up New Year’s Day and knowing you didn’t make a fool of yourself
- Paint-by-number kits
- Carving pumpkins
- Autograph Day at the end of the school year
- Beethoven symphonies and sonatas
- The first kiss of the summer
- A well-balanced life
- A “Where did you get that?” item
- Short-legged beach chairs
- All-butter pound cake, ice cream, and strawberries
- The silence and solitude of isolated beaches
- Good news for change
- Celebrating the imperfections of your relationship
- The White Mountains
- Whales
- Being tall enough to reach
- A white Christmas
- Bacon frying in cast-iron skillets
- Ice-cream cakes
- The doughnut shop where everyone hangs out
- Looking your best
- Chocolate bark
- Yellow stacks of National Geographic
- Beating a Game Boy game
- Portable Scrabble games
- City planning
- Warming milk for cocoa
- Toll House cookie batter
- Drawing tablets
- Laser printers
- The practice of eating the cream center of an Oreo before eating the cookie outsides
- 50 percent off anything
- Wheat fields
- When friends drop in
- Ritz crackers
- Parrots
- The potential of 45,000 words per pencil
- Allowing every guest to hang an ornament on your Christmas tree
- Getting asked out on a date early
- Kicking off your shoes and splashing your feet in a fountain
- Someone who wants to take you dancing
- Love, 15, 30, 40, game, set, match
- Enlarging a favorite photo
- Snow sculpture
- Free concerts in the park
- Old, old black-and-white snapshots
- Licking a cake bowl
- Dairy Queen posters and price lists
- Spring training
- Bobbing for apples
- Smiling your smile
- Lighthouses
- Fried mozzarella and marinara sauce
- Haunted houses
- Having a different kind of sandwich for lunch
- Museum lectures
- A wish box
- Jumping into bed with a good book
- Slow snowfalls
- Playing possum
- Using your powers for good
- Love between two people
- Old maps from a museum gift shop
- Tootsie Roll lollipops
- Snow forts
- Wristwatches
- Lying motionless in the warm sun
- Going to church on Christmas Eve
- Flipping coins into a fountain
- Knowing when to leave
