Author: Laurie Swinton

Blogger, writer, interested in communications, social media, lakeside living
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Best happy acts of 2015

Best of 2015 graphicSomeone once said you need to focus on the future, not the past, to be happy. While I think there is some truth in this statement, I think reflecting and learning from the past is valuable.

So in the spirit of reflection, here’s my Eleven Best Happy Acts of 2015 (once again eleven “for that extra push” in the immortal words of Nigel Tufnel). Most of these should inspire, but some are just for fun!

  1. Host your own awards show—with awards show season upon us, this is a great activity to do with the family or at a party.
  2. Listen with your heart—with 24 comments, this post struck a chord and sparked a debate about being self-absorbed and managing expectations in the selfie age.
  3. Whistle while you work—from guest blogger Matt Smith on the importance of being happy at work.
  4. The best investment you can make—and more pearls of wisdom from Warren Buffett, just in time for RRSP season.
  5. Make a pilgrimage to Cooperstown—my friend and guest blogger Ray Dorey wrote this before the Blue Jays came oh so close to reviving our dreams of ’85 and bringing baseball fever to a new pitch. Plan to visit in 2016.
  6. A twist on 13 things you must give up to be happy—an important lesson on reframing thoughts.
  7. Rise and shine—if January finally heralds winter winds and snow, this post will transport you back to warmer days.
  8. The science of happiness-part 2—answers the question, who do you think is more happy, lottery winners or parapalegics?
  9. Marriage is a life sentence—makes me think of my father-in-law, John Swinton every time…and smile.
  10. Diss the dis in disability—an invaluable lesson from the creators of Sesame Street. Make this your New Year’s resolution for 2016.
  11. Does being a leader make you happy? An important question. See more comments on this page on Quora.

This week’s #HappyAct is to catch up on any happy acts you missed in 2015 and look forward to happiness in 2016. Happy New Year everyone and thanks for reading!

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Be a citizen scientist

Grace in charge of the count with her clipboard
Grace in charge of the count with her clipboard

What’s 115 years old and North America’s largest citizen science project? If you guessed the Christmas bird count, you’d be right.

Yesterday we spent the morning at Elbow Lake Environmental Education Centre north of Kingston. They were holding a special Christmas Bird Count for kids. I’ve always been interested in the Christmas Bird Count and was excited to find out more and participate in this important initiative.

The CBC as it’s called started in 1900 and happens between December 14 and January 5. Local groups choose a single day during that period and conduct the count—counts are carried out within a 24-km radius.

We took the red trail and saw 17 perch birds (songbirds like chickadees, junkos, nuthatches), 4 other bird species and 20 water fowl (ducks). The night before I watched Bear Grylls—his guest celebrity this week was Barack Obama and they talked on their trek in Alaska about the effects of climate change. To see 20 waterfowl at this time of year is highly unusual. It’s been so warm, all the lakes are still open, causing migration cycles to alter.

I have to admit, even though we love the outdoors, birds and nature, I’ve always thought of birdwatching being as exciting as watching paint dry and we thought the kids might be bored. We were wrong. They loved it and felt they were making a difference when we explained the research we logged after would help scientists understand migratory patterns and the effects of climate warming.

This week’s #HappyAct is to take part in one of the local bird counts near you. What better way to celebrate the holiday season and work off that turkey than getting outside and seeing if you can spy a wild turkey of your own? To find out more about the Christmas Bird Count, visit http://www.birdscanada.com or if you live in the Kingston region, contact the coordinators for our area Carolyn Bonta or Michael Johnson at 613-353-7968 or bonta.johnson@sympatico.ca. Happy holidays everyone!

bird's nest
Tiny bird nest we discovered on our hike

girl holding bird seed

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Play in the big leagues

girl watching zamboniYesterday, we attended the Empire Life children’s Christmas party at the KROCK Centre in Kingston. It’s always a fantastic event with Santa, crafts, cupcakes and lots of good cheer.

The absolute best part of this annual party for our family is being able to skate on the KROCK Centre rink. For one day, we get to play in the big leagues.

We swish down the long straightaways past the blue lines and centre line to the sounds of Christmas music on the loud speakers. I marvel at how big the place is—the rink is cavernous. I look up at the bright lights and ads adorning the walls of the rink, the big Canadian flag and scoreboard and my co-workers eating pizza in the stands. We feel like we have the whole arena all to ourselves.

We play a serious game of tag. The kids are too fast now—I can’t catch them, but have fun trying. We watch from the visitor’s bench as the Zamboni makes its rounds, leaving the ice a slate of sheer beauty. It’s so perfect you feel like you’re skating on glass. Grace and Clare perch at the opening to the door on the bench, determined to be the first back on the ice.

Yes, it was a great day. A day when you can imagine, just for a moment playing in the big leagues.

This week’s #HappyAct is to find something you can do with your friends or family that makes you dream big. Who knows, maybe you’ll find your own rink of dreams.

Ed. Note: As a follow-up to last week’s blog, I posted the question “Does being a leader make you happy” on Quora. You can see the conversation here.

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Does being a leader make you happy?

Nelson Mandela quoteThis is the question I’ve been pondering this past week after spending six days with leaders from across the country at the Queen’s Leadership Course.

It was an amazing but exhausting week, where we learned about team building, transformational leadership and how to be a good coach.

Transformational leadership is elevating others by inspiring people to see the importance of what they do so they want to do it better. It often results in change through a shared vision. Think of leaders like Nelson Mandela, the great basketball coach Phil Jackson and Mikhail Gorbachev.

With this definition in mind, you would think the obvious answer would be yes. That helping people develop and elevating them to new heights would result in immense personal satisfaction and happiness.

But Mandela and Gorbachev also had to endure incredible hardships, stress and conflict in their lives.

It made me think of two of my most recent leadership experiences, both non-work related. I would probably rate my performance in both these cases as a 4. Sure, I shared my vision, I worked hard, I led a team to the best of my ability, but in the end, after my leadership stint was over, there was very little change. When I ask myself the tough question, did I elevate others, the answer is no. I failed as a leader.

I also didn’t enjoy the one experience at all. Instead of being energized, I felt drained most of the time, frustrated and unhappy.

So, back to my original question. Does being a leader make you happy? I’m not sure I can answer that question, but I do know that some of the things they reinforced this past week does make me happy and more important, makes the world a happier place. Things like caring for others, taking the time to say hello and ask people how they are doing, what’s important in their lives. It’s the little things that are the hallmark of a great leader and the good news is, we all have the ability to be great leaders.

This week’s #HappyAct is to think of one small act you can do this week to help elevate others. Tell me what you think. Does being a leader make you happy? Leave a comment. Here are some inspirational quotes from the week to inspire you.

“Leadership is not about taking control; it’s about helping others make better decisions.”

“People respond remarkably to what you say and how you treat them.”

“You don’t need to be inspiring all the time. Be inspiring at the right time.”

“Great leaders elevate their followers; terrible leaders demean their followers and make them feel smaller.”

 

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Wrap it up in a big red bow

 

ATV with a red bowIt’s officially here. The season of gift giving. The shopping frenzy starts with Black Friday and continues for thirty days of mall madness to Christmas and Boxing Day.

We’ve never been extravagant gift givers in our house. When the kids were little, we followed the ABC rule—a toy, a book and one outfit of new clothes. We’ve never done the “big gesture”. There’s been no trips under our tree. No diamond rings or necklaces. The gifts under our tree have always been modest.

Well, all that changed last week in a culmination of happy acts. In October, I blogged about the 23 years I’ve been married to Dave in “Marriage is a Life Sentence”. My happy act that week was to do something special for your partner in crime in life. I wracked my brains to think about something special to do for Dave and could only come up with one thing.

For the past two years, all Dave has talked about is getting an ATV. Ad nauseom. We had been saving, but a car bill here, a washing machine on the fritz here kept putting it off.

Then last week, my post was about taking the Financial Weight Loss Challenge. The idea is to take action on the one thing you should do during Financial Literacy Month to feel better about your financial health. In that post, I said we’ve always taken a balanced approach between saving and living and right now, living was winning out.

So as Dave’s birthday approached, I decided to kill two happy acts with one stone and buy an ATV from Perth Powersports (the team there were great!) It just so happened I was working from home on Dave’s birthday, and would actually be at the house when he got home from work to see his reaction. They delivered it in the morning—a shiny yellow CanAm 450 Outlander with a plow. All it needed was a big red bow.

Dave’s reaction was everything we hoped for and more. He was a 12-year old boy again on the farm with a grin a mile wide. It’s still on his face.

This week’s #HappyAct is to find the perfect gift for someone this season and wrap it up in a big red bow. I still don’t think you need the “big gesture” to bring joy and pleasure in the gift you choose. It might be cliché, but it really is the thought that counts and finding that perfect gift, big or small.

Man and ATV

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It can buy me a boat

I’ve been thinking a lot about money lately. November is Financial Literacy Month, and once again my company, Empire Life, is issuing a challenge: to take action this month on the one thing you need to do to feel better about your financial health. We call it the Financial Weight Loss Challenge—lose the weight of whatever financial worry is weighing you down.

Financial Literacy Month ad

For the past two weeks, I’ve been trying to decide what action I will take this month. Last year I said I was going to change to a cheaper cell phone plan, finish a spreadsheet I’d started with all our insurance and investment policies, and start saving more for the kids’ education. While I didn’t get it all done last November, I followed through on all three things.

My family’s favourite song right now is Chris Janson’s song, Buy Me a Boat. The lyrics are, “I know everybody says money can’t buy happiness…but it could buy me a boat, it could buy me a truck to pull it.”

When it comes to money, we’ve always taken a balanced approach between saving and living. Right now, living is winning out. So my actions this month will be modest: sign up for ebilling for those final bills that are still mailed to me (bonus points for going green, something I should have done a long time ago), put a few extra payments on our line of credit, and waste less food in the house, which for us mainly means cleaning out our fridge more often.

That will leave a little money in the bank to dream. And while the last thing we need is another boat, you never know what might show up in the driveway or where the wind will take us on our travels next year.

This week’s #HappyAct is to take the Financial Weight Loss Challenge and share what you’re going to do to lose the weight of financial worry. Post a comment here or on the Empire Life Facebook page. You can also help support Pathways to Education if you share one of our posts with the hashtag #EmpireFLM this month. Every time someone uses the hashtag in November, we’ll donate .25 cents to Pathways to Education. Take the challenge: how will you lose financial weight? Leave a comment.

 

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Sip, swirl and swallow

Man holding two bottles of wine
Dave with our bounty from Keint-He Winery

Yesterday, we spent the day in Prince Edward County in Bloomfield and Wellington with my brother and his wife who were spending the weekend at the Waring House. It was a grey, cold November day with the wind whipping off the lake. We warmed up the best County way, by sipping, swirling and swallowing the latest vintages at some of Ontario’s finest wineries.

The first winery we toured was Chadsey Cairns, a beautiful old barn with a tasting room overlooking their vineyard. We’d been to this winery several years ago, and I remember being enchanted by its charm. (It’s for sale, by the way—yes, you could be your own vintner for a cool $3.8 million). A bottle of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir later, and we were off to our next winery, Keint-He.

Ontario beach at sunset
A stroll at Wellington beach is a great way to clear your head after a day of tastings!

Here we tried a few red samplings, ending with a lovely Gamay Noir. I’m not a wine connoisseur, so I can’t describe all the wonderful flavours we were experiencing like the wine experts do. I just know what I like, and I liked all the wines we sampled yesterday (go figure!) For me, it’s as much about the ambiance. At Keint-He, they had a magnificent huge tasting table and stone fireplace. We sipped away watching the sun set over the fields.

Our last stop was Karlo Estates. This was our favourite stop. Their tasting room was bustling with dozens of revelers. The 100-year old barn beams, and white twinkly lights, coupled by now with our eighth or ninth tasting made for a wonderful end to the day. Howie and the boys behind the bar served us pairings of onion chips, blue cheese and chocolate as we sampled their reds, ending with a sweet, delicious Port.

Woman sipping wine
Sampling the Lake on the Mountain Riesling at Karlo Estates

Where were all the kids during all of this you ask? Out in the car. We shared a few jokes about that—hey, they’re country kids. They know what to do if the fishers or coyotes come after them.

This week’s #HappyAct is to warm up on a cold winter’s day by touring some wineries. The next two weekends, the wineries of Prince Edward County are celebrating Wassail, where you can sample mulled wines with food pairings. Short on funds? Touring wineries is a great day outing even if you’re on a limited budget. All three of the wineries we visited offered single taste samplings for a $1 each.

Four bottles of wine
Some of our bounty from yesterday’s outing
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The Science of Happiness Part 3: Don’t be SAD this winter

winter sunsetI came across a fascinating article the other day about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). It said up to 4% of Canadians are clinically depressed in the winter. Another 10-15% suffer from SAD, most of them women.

The reasons are interesting. SAD is said to stem from the genes of our cave-dwelling ancestors who thousands of years ago would have hibernated during the winter months.

Fast forward to the average Canadian today. In November and December, we get up in the dark, drive to work as the sun is coming up, and drive home again at night in the dark. There are days when some of us literally do not see daylight. It’s incredibly unnatural and unhealthy.

I’m lucky. I’ve never suffered from any of these conditions, but I do crave sunlight during the winter months. Even doing such a tedious chore as cleaning my windows today made me feel good knowing that the warmth of the sun’s rays would wash through my sunroom during the long winter’s months ahead.

This week’s #HappyAct is to increase your exposure to sunlight. Get out for a walk at lunch. Clean your windows. Get a high intensity ultraviolet light. Do what you need to do to beat those caveman genes.

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Simple words to live by to create happiness

 

fulgence weddingYesterday, our friend Fulgence Mrosso got married. It makes me smile to even think about it.

We met Fulgence two years ago when Dave and I went to Tanzania. Fulgence was our guide and we spent many hours on our long safari drives in the Serengeti talking about love and marriage. Fulgence was a bit of a skeptic and I had told him he needed help finding love and jokingly promised to sign him up as the next TV Batchelor. At the time, he seemed to like the idea of dating 25 women at once.

The Facebook photos of the big day show him smiling, scooping his bride up in his arms and looking as blissfully happy as any groom on his wedding day.

Fulgence once wrote on his Facebook page,

“Every little smile can touch somebody’s heart. No one is born happy but all of us are born with the ability to create happiness. Be happy always.”

This week’s #HappyAct is to remember the beauty and truth of this simple philosophy and send someone this week a special wish. Mine is to Fulgence and his beautiful new bride: may you be happy always.

couple and guide beside a jeep

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Diss the dis in disability

This past week, Sesame Street introduced a new character with autism and launched a new website called “Sesame Street and Autism: See Amazing in All Children”.

This is a bold, exciting step. It’s time we finally dissed the “dis” in disability and see the strengths and gifts people have to offer, regardless of their limitations or challenges.

I have a bit of experience with kids with autism. I remember attending a play group of kids “on the spectrum”. The first week, you could tell the parents sitting on the bleachers were comparing mannerisms and skills of their kids. Some kids had more overt stimming behaviours, movements kids with autism do to self-stimulate. Some were better at the physical activities they had the kids do. Others clearly struggled with speech or making friends.

What was interesting was by the end of the third week, the parents didn’t see this any more. They saw a beautiful little boy Damien, with the most gorgeous smile and sweet disposition. They saw a tall, lanky and athletic girl named Georgia, who had a wonderful heart and tried to help the other kids. They saw past their disabilities to see their abilities and strengths.

As humans, it’s natural for us to like people like us. But those who are different have so much to offer and give.

This week’s #HappyAct is to diss the dis in disability. Fight the impulse to label someone the next time or your child meets someone and thinks they’re “weird” or “different”. Be open to who they truly are. If we can all do this, the world will be a more peaceful, inclusive and happier place.

Ed. Note: As a follow up to last week’s federal election, I was heartened on election night to see the faces of our new members elect of parliament. A record number of visible minorities and women were elected to our new parliament. That in itself is a great outcome.