Posted on in lifestyle, money, science of happiness

How to be a happy shopper this Black Friday

black friday poster

Black Friday and the holiday shopping season is upon us. Canadians are being lured by savvy marketers with promises of up to 70% off, Black Friday Deals and Super Savings you can’t pass up.

While some people refuse to cave to the consumerism of the season, most of us succumb to varying degrees to the shopping craze this time of year.

Which begs the question. Does retail therapy make people happy? The science shows the answer is yes.

A 2014 study from the Journal of Consumer Psychology found that retail therapy not only makes people happier immediately, but it can also fight lingering sadness. 

Even just the anticipation of making a purchase or treating ourselves to something we desire releases dopamine, the hormone neurotransmitter in our brain that makes us feel good. 

The choices we make when shopping can restore a feeling of personal control and autonomy which helps in fighting feelings of sadness and anxiety over the things that are outside of our control in the world.   

In another 2014 study by University of Michigan, researchers showed that purchasing things you personally enjoy can be up to 40 times more effective at giving you a sense of control than not shopping, and those who actually purchased items were three times less sad when compared to those who only browsed.

Shopping also stimulates our senses, creating pleasure, especially this time of the year when the stores have festive displays and merry music playing.  

But before you go filling up your virtual or actual shopping cart, remember these caveats. For every instant hit of pleasure, there is a corresponding pang of potential regret when it comes time to pay the bills. You need to calculate whether the pleasure from the purchase would exceed the pain from the cost, and whether you can afford the purchase at all.

The Journal of Consumer Psychology study showed that even just the act of filling up your online shopping cart, then abandoning it, can create the same pleasure as if you had actually made the purchase.

In the end, spending less money may be more rewarding.

This week’s #HappyAct is to be a smart, savvy and happy Black Friday shopper. Find a few bargains and enjoy the small hit of dopamine, but don’t do anything you’re going to regret later.

Special #HappyAct Experiment: Go online this week to one of your favourite retailers and fill up your shopping cart with a bunch of items, then close down your browser without making the purchase. Did you feel happier just browsing? Leave a comment!

Posted on in family, humour

Add a little glitter and glam to your life

Boy in Maple Leafs Jersey with girl in Stanley Cup dress on his shoulder

I’ve been sporting a new look this past week. Dave and Clare too. We’ve been going to work and school all glammed up with tiny pieces of dainty silver glitter on our faces and outfits.

No, it’s not a new fashionable holiday trend or a case of a family craft night gone bad. Let me explain.

It started a few weeks ago at Halloween. Grace and her boyfriend Devon dressed up as the Impossible Dream, the Maple Leafs hoisting the Stanley Cup. Devon was wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs Jersey and Grace was wearing a cute silver party dress she bought off a cheap online retailer. Here is a picture of them with the Toronto skyline in the background.

A few days later, Grace came home for a dentist appointment, and like a typical teenager, dumped all her laundry on the floor. After she left, I put on my hazmat suit and swept her room for suspicious substances, dirty clothes and garbage, then loaded the laundry machine with some towels and her clothes, including the glittery silver Stanley Cup dress.

You can guess the rest. When I went to fold our laundry, all the towels and clothes were covered in little grey sparkles and we’ve all been very glittery ever since.

We’d been styled by a cheap party dress and a dryer.

The reactions at work were priceless. People looked at me with a slightly bewildered look and asked if I had done something to my make-up. My friend Peggy said I looked like an angel. It resulted in a few laughs to brighten up the early dreary days of November.

The holiday season is soon upon us. This week’s #HappyAct is to add some glitter and glam to your life.

Posted on in health and wellness, inspiration, mental health, science of happiness

One simple thing you can do starting today to be happier

I’m a huge fan of TedTalks. Recently, I stumbled across one on the science of smiles by Ron Gutman, a professor from Stanford University whose mission is to help everyone live happier, healthier lives.

Gutman talks about a 30-year old study from the University of Berkeley, California that looked at old photos in school yearbooks and measured the success and well-being of the graduates throughout their lifetime based on their smiles. The students with the biggest smiles tended to lead more successful, well-rounded lives.

Another study involved looking at old baseball cards and the longevity of the ball players in correlation to the smiles on their cards. The ball players with the biggest smiles lived the longest.

Gutman says one-third of people smile more than 20 times a day, but sadly 14% of us smile less than 5 times per day. Children smile more than 400 times per day.

He claims smiling creates the same positive brain stimulation as eating up to 2,000 bars of chocolate!

Smiling is one of the most basic expressions of humans and something we all do every day.

This week’s #HappyAct is to make a conscious effort to smile at least 20 times a day this week and if you see someone sad, struggling or frowning, ask what’s wrong, tell them a joke, or do something to put a smile on their face.

Watch the full Ted Talk, the Hidden Power of Smiling.

Posted on in Food and drink

Liquid sunshine

Bottles of scotch

Tis the season of obscenely priced beverages at our favourite retailer, the LCBO.

Yesterday, I was in the liquor store shopping for wine, and a lovely sales representative asked if I wanted a sample of single malt scotch as part of Whiskey Month. I immediately said yes, abiding by the Swinton golden rule: never turn down free stuff, especially alcohol or food.

It was purely medicinal of course. I was just getting over the worst cold I’ve had in over a year. There’s nothing like a good shot of whiskey to clear the head and chest.

They were serving two options: an Irish whiskey called Roe & Company at the bargain price of $55 a bottle and a $109 bottle of Lagavulin 8 Year Old Single Malt Scotch. I naturally went for the $109 bottle.

It was warm, smooth and surprising, with a strong campfire taste, smoky, infused with hints of nut and oak like no other whiskey I’ve tasted before.

My love of Irish whiskey goes back to my twenties when Dave and I went to Ireland for a friend’s wedding. Just about every night, after we left the bars, we’d end up in someone’s kitchen until three in the morning with a bottle of Bushmills on the table.

I’m always surprised how smooth a straight shot of whiskey is and the wonderful warm feeling you get as it swirls around your nose, throat and chest. It’s like drinking a warm blanket.

But even though I’m Scottish, I have to confess I’ve always been partial to Irish whiskey and now I know why. I learned as I was taste testing that while both spirits are distilled liquors, Scotch is distilled twice while Irish whiskey is distilled three times. This extra distillation gives it a smoother finish and some say make it the best in the world.

Johnny Carson once said, “Happiness is having a rare steak, a bottle of whiskey, and a dog to eat the rare steak.”

This week’s #HappyAct is to enjoy a wee dram of your favourite scotch or whiskey. If you buy a bottle at the LCBO before November 8 and are an Aeroplan member, you can be entered in a contest to win a round-trip ticket for two to anywhere Air Canada flies.

While you’re there, check out the Kurayoshi 18 Year Old Malt Whiskey, named Japanese Whiskey of the Year for a mere $654 a bottle or an $845 bottle of Macallan Sherry Oak Old Highland Single Malt Scotch Whiskey.

Happy imbibing!

Posted on in arts, Hobbies, photography

An unexpected gift

artwork of trees

This week, I received an unexpected gift. It was a beautiful piece of artwork of red leaves in the fall sent to me by our good friend Jon Begg.

Jon lives in the Great White North but always comes for dinner and a fish whenever he is back in southern Ontario. On his last visit, we talked photography and he showed me pictures on his phone of images he had taken of the fall foliage that he had photoshopped to look like artwork. They were simply stunning.

Fast forward to this week, and I now have one of his beautiful creations hanging in my dining room. I’m not sure if that will be its permanent place of honour but every night at the dinner table, I find myself admiring this unexpected gift.

This week’s #HappyAct is to bring some joy to someone special by sending them an unexpected gift. Leave a comment and share what you did. Here’s another one of Jon’s treasured gifts, a mock magazine cover of one of the boys’ 2008 fishing expeditions on the Moira River.

Posted on in inspiration, nature, poetry

Reflections

My reflection in Reflections sculpture

Reflections of
Who I am
Who I want to be
Personified in
Perfect symmetry

Lines blur and blend
Bending to my will
Distorting where reality ends
And make-believe begins

I drift in and out
Amongst the reeds and the trees
My memories floating
Dancing on the surface

Reliving the past
Without absorbing
What might have been
What still could be

Filling an aching void
Always reproachful
Always critical
A bright light
Thrown back from the surface

If only we could change
To reflect a better version of ourselves
A flawless mirror
Illuminating the beauty
And light within our soul

Ed. note: The idea for this poem came to me after spending time looking at the beautiful reflections of the trees on the water on my lake. At first, it was going to be a photo essay, but it morphed into a poem after I visited a sculpture called “Reflections“ last weekend in a park in Pickering. The sculpture was erected in memory of those who lost their lives to COVID. Here was the description:

“Amongst the panels sits a solitary void to the open sky. The mirrors encourage us to see ourselves from different perspectives and contemplate the personal and collective experience of self-reflection and solitude. The missing mirror examines themes of loss and grief, representing those we lost to COVID-19. Every day as the sun crosses behind the sculpture, the bright spot created by the void cuts through the shadow as it swings across the ground. This light is a reminder that although our loved ones may be gone, they are not forgotten and will continue to be present in our daily lives, drifting in and out, both in influence and memory.”

trees reflecting in lake
rock reflecting in lake
reeds reflecting in lake
red tree reflecting in water
trees reflecting in lake
Posted on in Food and drink, holidays

Who you should really be thankful for this Thanksgiving

turkeys on a farm

A few weeks ago, I attended a “Meet a Farmer” night hosted by South Frontenac Township as part of the Open Farm Days events.

It was a lively, informal and highly illuminating discussion of the trials, tribulations and joys of small-scale farming in eastern Ontario.

I learned I have a lot to learn about the food that goes on my table.

One of the panelists was Sarah Winney from The Rise Farm in Godfrey. Sarah and her partner Rob sell farm fresh ducks, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, and eggs along with bread and kitchen pantry staples, such as seasoning salt, farm fresh garlic, and marinades.

You would think it would be a relatively simple process for small-scale farmers like Sarah and Rob to get meat butchered and prepared, but it’s not. Sarah and Rob have to take their meat to five different abbatoirs, some as far as 300 kms away. That’s because there isn’t enough abbatoirs to meet the demand, and the big ones are dominated by the large meat producers.

They could prepare their birds and rabbits themselves, but they aren’t allowed to. Regulations stipulate the meat needs to be taken to a licensed abbatoir (they can kill their own birds, but only for their own consumption, not for retail).  

As a result, it’s very expensive to get their ducks, turkeys and chickens prepped—it can cost them as much as $9 a bird, which leaves very little profit margin.

The cost is even higher if they have the abbatoir label the packages with weight and other information which is a requirement if they want to sell their meat at farmer’s market (which is why it’s rare to see meat farmers in local farmers markets by the way).

Another thing I didn’t know is when you buy a pound of beef, it can actually be parts of 20 different cows in the package, as opposed to just a single cow when you buy beef directly from a farmer.

A few years ago, a local farmer looked into building a new abbatoir to serve small-scale farmers in our area. There was huge interest and he even had the support of local officials, but the costs ballooned past the $5 million mark and they just couldn’t make it work.  

I walked away that night with a new, deep-founded respect for farmers and the obstacles they need to overcome to put food on the table for their own families and other families.

Before you pass around the mashed potatoes, turkey, ham and squash this weekend, be sure to thank a farmer.

Posted on in environment, nature, travel

Be on the lookout for fall colours

Red maple leaf and fall colours

I went to bed the other night dreaming of red and orange mosaics. It was as if the brilliant fall colours we’d seen on the weekend had been imprinted on my mind, like a patchwork quilt, lulling me to sleep.

I can’t remember a year where the colours have been so brilliant or the weather so spectacular, but this is the first year we also ventured further afar, seeking scenic lookouts.

Our first scenic lookout was the Eagle’s Nest in Bancroft, Ontario. Located on Highway 62 on the north end of town, this popular vantage point is known for its spectacular views of the Madawaska Highlands and for spotting eagles. In the winter, you can sometimes see adventure seekers ice climbing the rock face. Grace, Dave and I walked the easy trail to the lookout. The sun wasn’t out yet, but the view was still incredible—dappled greens, yellows and entire swaths of red and orange.

Scenic view of fall colours

Views from the Eagle’s Nest in Bancroft

Our next lookout was Skyline Park in Haliburton. By the time we arrived, the sun had broken through the clouds, illuminating the reddish and orange hues surrounding beautiful Head Lake.

View from Skyline Park
colourful trees beside a lake
scenic view from lookout

Views from Skyline Park in Haliburton

On Sunday, we hiked the Lookout Trail in Algonquin Park, just off the Highway 60 corridor. This 2 km loop meanders through old hardwood forest until it reaches the summit, with drop-dead gorgeous views west over the park. It was a perfect morning and we sat watching the colours unfurl with each ray of sunshine.

Three spectacular lookouts with three spectacular views. I think the mosaics will be forever emblazoned in my mind.

This week’s #HappyAct is to find a lookout in your region and enjoy a bird’s eye view of the magnificent fall we’re having. Here are some more great lookouts in eastern Ontario:

algonquin park in fall
scenic lookout and fall colours in Algonquin Park
colourful trees on a trail
Author and her husband at the summit
Posted on in family, relationships

The funny thing about marriage

Two toilet paper rolls with faces and the words recycle me on them

I walked into the bathroom the other day and found two toilet paper rolls sitting on the counter with cartoonish frowny faces and the words “Recycle me” drawn on them. The one toilet paper character looked like it was giving me the finger.

I did the only logical thing, which was to take another toilet paper roll, cut it in half and make two little toilet paper roll children with the words “Mama” and “Dada” on them.

These are the types of love notes you send after 31 years of marriage.

Next weekend, Dave and I will celebrate our 31st wedding anniversary. In a funny twist of fate, we’ll be spending it up north at the same cottage we spent our honeymoon before going to Algonquin Park to see Grace.

I wish I had some brilliant insights about marriage but I don’t. After 31 years of marriage, I truly believe it’s a crap shoot whether people stay together or split up. We’ve just been lucky at crap.

The one thing I will say and they don’t tell you in marriage courses is marriage changes over time.

You start out madly in love and lust, then become each other’s best friends as you begin to build a life together. Children rock your world and your relationship takes second string as you focus on raising your kids.

You learn to live with each other’s foibles and idiosyncracies and intimately know each other’s aches and pains, regrets and dreams.

But if you’re lucky, you still wake up every morning not being able to imagine going through life without that person by your side, sharing a laugh or two, and planning your next adventure together.

Just make sure you recycle the toilet paper rolls and put the seat down before heading out.

Dave and me in South Carolina this year

Posted on in health and wellness, mental health, work

Revisiting the four-day work week

Me and my friend Barbara in front of the Thornbury sign

Recently, I’ve moved to a four-day work week. Dave started working four days a week a year ago. It’s all part of our plan to eventually transition into retirement.

I’ve worked a four-day week one other time during my career. It was a short span of three months when the kids were little and we had many doctors and other medical appointments. It was a lifesaver—the perfect mix of having a rewarding, vibrant career, but having enough time to focus on my family and friends and get things done at home.

I can tell you I already feel a difference in both my mental and physical health.

I feel more well-rested, my brain feels like it has more space to breathe, and I’m taking time more slowly.

I’m no longer rushing through the weekend, trying to squeeze in a million things before Sunday night arrives and I have to steel myself up to do it all over again.

I’m making more plans to do the things I want to do, whether it’s having a coffee on a Friday with a friend (a luxury!), tackling a project, a long weekend away, or just spending time with Dave on little day trips here and there.

I’m getting more exercise and already feeling the positive benefits of not sitting at a desk 8 hours a day which has increasingly become more difficult and painful over the past several years.

Yes, I’m liking this four day a week thing.

Now if only more employers would wake up and realize the benefits of a four-day work week and make it happen. The world would be a happier place.

The photo above is a picture of me and my girlfriend Barbara on one of my first three-day weekends this summer when I went to visit her in Thornbury. Read about our day at the Thornbury Cider Company to see the Clark Drag Show