What was your happiest thing today?

What was your happiest thing today? When I was little, my mother would ask this question when we were gathered together in the evening.   "What was your happiest thing today?"  She would then write everyone's responses in a notebook.   As we grew older, she didn't document all the responses but would still ask the question occasionally during dinners to spur the conversation.  You can learn a lot about your kids by asking this question!  Even if we sighed and rolled our eyes, it made us think about our day and the good things in it.

I have continued the original tradition of writing down my happiest moments of each day.    It takes only a minute or two and it is a great way to focus on the positive.   I love to go back and flip through my old calendars.   They bring back great memories.

Sometimes I miss a day.  Sometimes my happiest moments are a stretch (like "Got my laundry done").  Sometimes I stray and write down something terrible that happened because I feel compelled to document it.  But most of the time, they are the moments that I most enjoyed.  

This year I purchased a floral spiral datebook with inspirational sayings to document my happy moments.  In the past  I've used wall calendars, plain notebooks, on-line diaries - whatever struck my fancy at the time.  I've even used the free calendar given to me by my real estate agent.

Facebook is great for sharing and I use it too - but I still prefer hand writing my daily happy notes on a calendar that sits by my chair and allows me to be free with my thoughts, doodle in the margins and doesn't provide feedback of any kind from others.