Revisiting Things To Be Happy About

I ventured out into the world today after being down-and-out with the flu. To say that I’ve been in a mental fog would be the understatement of the century. And the few times I managed to surface from the tangle of bedsheets to check out some TV, I found the news a real downer. So I decided to revisit a site I wrote about a little over a year ago, ‘Things To Be Happy About’, for a mental lift.

The site’s the creation of Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, 14,000 Things To Be Happy About. I still appreciate the lighthearted illustrations found on the homepage and throughout the site. I started with the cloud with today’s date on it, October 24, ‘Things To Be Happy About Today’ and one of the things listed was fountain pens and fresh paper. Music to the ears of a scribe.

Step over to the ‘Farmers Market’ section and A Commonplace Book. You’ll find various categories of topics to get your grinning and ideas to get you writing. Clicking on my favorite color ‘purple’ brings up a listing of quotes, song lyrics and other things related to the regal shade. Did you know that the word purple comes from Old English (975) and earlier Latin ‘purpura’, from Greek for the name of a dye made in antiquity from the mucus secretion of the hypobranchial gland of a marine snail, the Murex brandaris, that was called Tyrian purple? Yeah, neither did I.

You can even share your own happy news via the link on the ‘Idea Bank’ page. How about sharing the acceptance from that magazine you’ve had your eye on for a while?

And there’s more to see. Stop by, why don’t you? Every writer can use a shot of happy once in a while---and maybe a writing idea or a few.