Keep It Simple and You’ll Put on a Happy Face

Just a few simple lines and dots.  Yet they work.  The happy face smiles, and you smile back.  (If you’re not a fan of happy faces, I’d love to have you agree with me today for the sake of this post.)

Simple.

When life is so stressful that even Glinda the Good Witch couldn’t calm you down, keep things simple, especially if your hormones are playing nasty.  This isn’t new advice.  It’s age-old, and it works:

• Buy, don’t bake the cookies.
• Get the bride and groom a gift certificate.
• Let your husband or kids or friends or all of them win the argument.
• Put Anna Karenina aside and pick up the junky beach read.

Another day, when you’re in the mood and have the time, you can get fancy:

• Recreate your grandmother’s rolled sugar cookies (using her 100–year-old cookie cutters).
• Use a zillion colors and a whole dictionary of stitches to knit the couple a throw for their first anniversary.
• Spend hours articulately proving to everyone that you’re an authority on most subjects and issues.
• Finish Anna Karenina and then write a happier ending, in perfect Russian.  Give that girl a break, too!

Fancy and complicated can be fun, but when your mood says, “One more thing and I’ll pop like Glinda’s bubble,” remember:  Simple!

Photo:  My button’s name is Helga Happy Face.  She lives in my button collection where she cheers up the more serious buttons by cracking jokes and reciting limericks.

Guest Posts:  I’m simply delighted to have a guest post on Girlfriendology!  http://girlfriendology.com/blog/4533/z-is-for-zest-girlfriend-advice-from-barbara-younger/#

Happy Birthday on Tuesday:  To Daughter Number Two, Laura Younger, who makes me happy every single day, even though raising her wasn’t exactly simple.  http://takingbackmytwenties.com