Category: The Happy Jar

The weather was phenomenal last weekend! Well, phenomenal by January-in-Wisconsin standards.  These things are relative, folks.

So it was 40 degrees, and the sun was visible.  I’ll take it.  We had vague plans to go sledding Saturday morning, but then my hubby heard a rumor that the fish were biting in the bay in front of our house.  So he headed outside to check it out for himself.  Turns out the fish were biting, and biting big time.

The nicest weekend followed! We spent the whole day on the ice. Well, Dan and the kiddos did.  I ran back and forth to the house about 50 times for juice boxes, Kleenex, Goldfish crackers, ice cleats, maybe a couple of beers, etc. You might think I would just pack a bag of everything we needed in one shot, but you would be wrong.  At least I got my steps in! By mid-afternoon, I had unzipped my winter coat – that might have had something to do with all the running to the house I was doing, but still.  It was a beautiful day.

Bud was just giddy, running from tip-up to tip-up and pulling fish in.  Pumpkin was a little less impressed with the fishing aspect of things, but she loved being out on the ice, too.  The neighbors came out with their three little girls, and Pumpkin joined them in a long and involved game of “house” in the neighbor’s UTV. Hey, whatever floats your boat!

By the end of the day, the fishing had dropped off, but there was still a mini-colony of ice fisherpeople in our little bay.  Everyone was just soaking up the non-frigid temps and taking deep breaths of air that didn’t hurt their lungs.  Our group was the last to pack up and head in, and I’m so glad.  I mean, just look at that sunset we caught.  I would say it surpassed, or at least rivaled, the perch we brought home.

We started a “happy jar” two years ago.  It was meant to capture the small, everyday moments that made us smile throughout the year.  Anything that made a member of the family happy was to be written down on a scrap of paper and deposited in the jar.  At the end of the year, we would all sit down and sift through our memories together.

I had read about the happy jar somewhere – let’s be honest, it was probably on Pinterest.  But I loved the idea! For many people, the new year is a time to look forward and resolve to do things differently.  A time to look for areas of improvement within ourselves.  I loved the idea of instead making that time an opportunity to reflect on the closing year and remember all the things that made it great.

At the end of the first year, we accumulated maybe 20 scraps of paper, which I thought wasn’t too bad for our first effort.  But in year 2, we only had 2. Talk about room for improvement.

Now, sure, we had a hectic year, between moving multiple times, our youngest starting school, and building a new house. But there was a lot of good stuff in there that got lost in the shuffle.

So this year I moved the jar to a more prominent spot on our kitchen counter and have made a conscious effort to record the little things.  Bud’s perfect score on a math test, Pumpkin performing in a jump rope demo at school, taking a walk in the woods, etc.  It doesn’t have to be a major milestone, but just a moment worth remembering.

Well, we have already surpassed last year’s total, and it’s not even the end of January.  Granted, the bar wasn’t set very high, but this is about looking on the bright side, folks.  Still, I think we can do even better. So I plan to make this space my own virtual happy jar.  I will share with all of you the tidbits that I scribble down and add to the jar.  The hope is that doing so will make me more accountable and cause me to follow through. But I also hope it might brighten your day or inspire you to reflect on the little things that make you smile.

So stay tuned for my virtual happy jar entries.  Even so, I am not going to abandon the real thing. I like the physical reminder on my kitchen counter to appreciate the goodness I stumble upon in life.