Happiness Overfloweth

I heard a medical report on the news this morning; I was only listening with one ear but it had something to do with findings that measured one's happiness relative to how busy that person was. Huh? They had my full attention now... WOW!... really? They were talking about active minds and active hands. If that's the case I would like to introduce myself as the happiest person you're going to meet today! I just finished this tote bag as a birthday gift for my sister-in-law who had a birthday last week. She's officially in our family's "sweeps week" for birthdays. (I can post this here with no worry as she doesn't look at blogs.) It's not an original pattern but from a tutorial I found online over at Ginabean Handmade. My embroidery machine has been working overtime this week, turning "Stitchworks Wednesday" into "Stitchworks WEEK". Whew! A boxful of precious burp cloths are in the mail to some very deserving babies as of this morning. Right around the time I was topstitching the edge on the totebag my "workhorse" piecing machine, an almost 17 year old Bernina 1630, went out of whack; in a major way. I suppose it's because I use this machine all the time... but wait, that should mean that the machine is happy... right? Hmmm. My resident engineer worked on it all afternoon; things are better, but not perfect. Looks like we'll be paying a visit to the Bernina repairman. In the meantime, since life is so happy here at Chez Goodneedle I thought I would end this post, (and the next nine) with one of the top ten "How To Be Happy" tips. Hey, I'm all about sharing the wealth; and as busy as I have been lately, I have loads of happiness to spare and share!

Life is Good!

#1. Smile a lot - If smiling is too hard for you, take a pencil and hold it with your teeth. There are enough smiling muscles involved for your brain to think you are smiling and start producing "happy" chemicals.