Hank: Mom, watch this!
(He grins and dunks a jar underwater. Water splashes up on his face, and I laugh.)
Hank: Why did you laugh?
Me: Because you looked so happy, it made me feel happy.
Hank: Oh. You caught it?
Me: I caught your happy?
Hank: Yes.
Me: I did.

After nearly 24-hours of travel, I’m back. It was an incredible trip. A few small differences between St. Lucia and home:

• The spiced rum has actual spices in it.
• There are small cotton flags with handprints and stars on the telephone poles. They’re advertising for local political parties.
• The kids wear school uniforms, and all the girls have matching blue ribbon in their hair.

  

• It can be tough to keep the birds away from your food while you’re eating.
• The bananas on the trees have blue bags around them to protect them from insects and birds. Bananas are the major export and the trees here are threatened with a fungus that’s affecting banana production worldwide.

  

• The spiders are bigger. They especially seem that way when you open the drapes of your hotel room and find one on the wall.
• There are hand-painted ads for Coca-Cola on every block. On the fruit stands, the trucks, the sides of buildings.



• The grocery store aisles have predictably strange beverages, and beer is sold on the same shelves as liquor (also sold by the single bottle).
• Instead of squirrels, they have mongooses.
• The ketchup is made of bananas. It’s sweeter and richer than tomato ketchup.



• They’ll bottle coconut water for you at the fruit market.



• Young men call each other “daddy.” My girlfriend and I immediately adopt this habit with one another when we do anything laudatory, “Yeaaaah, Dadeee!” Cue high fives.

I have a new post up at Lifescoop: Get Happy: Online Resources for Improving Your Life.

Planning around my Life List has led to some pretty dramatic changes in my life, but it has also led me to all kinds of simple ways to improve things each day. If you’d like to make a small shift toward awesome, here are a few sites I recommend that can help you on your way. Read more…

Congratulations to Jeannie! She wants to, “Have a studio of my own, with good light, and a door.”

Jeannie, you’re officially a person who wins things. Congratulations! Look for an email from me in your inbox.

And now a few more of my favorites from your Life List comments:

Heather: “Learn how to make my own undies. Really.”
Cassie: “I want to create a book of all my go-to recipes to pass along to my daughter when she leaves for college.”
Amy: “Defy the odds and walk again.”
JJZach: “Help save a farm.”
Sarah: “I’m removing the word “hate” from my vocabulary.”

Here’s to that. And then there’s Jen’s recounting of an item accomplished:

“My entire life, I’ve been promising myself I’d to go Holland and see the places my grandparents grew up. I finally did it, and took my baby boy along. My grandmother cried when she saw pictures of her great grandson in front of the house she was born in.”

Good job, team. Thanks to everyone who entered.

This is my awesome friend Kelly Wilkinson. You may remember her from such adventures as Help Me Jump My Stupid Car and I’m Thirsty!

Most friends call to see if you want to grab a beer. Wilkes usually suggests a picnic on a film set:

Or an ill-fated smokey eye class:

In other words, she’s fun. Not enough of that going around these days.

I’m telling you all this because Kelly has been working on a book forever, and it’s finally here! It’s called Weekend Handmade, and it’s about craft projects you can finish in an afternoon.

As part of her online book tour, she’s writing up her favorite things to do for each day of the week. You can see them all right here, but Kelly has a particular talent for lazy weekend entertaining. It’s so nice to hang out with her and her husband Mike because it never feels like anyone is rushing around frantically. Here’s how she manages a perfect Saturday evening with friends:

Hi everyone! I’m thrilled to be here with Maggie as part of my blog tour for Weekend Handmade. Who doesn’t want to spend Saturday night with Maggie? Let’s all go to her place this weekend.

My ideal Saturday is some time outside, and then company and cocktails in the evening. We like to host casual dinner parties — no reservations or cabs, and you control the guest list.

Over the years, my husband Mike and I have scaled back our ambition on the food offerings. Especially in the fall and winter, a simple, slow-cooked pork shoulder or stew is just the ticket because you can shove it in early in the day, ignore it, and then, presto-chango, it’s ready that night and your whole house smells rich and warm.

During the week, our dining room table usually hosts my mess of craft supplies and projects, so I like to treat it right on the night of a dinner party, with a runner and placemats I made, and our collection of mismatched plates. Add food, candles, friends and cocktails, and nothing can go wrong. Or if it does, who cares? Pour another glass of wine.

Weekend Handmade by Kelly Wilkinson offers more than 40 projects and ideas for inspired crafting. Photographs by Thayer Allyson Gowdy. Find the complete blog tour at Kelly’s blog Make Grow Gather, or STC Craft’s site.

Hey girl.

If a Clown by Stephen Dunn

If a clown came out of the woods,
a standard-looking clown with oversized
polka-dot clothes, floppy shoes,
a red, bulbous nose, and you saw him
on the edge of your property,
there’d be nothing funny about that,
would there? A bear might be preferable,
especially if black and berry-driven.
And if this clown began waving his hands
with those big white gloves
that clowns wear, and you realized
he wanted your attention, had something
apparently urgent to tell you,
would you pivot and run from him,
or stay put, as my friend did, who seemed
to understand here was a clown
who didn’t know where he was,
a clown without a context?
What could be sadder, my friend thought,
than a clown in need of a context?
If then the clown said to you
that he was on his way to a kid’s
birthday party, his car had broken down,
and he needed a ride, would you give
him one? Or would the connection
between the comic and the appalling,
as it pertained to clowns, be suddenly so clear
that you’d be paralyzed by it?
And if you were the clown, and my friend
hesitated, as he did, would you make
a sad face, and with an enormous finger
wipe away an imaginary tear? How far
would you trust your art? I can tell you
it worked. Most of the guests had gone
when my friend and the clown drove up,
and the family was angry. But the clown
twisted a balloon into the shape of a bird
and gave it to the kid, who smiled,
let it rise to the ceiling. If you were the kid,
the birthday boy, what from then on
would be your relationship with disappointment?
With joy? Whom would you blame or extoll?

(Sometimes, good stuff still comes via email. Thanks, Rosecrans.)

When we were pulling together gifts for the Mighty Summit, we set a few aside to give away. Here’s what’s up for grabs today:

Large Natural Zip Top Canvas Tote Bag by Lands End

I had no idea how useful these were until I had one. Sturdy, preppy delicious, and just the right size for a weekend away. Yours will not say “Sarah” on the front, but it will have the same trim.

Tieks by Gavrieli

I bought a pair of these genius travel shoes a while back, and they’re one of my favorite things. Tieks fold in half so you can stuff them in your purse, and the quality is amazing. They come in all sorts of candy colors and metallics — plus they pack flat and slip off easily when you’re heading through airport security. The winner gets to choose any pair for $135 and under.

Bamboo Dahlia Necklace By Feisty Elle

You know that girl who always looks so cool, and you can never pinpoint what it is about her? Good jewelry. Dahlias are my favorite flower, and designer Leslie Yang made a silver version of this necklace for Summit attendees.

Neoprene Laptop Case from Mixed Bag

Now you can drop your laptop more stylishly than before.

Tattly Temporary Tattoos

Tattly makes temporary tattoos that don’t suck. We’ve talked about these before, and they’ve come out with a few new designs since. Instant toughness boost for the nerd corps.

Typekit Subscription

A one-year subscription to Typekit, the service that lets you use a variety of fonts on your site without having to serve them as images. Have you noticed the Web has been looking prettier lately? Thank these guys.

The Happiness Project

Gretchen Rubin was one of our Mighty Summit attendees this year, and she brought along her New York Times Bestselling book, which is about her year-long experiment in making her life happier. I love this idea, and this book.

The Quintet Necklace by Lemonade Handmade

I’ve mentioned this necklace before, we give one to each of the attendees to symbolize the five Life List goals they hope to accomplish in the coming year. I love the necklace for its simplicity, and I like the idea of five golden rings being little commitments to yourself. I wear mine most days until I’ve crossed everything off for the year.

And that’s it for today. Pretty good, huh? To enter please leave a comment about something on your Life List, contest closes next Thursday night at midnight PST. Helen Jane and Laura at The Queso are doing giveaways as well, so head over there for two more chances to win.

Now for the fine print: Please only leave one comment here, because it’s the nice thing to do, and also because multiple entries on Mighty Girl will be disqualified. I’ll use random.org to select the winner, and I’ll announce who won at the top of this post and in a separate post next Friday. Offer eligible only to U.S. and Canada.

“Last week Krandy Kraus broke a date with Jackie Nixon to go out with Joanne Koenig…. and after that he aske dher to go to the Prom……… Must be LOVE!!!!!!”

Found in a memory album for sale at the Alameda Flea Market.

(Photo by Maile Wilson of Epiphanie)

The first night of Mighty Summit, I ran back to my room in my Flamenco hat to look for my camera. I closed the door behind me and stood there listening to everyone’s voices. Some of them I recognized as belonging to people I love, people without whom I couldn’t have made it through the last year. Their voices mingled with those of new friends, and it was poignant in a way that has become familiar lately, a moment of total presence. I listened to everyone laughing and thought, “We did it.”

The next night I was changing into my swimsuit when I heard laughter outside again. This time a feeling overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t place it. While thirty friends waited for me to rejoin them a few feet away, I realized I was lonely.

(Photo by Maile Wilson of Epiphanie)

I’ve felt lonely often over the last few years, but in many ways that feeling has ushered me into adulthood. That night, alone in my room, I knew it was time for me to do certain things for myself, that it was ok to stop waiting for anyone to take care of me or protect me. I’ve got this.

The hard roads are difficult because we have to go them alone, but it’s easy to forget that friends can provide respite along the way, especially those who have traveled the same paths before us.

This year, the Mighty Summit was a comfort to me, a reminder of how much good company is available if you seek it out. A reminder of what it’s like to want things again.

I’m grateful for the new friends, the direction, and the concentric circles it makes when more of us are inspired to write Life Lists and put work into bettering our lives.

If you haven’t, I hope this year you’ll make a Life List for yourself. If this site has taught me one thing, it’s that there are a lot of folks out there rooting for you.

I’m in that corner too.

(Photo by Maile Wilson of Epiphanie)

I’ll see you at Camp Mighty. If not this year, then hopefully next. We have a lot of planning to do, kid. Let’s keep each other company.