Wisdom and Humor

 Here are some nuggets of wisdom and humor (two of my favorite things!) from April.

Or in other words, chance favors the prepared mind (which is one of the my favorite quotes). Seneca and Louis Pasteur were on the same page, centuries apart. Wisdom is timeless!

I'm a big believer in routines and screen-free time (and exercise, but that's a given), and Harvard is backing me up on all of them.

Speaking of children and teens, "...those who had structured routines, got more exercise, and had less screen time had fewer behavioral problems and fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression."

"Routine and structure is really important for helping kids regulate their emotions and respond to all the other chaos that's around."

😆

This is a smart thing to do. I've been trying to remember to put my phone in airplane mode more often, even though I never have my phone in my room at night or carry it on my body. I believe in the future that, as with smoking, it will be common knowledge that cell phone radiation can cause cancer.

Adam Grant is a Penn/Wharton professor. He's right about this.

I love this from Elder Renlund. I've been working on clearing out the debris in my own life, and I know for myself the beneficial, powerful effect doing this has on me personally and on my relationship with my Savior.

I snapped a picture of this because the part after the semicolon cracks me up: "he's nuts" 😂

A funny meme from Percy Jackson that made me and Sam LOL (well, it made me LOL anyway). I definitely feel like this about certain things. Avoid, avoid, avoid; ignore, ignore, ignore!

I like Aladdin so I appreciated this silly joke.

I've been having to do a lot of this lately! 😤

Truth!

I guess this makes me a hero!

Parenting my children as well as I possibly can so that their chances of a successful life are increased is one of my very top priorities in life.

I do all of these things for self-care (just substitute "hot cocoa" for "tea"), and they definitely contribute to my overall resilience and life satisfaction.  

Beautiful cursive, an increasingly lost art!

Around the House in April

 I happened to have the perfect frame for this lovely picture that I bought with a light brown wooden frame around it. This one was much better!

Not one but two pretty Easter bouquets from family and (still anonymous) friends.

Violet's pretty cream-colored collar flower.

Violet's pretty purple (or violet!) ribbon, courtesy of my chocolate Easter bunny. 😀

I love having a dog-ter! Ha ha

My first alfresco lunch of the year

I sold this bike, scooter, and adorable little armchair, all of which Sam had outgrown.

He hasn't outgrown stuffed animals yet (thank goodness!). Here's Spot, all swaddled up.

Hot cocoa in my Poldark mug is the best 😍😋😍

My new rubber ducks from the Cape trip, representing two of the places that I want to go most in the world. The ducks will have to do for now!

Sleeping Bentwood, all curled up

It cracks me up when Violet stretches out on the couch like this with her head under a pillow. I can definitely relate. 😄

Spring!

Another thing that I sold was our beautiful mahogany four-poster bed that we bought from The Bombay Company as newlyweds after I got my first salaried job, about eight months after we graduated from college and got married. I've loved this beautiful bed and I wanted to have it until our dying days. Well, we did have it until the dying days...of our marriage. 😭 I thought about keeping it but it was no longer a happy thing for me so I decided that it was time to move on and sell the bed. (Pictures to come later this summer of my new bed.)

I moved this faux flower arrangement from a shelf in the walk-in closet to the dresser. 

Easter and spring decorations, all packed up and ready to come out again next March.

The Dishscape for April was a pretty Japanese cherry blossom-themed scene. It had this funny Godzilla-like dinosaur thing with robotic laser beam eyes who traipsed through the scene every once in awhile. It was pretty entertaining.

Sam at the other end of the couch. 

Sam in a very bubbly jacuzzi bath.

John supervising Bentwood on a trip to the backyard. They're about the same age--we've had Bentwood since John was only one year old! They are special buds.