recommendation: download good crying music

sometimes after a stressful or lonely or frustrating week, day, hour, minute, you just need to get out a good cry - and sometimes, when you are sitting there on the couch by yourself, you need to turn on a playlist that just helps facilitate that. Sappy music that helps just get the tears out so that you can move on and get over it and then comes the happy music. What are you listening to? Right now Pandora is choosing the following for me - soundtrack from Once, Sarah Bareilles, Ingrid Micahelson, and Damian Rice... I wouldn't have naturally selected all of these but it's working! Start a station at Pandora or work on making an itunes list...And while you're at it, make the follow up happy-list for when your done so you can stop crying!

recommendation: stock up the house for sick days

my dad has always called me his china doll because i am so delicate. i tend to catch every cold and flu i come in contact with. after 3 brutal days of coughing and sniffling, i am finally feeling relief. luckily since my husband was sick two weeks prior i had stocked up the house for his sick days and boy am i happy i had that stuff around! here was the practical stuff: saltines, graham crackers, cans of soup, jello, juice, tissues, cough drops, daytime & nightime meds, vicks vapor rub & my favorite, emergen-c. the untraditional stuff that seemed to help just as much: weekly episode of glee, holiday (cary grant!), delivery of chocolate cake and a tub (literally) of chicken noodle soup from an old friend, a sweet card about happiness from a co-worker as well as a handful of emails with silly cartoons from another co-worker, calls from my mom & sis, and trimming the christmas tree. thankful for modern medicine and happiness from friends & family that rubs off on you. and also... for being prepared - like i said - stock up the house! when your sick, you just don't want to get off the couch...

recommendation: find a bakery

what's great is if you can find a really great bakery - one that you can trust, you know everything you get there is good. if they don't have your favorite cupcake today, it's OK b/c their sugar sprinkle cookies and peanut butter chip brownies are just as good. mine is sweet mandy b's, local to chicago. they are known for their cupcakes (my fav is banana chocolate chip with chocolate frosting) but honestly everything there is amazing. even better - the staff is helpful, the place is adorable (think happy pastels), and you can even order ahead. i love to visit with company who are in town so that we can get an afternoon snack and coffee. its also a great solution to get out of baking - if you just get something from the grocery store it might seem like you didn't put my effort in, but if you order a pie from sweet mandy b's for your husbands birthday - its very thoughtful! ;) this place just makes me happy. try it!