List of Joy Rush ...um...Lists

Here are the first entries in the Barb's Loosey Goosey Joy Rush List Contest. I think my basic criteria is if you made me cry you get something. But we ALL get something in a lazy afternoon reading (Oh, come on, you know you want to!) about the joy in other people's lives and their conscious gratitude for it.

I've been thinking a lot about the attitude of conscious gratitude lately because I think some people think it's something that comes naturally to me. It's not, though. I have to work at it just like a lot of people. I wrote a column once about Happy People where my general conclusion was that people who don't have happiness as their core essence weren't destined to lead horrible miserable lives of despair. They just have to work a little harder to be happy. I'm one of those, I guess, and one thing I've learned is that consciously being grateful for my blessings is a shortcut to happiness for me. Actually, reading what brings joy to other people seems to make me happy, too.

Is this all just way too Oprah for y'all?

Anyway, here are the first eleven or so lists. I loved them all.

Becca

Stefanie

Can't Holder Tongue

Ladonna

Ei's Eyes Ei gets hand-knit socks--which she'll get from me in the fall after I've knitted the four pair I have to knit for recent graduates. (I'm sorry! I wish I was faster!)

Suburban Correspondent SC gets a book, if she wants one. (You don't have to read it if you don't want to...)

Tenna

Farm Suite (who is brand-new to me and whose list was so wonderful I made her an instant winner. She gets a book, if she wants one.)

Here's one from Mom of Henri, who post shouldn't really be an entry because she wrote it before Mother's Day but the spirit is certainly alive and well and, as we all know, I'm making these rules up as we go along.

Innocent Observer

Farm Chick gets a book, too.