Three Simple Questions

I've nerded out before about my 2012 Happiness Project calendar, I know. But I particularly liked yesterday's page. With no editorializing, the page simply asked, bullet-pointed:

• List five things you do for fun. In the last six months, how much time have you spent doing those activities?
• Is there a quotation, a book, or a scene from a movie that makes you particularly happy?
• What three subjects fascinate you?

I love these questions. LOVE them. They're such good prompts to get me thinking about concrete ways to sneak more joy, more wonder, more fun into my everyday life. So here are my answers, and I'd love to see yours.

• Write, read, walk or run outside, cook and eat with my family, laugh with friends. I think it is safe to say that I do at least one of these every day, and I now realize that "a good day" is usually achieved when I have done all five.
• Oh, I am a sucker for quotations! One of my favorites is from Brian Andreas: "Time stands still best in moments that look suspiciously like ordinary life." The book Dandelion Wine never fails to make me happy; neither do the movies "When Harry Met Sally" or "Love Actually," particularly the scene where Hugh Grant dances down the staircase.
• I have long been fascinated by the 1960's (I used to get actually angry with my mom, who graduated high school in '68 and was in college at the height of the war protest/free love movement, for not at all participating in the era) as well as anything to do with World War II, and I'm currently interested in the intersection of parenting and religion.

“Instructions for living a life. 
Pay attention. 
Be astonished. 
Tell about it.” 

-Mary Oliver