Just a few simple lines and dots.  Yet they work.  The happy face smiles, and you smile back.  (If you’re not a fan of happy faces, I’d love to have you agree with me today for the sake of this post.)

Simple.  When life is so stressful that even Glinda the Good Witch couldn’t calm you down, keep things simple, especially if your hormones are playing nasty.  This isn’t new advice.  It’s age-old, and it works:

  • Buy, don’t bake the cookies.
  • Get the bride and groom a gift certificate.
  • Let your husband or kids or all of them win the argument.
  • Put Anna Karenina aside and pick up the junky beach read.

Another day, when you’re in the mood and have the time, you can get fancy:

  • Recreate your grandmother’s rolled sugar cookies (using her 100–year-old cookie cutters).
  • Use a zillion colors and a whole dictionary of stitches to knit the couple a throw for their first anniversary.
  • Spend hours articulately proving to your family that you’re an authority on most subjects and issues.
  • Finish Anna Karenina and then write a happier ending, in perfect Russian.  Give that girl a break, too.

Fancy and complicated can be fun, but when your mood says, “One more thing and I’ll pop like Glinda’s bubble,” remember:  Simple!

Photo: My button’s name is Helga Happy Face.  She lives in my button collection where she cheers up the more serious buttons by cracking jokes and reciting limericks.

Guest Posts: I’m simply delighted to have a guest post on Girlfriendology!  http://girlfriendology.com/blog/4533/z-is-for-zest-girlfriend-advice-from-barbara-younger/#

For more posts by Barbara, check out her blog: Friend for the Ride.

 

  

Barbara Younger

Barbara Younger blogs from her home in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Along with Friend for the Ride: Encouraging Words for the Menopause Roller Coaster (http://friendfortheride.com), she writes books for children and adults. She lives in an old house with her husband Cliff. and collections of everything from dolls to buttons to bookmarks. She's the mother of two grown daughters and the grandmother to one adorable baby boy!