I've read a couple of books over the last few months that made me think about how I'm living and how I want to live. Generally, I feel like I'm in a better place in life now than a year ago. I've grown as a person, have better figured out my priorities, and feel God's blessings daily. Nevertheless, there's always room for improvement.

In The Happiness Project, author Gretchen Rubin has some great suggestions about how to be happier. Some of the ones that struck me were to declutter, sleep more, don't expect praise or recognition, quit nagging, be silly, remember birthdays, be generous, don't gossip, make new friends, and give something up. She's got lots of great stories and it's impressive how she reads so much and retains so much from that reading and is able to incorporate it into her book.
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A friend gave me Still Alice by Lisa Genova. It's about a woman who gets early-onset Alzheimer's and proceeds to show her point of view of what it's like to live with the disease. There are good days and bad days, and on the bad days, life is very tough. I appreciated getting to learn more about the disease. The book also showed that even though your existence is going along smoothly, you may get a hiccup in your life that changes it more than you ever thought possible.

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These two books, along with a variety of blogs I read and talks with friends, have really stressed the importance of living every day to its fullest. Over the past few months, we've had a number of local residents pass away and a number of others get seriously ill. With such a small community, we really feel the impact. No one could have guessed that this December we would be missing so many of our friends.

So I want to reach out to everyone I know and give you a huge thank you for being part of my life. You make a difference. And I am working on taking the time to express my gratitude, to live in the moment and smell the flowers and enjoy the smell of those flowers, and to spend my time on things that matter to me. There will never be enough time to do everything, so I might as well do what I really want to do.

As I continue on my journey of life, I'm continually looking for advice for living a happy, meaningful life. And advice on good books. Let me know if you have any of either to share!