In a series of studies published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, study participants were more satisfied with their lives if they shared good news at least twice a week, with someone who responded positively to the good news.

So take an occasional moment this holiday season to share the good things in your life with those around you.

What are you doing online today?!

As for me, my side of the family is getting together for a big holiday bash tomorrow, and my Beloved’s family on Sunday. So that means I have another day to prepare the big Black Friday/Cyber Monday holiday offer I’ve been working on, which I promise I will not talk about until tomorrow at the earliest. And that’s my excuse for why I’m online today.

I really wanted to put up a blog post or two this week. After all, I’ve been absent, due to the large amount of work it takes to give away loads of books, together with the energy I’ve been spending trying to untangle one of the most confusing messes of a software spaghetti that I’ve ever seen. (There’s only one other software codebase that I’ve worked on that approaches this one in its poor quality.)

So, to sum up: Been gone. Busy developing software. For money (not for fun). Giving away books. Need to blog. But about what?

I have a few stories in my queue: how my Firstborn daughter got into a cool new school, how I totalled the second car I ever had almost-brand-new, how I watched You, On a Diet and realized I need to lose 3½" from my waist, how I’ve been cutting back on stress and caffeine and have had fewer headaches as a result (probably), how I sent a package to the wrong address (and how it helped restore some of my faith in humanity), how I discovered that Edie Brickell is married to Paul Simon— And where I have been all these years that I never knew that before?

Eh. Didn’t really feel like writing about any of them.