Podcast Ep.53: Why Thankfulness Is Good For You + Updates & Comfort Foods

Can purposely thinking about things to be thankful for make a difference in your life? The science says yes! Join us as we discuss all the research (study after study) that has demonstrated the benefits of purposely being grateful. These studies found both emotional and physical benefits to this practice – like it improved heart health. We think this is pretty exciting stuff and we have personal stories to share on this subject, too. Also, there are farmhouse updates and our favorite healthy comfort food recipes from AOC. Plus, the cool things we’ve discovered recently, of course!

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Why Thankfulness Is Good For You

Is gratitude the key to being satisfied with life?

Here’s the article we mentioned from NPR: If You Feel Thankful Write it Down – It’s Good For Your Health

And the WNYC documentary with Susan Sarandon sharing the heart patient’s progress when thankfulness was practiced.

And here’s the article I wrote years ago after reading Ann Voscamp’s One Thousand Gifts and starting a thankfulness journal.

And this article includes three more studies on science and thankfulness: Science Proves Gratitude is Key to Well Being

Well, I’m convinced – are you?

Farmhouse Updates

We’ve been able to salvage quite a bit of 100 year old wood from the back end of the house as we’ve expanded it (what wasn’t eaten by termites, that is). Some of it is painted like the boards we found under the wallpaper in the bathroom, some is tongue-and-groove from walls, and some is really wide fir from other walls. And of course any 2×4’s that are reusable. They pretty much used whatever they had.

We hope to use it for walls, ceilings, and wood treatments to add character to the new area and cover the obvious 1990’s texturing job on the wallboard in the existing rooms. While I still wish we had found a stash of the original doors in the attic, this is a treasure we appreciate.

Here is the website of the builder who’s model home we toured. If you visit it, you can see the craftsman style homes we mentioned and some of the classic touches he adds to all his homes.

What’s Cooking

March is still calling for healthy comfort food meals – here are the meals we mentioned that each of us in our family counts as our favorite.

• Sausage Lentil Stew (the best!) served with Simple Baguettes and cut up vegetables.
• French Beef Stew over Sour Cream & Garlic Mashed Potatoes served with Orange Almond Salad.
• Quick Sausage & Corn Chowder served with Rich Cornbread with Honey Butter and a chopped salad.
• Pesto pasta – either Creamy Pasta Pesto or Mediterranean Pasta Pesto with Chicken served with a green salad.

This is Really Cool!

Brian’s – Listening to audiobooks and doing puzzles – perfect for the mid-winter blues! Here are the two books we listened to:

• We are Legion, We are Bob by Dennis E. Taylor
• Underground Airlines by Ben Winters (Note: I also did a short review of this book in March’s Good Things List.)

Jami’s – The Horse Creek Lodge Cabin we found on Airbnb – such a great little find! I’m pretty sure we’ll plan to do this every February.

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