My Gratitude Journal

Aloha February 2012! We have been off to a great start to 2012!! Patty & I have been eating well, moving our bodies and both of us did Hot Yoga for the first time in a loooong time!!! Ashby is enJoying the Co-Op Pre-School in Fullerton. We are able to spend 90% of the time with him which is great for him at this age! Otherwise we are working on bringing in more income - Kervin with Casa del Sol, Back Veeda & Casas del Sol. Otherwise looking for a $100,000+ engineering/design/business job opportunity. Patty is continuing AGSJ licensing opportunities - Bruce, Vans, PacSun and the TV Show. Also has a great opportunity to consult for X Games Energy Drink!! They need help with PR and Harry is impressed with what Patty has done with AGSJ. We are finishing up the consulting proposal ASAP!   Patty & Kervin began the year at the Rose Bowl, first with Ashby viewing the flower covered parade

Another wonderful year of Veeda! Highlights included Ashby turning 3, eJoying his first trip to Wisconsin and a fun filled month of Christmas celebrations! Also watching him play with kids at pre-school and learning new things is great to see! Otherwise it was great when Patty and I spent some quality time alone together. Rekindling our romance which brought us together in the first place! If only for a few hours we got to have fun and fall in love again... Otherwise looking forward to a wonderful 2012!!! Filled with Veeda, Properity, Health, Love and Success!!!

Another wonderful day and week in Carlsbad Village by the Sea! It is a blessing we get to come visit our Casa del Sol when it is empty between vacation guests. Between the cozy inside, tropical yard, pool, spa and location near the Village and beach it is a wonderful place to enJoy coastal SoCal! Ashby got to play with Blakey & Brandon today. Blake is staying over right now for this first time! They are having fun playing and watching movies on Netflix. I am writing in the living room in front of the fire and Christmas tree... Thank you so much for Casa del Sol!!!

Today was another beautiful day in SoCal. It began waking up next to my wife Patty and son Ashby warm in bed. Ashby got up early as usual and energetically ran out to the living room. Patty got up and made sure he was happy and started cleaning the kitchen. I lay in bed eyes closed, giving my daily thanks for yesterday, today, the past and the future. Another beautiful day was about to begin! Ashby came calling "Dada, get up!" I got up slowly and played with him. He was a good boy after a little terrible three's tantrum... I helped Mama fill the dishwasher and the kitchen was clean! Patty had a sore throat and wanted some garlic bulbs. I hoped on my red beach cruiser and biked down to the beach. It was a cold morning with gray skies for SoCal. The ocean was glassy and high tide kept the shore break alive. The bike down the PCH was almost empty, rare for a morning in Carlsbad. Only a couple die hard surfers sat out at Terramar, the rains had come down hard the day before...

And perhaps the most popular practice is to keep a “gratitude journal.” As we’ve reported many times over the years, studies have traced a range of impressive benefits to the simple act of writing down the things for which we’re grateful—benefits including better sleep, fewer symptoms of illness, and more happiness among adults and kids alike. We’ve even got our own “community gratitude journal” on Greater Good . The basic practice is straightforward. In many of the studies, people are simply instructed to record five things they experienced in the past week for which they’re grateful. The entries are supposed to be brief—just a single sentence—and they range from the mundane (“waking up this morning”) to the sublime (“the generosity of friends”) to the timeless (“the Rolling Stones”). But when you dig into the research, you find that gratitude journals don’t always work—some studies show incredible benefits, others not so much. To understand why, I took a closer loo...