1.      Have someone take a candid photo of you, preferably right after you wake up.

2.      Climb one or more flights of stairs.

3.      Attempt to put on your clothes while you are still a little bit damp.

4.      Stand next to a boy who is either a.) Shorter than you, b.) Runs cross country or c.) Suffers from Crohn’s disease.

5.      Put your clothes in the dryer.

6.      Chug a whole bottle of water before class, hold pee for 3 hours.

7.      Wear jeggings/sweatpants for 1 week straight then switch back to wearing real jeans.

8.      Walk across loose floorboards OR across a tiled floor in heels.

9.      Try and get something out of the pocket of your jeans while sitting down.

10.  Complete an extensive leg/booty workout after a long period of inactivity. Wait until the debilitating muscle soreness sets in and attempt to gracefully sit down on the toilet

Hilary’s House of Happiness won the bid to cater the 2012 Flying Aces board meeting! (read: no other food service providers were willing to cater, free of charge, in these trying economic times). Still a prestigious honor, I assure you!

Cookie Description: shortbread with apricot or strawberry jam; taste like mini pies!

Since business of catering [for my Dad’s model airplane club] is obviously picking up, we are now hiring at Hilary’s House of Happiness!

Why do you want to work at HHOH you ask?

Well for starters, you get to wear puppy slippers while you cook:

Need I say more?

What have I been doing? Funny you should ask! For once in my life I am doing something that is FUN, related to my graduate schooling, AND productive!

Every Friday I get to go to my local medical center and be a co-leader in a ceramics class for individuals who need pain management therapy. These people are in pain from various maladies such as traumatic brain injuries, arthritis, fibromyalgia, etc. All of Friday afternoon we do some type of therapeutic and creative activity…most of the time that also includes EATING!

Could my life get any better?

For some projects, like the one pictured above, an individual will start with just raw clay and create something completely original. My friend from class made the piece out of clay, but abandoned it after it was fired in the kiln because she thought it looked like an ash tray. After deciding it was not worth taking up smoking in order to utilize her botched project, she abandoned it. I adopted it and made it into a Mad Men themed ash tray because she loves that show and believes it is the ONLY time smoking looks cool.

In therapy we learn many lessons: “Never abandon an art project, even if it is starting to look like an ash tray.”

Besides eating and learning life lessons, another cool thing about this ceramics class is that it is self-subsistent. Many of the art projects the patients make are sold at the hospital’s gift shop (however, if you make something super cool and meaningful to yourself, you get to keep it). This week we worked on holiday ornaments (like the one pictured above) and they were sent to be sold at the gift shop! All the money we make comes back to the program so we can DO MORE!

And THAT, Ladies and Gentlemen, is what I have been doing!