12 Life Lessons My Mom Taught Me

I have a mother that others wish they had. Their mothers have died, or live far away, or they miss having the close relationship that I have with my mom. At 93.5 years, Mom has survived the death of her husband after 60 years of marriage, overcome severe health problems, and endured the deaths of most of her friends and family. She could feel sorry for herself, but she doesn’t. Her eyes and face glow with an inner light that beckons and welcomes anyone in her presence. She is serene. She is playful. When she laughs, we all laugh. We can’t

What If You Spent 10,000 Hours Practicing Happiness?

Have you ever thought about practicing happiness instead of chasing it? Last week we had the good fortune to attend the Mountain States Basketball Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada. We were cheering for Wyoming since my husband Dennis is from Sheridan, Wyoming, and we were ecstatic when the Wyoming Cowboys won and earned a place in the NCAA. We practiced lots of happiness as we cheered each shot and won each game. I noticed another phenomenon as the tournament progressed. Some people began supporting other teams who won after their teams lost. They sat with the other team’s fans,

10 Questions To Reveal If Your Lover Is Your Best Friend

Do you hate Valentine’s Day or love it? It seems there are more and more voices saying Valentine’s Day was invented by greeting card companies and florists and has lost its meaning. I disagree because I think Valentine’s Day prompts us to take action and show our love. It’s not just about passion; it’s about the give and take of friendship.

How a Greeting Card Can Spice Up Your Marriage

What if you dated for the rest of your life? At 25 I had given up on finding someone I could live with for the rest of my life. After nine years of dating, I believed there was no “one.” I was disappointed with the men I met who kept trying to change me into either their mother or their mistress. Then I met someone who changed that.

How a Greeting Card Can Help You Live Longer

If you don’t want to live longer, don’t make friends.When I was fourteen, I realized that I wasn’t popular, but I wanted to be. I am an only child, and I was more comfortable talking with adults. I was extremely tentative if I was left in a room to play with other kids. I wasn’t so much a geek as a bookworm.One cloudless afternoon I pondered my loneliness sitting alone in my backyard, and I noticed a swallowtail butterfly drifting from one flower to another. I wanted to be that butterfly, able to shift and sip from flower to flower

10 Wacky Things I Did to Lose Weight

Are you writing down the same New Year’s resolution to lose weight that you had last year…the one that failed because it’s huge and life-changing and you haven’t thought through how to accomplish it? We wrote a funny card called, “The Yoga Frog Diet” designed to show the challenge of losing weight. With so many choices in front of us, it seems the only possible way to succeed is not to eat, but we know that this is not a solution—just a wish. I used to weigh 172 pounds when I was 22. I don’t have photos to prove it

What Is Your Style of Giving?

Are you longing for more quality time with your friends instead of spending time in stores or online shopping for presents?I felt this way a few years ago, and when I talked to my friend, Mona, she felt the same way. We decided we didn’t really need any more stuff; what we wanted was to deepen our friendship by doing something that celebrates the meaning of Christmas.Since Christmas is all about love, we decided to do something for newborns. Mona learned from a local hospital that sometimes parents were taking home their new babies wrapped in newspaper because they didn’t

Meet Peli, Our Director of Happiness

One day we got an email from a guy claiming to be a penguin. He said he heard that we were creating a new e-greeting card website featuring “semi-beautiful poetry,” and he wanted to know how he could get involved. Who would have guessed that penguins could be interested in semi-beautiful poetry? Of course we assumed that this was a prank. After all we live in California, home to more than its share of creative people. But it was such a novel pitch we wanted to meet this guy. We were going to be in Los Angeles the following week