Doing What Works

There’s so much more to nurturing a friendship than trading updates. We have lots of great ideas in this edition of Doing What Works.

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Easy ways to nurture a long-distance friendship.

Are you ready for kindergarten?

Joshua Turek poetry!

If you want to get away from it all but take a lot of it with you, we’ll show you how in this edition of Doing What Works.

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Compression travel bags, no vacuum required!

You like mayonnaise? Prove it.

Dish soap, laundry soap, maybe even shampoo!

Expectations often lead to disappointment and unnecessary suffering. We’ll help you loosen their grip in this edition of Doing What Works.

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Warren Buffett says the key to a long marriage is low expectations.

If you’ve got a T-shirt with blood stains all over it maybe laundry isn’t your biggest problem right now.

Dan Savage says any long-term relationship that’s successful is really a myth that two people create together.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.

Is it possible to know too much? Possibly! We’ll give you less to think about in this edition of Doing What Works.

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Inside the mind of a master procrastinator!

Glass bottles have microplastics, too.

The golden mean.

The human brain isn’t designed to process all of the world’s breaking emergencies in real time.

Jonathan Haidt on attention fracking.

You can choose what you do, but you can’t choose what you like to do.

What would make a mouse in the living area of the RV feel like the best Christmas morning? We’ll take you on quite a ride in this edition of Doing What Works.

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You worry too much for someone who God has never failed.

Nature is indifferent to us.

Go back to sleep, Chuck. You’re just havin’ a nightmare -- of course, we are still in hell.

Gasoline can start to go bad after only three months in a tank.

You don’t have to love New York or the Knicks or any sport to find so much joy in this edition of Doing What Works!

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City Slickers!

The New York Knicks are the 2026 NBA Champions.

A postcard depicting the Fairyland Cottages in Detroit Lakes appears in the opening credits of the 1983 movie National Lampoon's Vacation. The cabins were destroyed in 2008 by the Detroit Lakes Fire Department in a training exercise.

Do testosterone levels rise when your team wins?

Collective Effervescence!

Hoosiers.

Brat Summer!

If you struggle to find the perfect gift, this edition of Doing What Works is a present for you!

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If you keep anything long enough you can throw it away.

Brooks Palmer suggests moving clutter to another room to see it for what it is, clutter). That applies to relationships, too.

Why my husband and I won’t be exchanging gifts on Valentine’s Day.

Love is the quality of attention we pay to things.

If you’re putting more into a relationship than you’re getting back, you might love this edition of Doing What Works.

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If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

He’s Just Not That Into You.

Do you respond to bids for connection?

When Katie was little she wanted to be a glassblower. Whatever happened to that dream? We can’t wait to give you an update in this edition of Doing What Works.

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The Corning Museum of Glass.

Blown Away was a reality show about glassblowing.

Your chances for happiness are increased if you wind up doing something that is a reflection of what you loved most when you were somewhere between nine and eleven years old.

Katie’s artwork is a wonderful way of, as Chris Shea puts it, escorting my words off the page.

Michael Bryant is a career coach.

The poet Taylor Mali suggests you not worry about people who shame you for a college major with, “What are you going to do with that?”

Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness.

Katie exudes joy, but even she was no match for the dog entrusted to her care for a week. We hope you enjoy the canine (and encore!) edition of Doing What Works!

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Watching Marley & Me for the first time, with friends, left a bad taste in Katie’s mouth.

A Tamagotchi is as close as caring for a pet as she got when she was little.

Peek-a-boo teaches a child that whoever just disappeared will come back.

If you get the first three years right with a child you’re probably set.

Dogs can smell fear!

Notice I’m tensing up, decide that can’t be good, tense up even more.

Much of what Maureen knows about dogs came from City Slickers.

George Carlin likes people on a case-by-case basis.