How to Keep a Gratitude Journal

How To Keep a Gratitude Journal

Heather Leave a comment

When you are working toward long-term goals, it can be difficult to maintain focus on the positive.  If optimism does not come naturally to you, it’s easy to emphasize the obstacles and stumbling blocks rather than the progress you are making toward your goal. In order to keep your motivation high, it is crucial to acknowledge the wins. And the best way to ensure that you notice the good things in your life is to write them down. Keeping a gratitude journal has helped prevent us from missing all we have to be grateful for and kept our eye on the prize of our long-term dream.

Why Keep a Gratitude Journal

We keep a gratitude journal just because it feels good and it reminds us to be thankful. As it turns out, a number of scientific studies have shown concrete benefits of gratitude journaling. In 2015, Psychology Today published an article citing several scientific studies about gratitude which have shown, among other things, that gratitude improves physical and psychological health, improves empathy, and actually leads to better sleep. Last year, an article in Time Magazine added the benefits of patience, better relationships, and willpower to that list. Researchers at NIH have found the direct neurological causes for these outcomes. Gratitude increases activity in the hypothalamus (hormone levels and eating and sleeping control) and the brain’s use of dopamine.

So why not just think happy thoughts? There is value to translating your thoughts into whole language. In other words, simply thinking grateful thoughts is not as powerful as writing them down. Additionally, research indicates that using handwriting to record gratitude (vs. speaking or typing) is a  more effective way to reap the full physical and emotional benefits.

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5 Best Poker Movies of All Time

5 Best Poker Movies of All Time

Paul Leave a comment

Poker movies just don’t get it right most of the time. Poker is a fascinating game filled with great real life characters. Doyle Brunson, Stu Unger, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Scotty Nguyen and Daniel Negreanu to name just a few. What’s even more amazing is that most small stakes poker rooms are filled with more of the same. Complex, interesting characters that can’t possibly be real. Only they are.

Despite such a rich landscape, there are precious few good poker movies.  Sports like boxing, basketball, and baseball have produced a stunning number of good films. But poker seems to be resistant to the movie genre. There may be more good chess films than quality poker movies.  There are a few nuggets out there, and we hope the recent release of Molly’s Game brings renewed interest, but it won’t take you very long to work your way through the entire poker oevre.  We think these five movies are the best out there. And we’ll be watching and re-watching them until we can live our own poker travel dream.

5. Big Hand for a Little Lady

Big Hand for a Little Lady portrays the Western archetypal spin on poker with a side of comedy.  The iconic American journey of a couple and their son moving west to buy a farm (of course) near San Antonio is interrupted by a poker game in Laredo (where else?).  Meredith (Henry Fonda) is a recovering gambling addict who wanders into a, you guessed it, saloon. He extracts permission from virtuous wife Mary (Joanne Woodward) to watch a high stakes poker game. You can probably guess where it goes from there.  Meredith enters the game, ends up putting the entire family fortune at risk. Then there is a big hand….and the “little lady” takes over when Meredith suffers a sudden attack.

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Leftovers

Throwdown Thursday: Leftovers Dilemma

Heather Leave a comment

I hate leftovers.

There, I said it. I don’t care how good the gelatinous mess in the refrigerator tasted when we had it for dinner two nights ago. In my opinion it now belongs in the trash. I know that’s a terrible, awful, financially suspect opinion. But it’s just how I feel.  Paul disagrees. Just today I had to force him to throw out a Tupperware containing steak from a meal last week. He was planning to eat it for lunch.

Paul: Man, I could just get old school with “There are starving children in Africa, Heather! And you are throwing out perfectly good food! Such financial folly! Go to your room, but eat these old beets first!” But that is too paternal and not the role-playing dynamic I want in our relationship. So I’ll just stick with: throwing out perfectly good food is sacrilege and flies against all that is just and right with the world. You will fry in eternal damnation if you toss that petite sirloin in the trash before it turns into a true bio-hazard.

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Things You Must Do Planning For a Road Trip

25 Things You Must Do When Planning A Long Road Trip

Heather Leave a comment

Even a short road trip requires a certain amount of planning. At minimum, you need to figure out where you are going and how you will get there. You need to  know what to pack and how to finance the trip. Even if you tend to play vacations by ear, you at least need to decide when you are leaving.

Long road trips, such as the year long travel of our Poker Pilgrimage, require even more substantial travel planning. Travel lasting more than a couple of weeks requires addressing myriad issues. What will you do with your mail? How will you pay your bills? What sorts of insurance do you need? While not yet having all of the answers, we are currently working to generate the right questions.

Early Stage Road Trip Planning 

Itinerary

Every journey first requires a travel plan. When will you leave? Where will you go? How long will you be gone? Planning for a year on the road, for example,  is a vastly different task than taking a long weekend. Deciding on your basic journey specifications allows you to consider what else you need to know.

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Manchester Poker Room Table 2

Manchester Poker Room Review

Paul Leave a comment

The Manchester Poker Room and Casino is one of the longstanding members of the active New Hampshire poker scene. Among the larger, most active rooms (15 or more tables) in the state it occupies a unique niche.  It is the one room without a competitor within several miles.  Less than half an hour south in Nashua the Boston Billiards Club and Casino is yoked with The River Casino. Newcomers Chasers and Cheers lie two miles apart, battling it out in Salem. While over on the coast, about 40 minutes East, the Hampton Falls and Seabrook poker rooms compete for both cash and tournament players.

But in the center of  southern New Hampshire, the Manchester Poker Room and Casino stands alone. The room shows signs of that independence: confident, unique, but perhaps a bit insular. All told, Manchester offers an alternative poker experience in New Hampshire.

Setting and Non-Poker Amenities

The Manchester Poker Room is just a minute off Route 293, an offshoot of route 93, the major north-south expressway that bisects New Hampshire.  Despite its geographic convenience, when you leave the highway it’s a bit tricky to find.  The poker room sits behind a set of retail stores, and its sign is not very prominent from the road.

South Willow street is packed with strip malls, fast food outlets, car dealerships, and gas stations.  On the opposite side of Route 293 is the Mall of New Hampshire. So if you have shopping and dining needs, you will be well-served in the immediate area.

The poker room used to be a small movie theater and retains tell-tale remnants of that history, such as box office windows.  The Poker Room shares the building with the Manchester Bingo Room. The poker room itself hosts a few table games as well.

The South Side Tavern also lies between Manchester’s two separate poker rooms, and provides food and beverages to the poker rooms. The Tavern’s menu is extensive, with a wide array of appetizers, sandwiches, salads, pasta, pizza, and dinner entrees. We have not eaten there, but we have heard positive reviews of the food. A full bar is available, and the tap and bottled beer selection looked good. You won’t go hungry or thirsty here!

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