4 Benefits of Laughing Your Way Through The New Year

Welcome to the first edition of Merriment Monday. Life’s too short to be angry or sad and Mondays tend to bring out both of those emotions. So here’s something fun to start your week. Lee Volpe is a humorist and the author of “Black Sheep Tries Bleach: Humorous Stories to Ease Life’s Growing Pains.” Marcia Corbino of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune described her as “Erma Bombeck meets Sex and the City.” Volpe divides her time between the Suncoast of Florida and Northern Wisconsin but you can bet she’s at the former this time of year.

 

4 Benefits of Laughing Your Way Through The New Year

Like clockwork, people are composing their lists of New Year’s resolutions, and at the same time they’re ending this year with some of the same problems, frustrations or worries of past years.  They want to take a brighter outlook and ride those resolutions to a higher quality of life in the New Year – but inevitably, familiar issues get them down year after year. How can this New Year be different? How can you stay more positive and hopeful despite problems that won’t go away when the big ball drops in Times Square?

“Making laughter a part of your every-day life is the answer. When life gets tough, laughter begins,” says Lee Volpe, a humorist and author of Black Sheep Tries Bleach: Humorous Stories to Ease Life’s Growing Pains. “We all have humor inside us. It is so healthy to use it in a variety of ways. When you really deconstruct some things in your life that may be problems or annoyances, you can creatively come at them with laughter, and your whole outlook changes.”  

Mentally and physically, the benefits of laughter are many, Volpe says, and she lists five of those benefits that can help you make 2018 a happier New Year:

• Reduces stress. Laughter reduces the level of stress hormones. such as cortisol and epinephrine (adrenaline), and it boosts the immune system. Science has further shown that after a good laugh, muscles can be relaxed for up to 45 minutes. “Laughter is a free stress-management strategy, and in today’s pressurized, problem-filled world, there’s a big premium on that,” Volpe says. “Laughter is often the best kind of therapy.” 

• Burns calories. Everybody wants to lose weight in the New Year, right? “Laugh hard enough and you may be able to skip some gym visits – and who doesn’t want to do that,” Volpe says. Studies show that a good stream of laughter can burn 40 calories in 30 minutes. “I saw where you really can burn 75 calories in 30 minutes by banging your head against a wall,” Volpe says. “Knock yourself out.” 

• Becomes a coping mechanism. Laughter makes us feel good. Instead of complaining about life’s frustrations, trying to laugh about them helps. “Humor helps you keep a positive outlook through difficult situations,” Volpe says. “When something extremely frustrating or depressing occurs, try to take the longer view and envision that one day you’ll be able to look back on it and laugh. But why not laugh right now? You also feel stronger. This approach will also make you better equipped to deal with future negative events less stressfully.”

• Brings people together, strengthens relationships. Laughter connects us with others. You can’t enjoy a laugh with other people unless you take the time to engage with them. “It improves the quality of social interaction you have with your friends, co-workers, and acquaintances,” Volpe says. “The old saying is, ‘Laughter is contagious.’ If you bring more laughter into your life, you can help others around you to laugh more and reap the benefits of humor, which in turns helps them with their problems. It makes other people happy, because it’s very infectious, just like anger is.”

“We all need more laughter with the way the world is these days,” Volpe says. “Maybe you can start by laughing at your own New Year’s resolutions list. For a lot of people it turns out to be a joke anyway. And it doesn’t have to be a new year to start a new day, a new outlook, for yourself.”

Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by award-winning travel and food writer Chere Dastugue Coen, who loves a good laugh and people who smile. Chere's Viola Valentine paranormal mystery series, under the pen name of Cherie Claire, offers lots of humor, as well as fun ghost stories.

We’re zonkers for North Carolina’s Sonker Trail

Putters Patio and Grill, Dobson

I thought I knew everything about Southern cooking, especially those unique dishes found nowhere else. Imagine my surprise to find sonkers in Surry County of North Carolina, a dessert dating back to the 1800s that’s similar to a cobbler. 

But then, it's not. 

The story has it that sonkers originated after a harvest, with North Carolina residents mixing fruit that had lost its ripeness with sweet ingredients such as sugar or molasses, then mixing it with flour to make a sort-of pie.

No two sonkers are alike. Some feature a crunchy top, while others look akin to a pot pie. Some resemble fruit swimming in a sweet soup topped by ice cream with dough pieces mixed in while others more like a custard.

Miss Angel's Heavenly Pies

Those differences are why there is a Surry Sonker Trail throughout the county. There are seven stops on the trail, all offering different versions of the North Carolina dessert, and we tried to sample sonkers at each one. For instance, Miss Angel’s Heavenly Pies in Mount Airy creates hers with seasonal fruit in small rectangular containers, then drizzles this doughy goodness with a moonshine-kissed glaze. If you want to kick this up a notch, add her special moonshine ice cream on top.

The featured stops along the Sonker Trail are: 

• Rockford General Store in the village of Rockford; 
• The Living Room Coffeehouse in Pilot Mountain; 
• Putters Patio & Grill at Shelton's Vineyards in Dobson; 
• Roxxi & Lulu’s Bakery in Elkin; 
• Southern On Main in Elkin; 
• Old North State Winery in Mount Airy (which is haunted; read about the ghost at Haunted Deep South Blog) and 
• Miss Angel’s Heavenly Pies in Mount Airy.

 Want a Sonker Trail map? Call (800) 948-0949 or go online here.

Here are a few we sampled:

Southern On Main, Elkin

Down Home Restaurant, Mount Airy

Old North State Winery, Mount Airy

The Living Room Coffeehouse in Pilot Mountain

Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by travel writer and author Chere Coen who loves a strange and unique Southern place, tradition or food. She's planning on going back to Surry County and hitting up the sonkers she missed.

 

For Mardi Gras, it's a Dog Day Afternoon — and ball!

In Louisiana, the fun doesn’t stop with New Year’s resolutions. Tonight, Jan. 6, otherwise known as Twelfth Night or the Epiphany, the season of Carnival begins with Mardi Gras balls and other revelries.

This year, all that’s going to the dogs.

For 24 years, the Mardi Paws Parade for canines and their owners took place in Mandeville, just across the causeway from New Orleans, on the Sunday after Mardi Gras Tuesday (this year Feb. 18, 2018). The annual event came at the tail end of the Carnival season (hey, don’t blame us, we borrowed that pun from the organizers).

This year, the Mystic Krewe of Mardi Paws, who put on the annual parade, have decided to take the fun one paw step further with its inaugural Mardi Gras ball. On Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018, the krewe will offer its Mutts to Models ball, open to the public with general admission tickets at $125 each, with proceeds going to charity.

The host of the evening is Ian Somerhalder, an actor celebrated for his roles as Damon Salvadore on “The Vampire Diaries” and as Boone Carlyle on “Lost.” An ardent animal lover who grew up in neighboring Covington, Louisiana, Somerhalder worked like a dog to create his namesake foundation (another organization pun). The Ian Somerhalder Foundation (ISF) has purchased 100 acres of land near Mandeville with about 70 of those acres set aside to preserve the bayou and the remaining 30 acres to support pet projects that serve the needs of animals, youth and the community at large. Scott’s Wish, according to organizers, is to provide aid for patients with leukemia and life-threatening illnesses, the other beneficiary of Mardi Paws events.

    

   

The Mutts to Models Ball will take place at the Fleur de Lis event center in Mandeville and feature celebrities, local philanthropists, media personalities, and veterans and other heroes walking the runway with their dogs. Among the models will be Somerhalder escorting a canine representative from one of the organizations that’s been helped by ISF. Another “model” will be Army veteran Erick Scott, who received a black lab named Gumbo from the K9s for Warriors program after serving three tours in Iraq. Gumbo was sponsored by New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton, who donated the funds to train the dog and gave him his Louisiana-centric name. 

A highlight of the evening will be the presentation of the 2018 canine court, with the top dogs wearing king and queen robes designed by Mary Viveiros of the House of Privilege Canine Couture. The runway show will be produced by Penelope Francis, a global brand strategist based in Miami and Los Angeles and the cofounder and creative director of her former luxury brand, Fifi & Romeo. Models will be showcasing a private collection from Louisiana legend Raoul Blanco Couture, which dresses a loyal following of society’s “who’s who” around the globe.

 

The festivities begin at 6:30 p.m. with a VIP cocktail reception, followed by the runway show and after-party. The event is open to human attendees; canine guests are limited to the model participants.

If you can’t make the ball, don’t forget the Mardi Paws Parade on Feb. 18. This season’s costumes will highlight “Fables, Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes.”

For more information about the ball or tickets, visit www.MuttstoModels.com. To plan ahead for the parade, visit www.MardiPaws.com.

Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by travel writer Chere Coen who loves a strange and unique Southern place or tradition. She's also a big fan of dog parades.