Happy 4th of July! It’s a warm, beautiful day here in New York and we are just relaxing here at home today. It was quite a busy day on the blog yesterday as well, the busiest I have ever had on this blog in fact, so I thank everyone who took the time to check it out. P art of it I have to thank Twitter for because Beth Stern (Howard Stern’s wife) took the time to answer yesterday’s question, creating some visits for me and I had answered a question posed during the Mets broadcast last night on Twitter and they used it on the screen and Ron Darling mentioned my hashtag name, so have I thank both of them for helping the blog out yesterday as well :). In case you missed it, yesterday’s question was:

Finish this sentence: Happiness is…

I did get lots of answers, but most people seemed to be able to agree on one aspect of what creates happiness, and that is family. There’s not much more that can bring happiness into your life then a loving family and spending time with them. Many people have their own interpretation of what happiness means to them, so much so that Thomas Jefferson saw fit to include “the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. It’s an important facet of our lives, perhaps one of the most powerful forces that drives us to keep going. We all want to be happy in our daily lives and pretty much everything we do gears itself towards reaching this goal. We work hard at our jobs so we can provide for ourselves and our family and the hard work pays itself off in the feeling of achievement you get for doing your job and giving yourself and your family what you need. There are a lot of things in life that make me happy, but I think happiness is more than the fleeting feeling you can get from say eating your favorite ice cream or laughing at funny movie. They may make you feel happy for that moment, but to me true happiness is much more than that. It’s an intensely joyful feeling that overcomes you and carries on, more than for just a few minutes or an hour, or even a day. Would you be happy if you won the lottery? Of course, your initial reaction would be great joy. Over time, I think even that fades as your life returns to some form of normalcy. it’s more than just having good fortune or living a virtuous life, as some religious views may profess. Happiness is more than simply an emotion to me. It’s a state of mind, a sense of positivity and content and while it is something may people may pursue their whole lives to attain, I think if you look closely enough at your own life, it’s always there for the taking. I do have to agree with Michelle and my cousin Emily in that being married to my best friend is what happiness is to me. Just waking up every morning knowing that the person who makes me feel the best, that I am worthy gives me that feeling. Here we are right now, in separate rooms in the house while I type this, and I feel good just being near her. Charles Schultz may have been right when he wrote “Happiness is a warm puppy” (warm puppies are pretty nice), but it has nothing on the warm smile I see every morning.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer yesterday’s question and a special thank you to Beth Ostrowsky (Stern), Michael Symon and William P. Young (author of “The Shack) for taking the time to answer me on Twitter. Today’s question of course should deal with the 4th of July. For most of us, it’s a vacation day to relax and enjoy the weather and, of course, to barbecue. That leads to today’s question:

What is your favorite thing to cook on the grill?

You can cook just about anything on the grill if you have the right equipment, so your answers can be pretty varied on this one. Meat, poultry, vegetables, fruit, just about anything you can come up with will work, but what’s your favorite thing to enjoy that’s cooked on the grill? Grilling provides you with a taste and flavor that you can’t seem to duplicate in the oven or on the stove, so what is it that you like best? Think about it and let me know. You can post your answer here or on Facebook or on Twitter. I’ll also ask some people on Twitter and see how they respond. I’ll post my answer tomorrow.

Okay, now it’s time to get back to relaxing. I hope you get to do some relaxing today as well. Enjoy the rest of your day and don’t forget to do something creative today!