Dr. Barbara Ann Kipfer is the author of 14,000 Things to be Happy About (with more than one million copies in print) and the 15 (and counting!) Page-a-Day calendars based on it.
She has written The Wish List, 8,789 Words of Wisdom, Instant Karma, Self-Meditation, The Order of Things, and 1,400 Things for Kids to be Happy About (Workman), Roget's International Thesaurus and Dictionary of American Slang (HarperCollins), 201 Little Buddhist Reminders, 1,325 Buddhist Ways to Be Happy, and 863 Buddhist Ways to Conquer Life's Little Challenges (Ulysses Press); Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology (Springer); 4,000 Questions for Getting to Know Anyone and Everyone, Consider This, and The Life of Language (Random House); and Dictionary of Artifacts and The Archaeologist's Fieldwork Companion (Wiley-Blackwell). A number of Barbara's books are available on the Kindle, including the self-published The Buddha's Lists, Life Needs a Menu, and Time Capsule. See Amazon for more information.
Barbara holds a PhD and MPhil in Linguistics (University of Exeter), a PhD in Archaeology (Greenwich University), an MA (Greenwich University) and PhD in Buddhist Studies (Akamai University), and BS in Physical Education (Valparaiso University).
Dr. Kipfer is the lexicographer for Wolfram|Alpha. She has also worked for such companies as Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com, Answers.com, Ask Jeeves, Bellcore/Telcordia, General Electric Research, IBM Research, idealab, and Knowledge Adventure. Barbara is a Registered Professional Archaeologist.
The site is managed and updated by Barbara Ann Kipfer and Paul Legan. All illustrations are custom-made for this site by Paul Meisel. The website design is by Paul Legan of Snowdrop Media.
The site thingstobehappyabout.com has an underlying theme of happiness and spirituality, starting with the book 14,000 things to be happy about, which I began writing in sixth grade. It was just a small spiral notebook that I carried with me for noting things that brought happiness to me or others. One notebook became two, then multiplied, got bigger, eventually turned into computer files and, 20 years later, became the book! I still keep a notebook of things to be happy about, but the original book inspired me to create many other list books.
Places to visit on the site:
- hot-air balloon: 14,000 Pictures
- Barbara's Bungalow: About the Author and Site
- cloud: things to be happy about today (calendar)
- Farmers' Market: A Commonplace Book
- General Store: Gadgets, Widgets, Books, Cafe Press
- Create a List: Make and Send Happy Lists
- Happy House: things to be happy about
- Home Library: Word Trivia
- Idea Bank: Submit Thoughts
- Karma Cabin: Instant Karma
- Kids' Corral: Things for Kids to Be Happy About
- Link Lake: Six Degrees of Happiness
- Meditation Yurt: Self-Meditation
- Mt Nostalgia: Things to be Nostalgic About
- Picnic Park: Life Needs a Menu
- Schoolhouse: Bunch of Questions and Lesson Plans
- Wisdom Well: Words of Wisdom
- Wish Upon a Star: Wish List
- Writer's Block: happy field notes
- Zen Garden: Awake and Aware
copyright 1997-2010 Barbara Ann Kipfer
