Diwali, Joy Seeker, Family Dinners, Wildfire Trauma, Housing Trend in Growing America, Weekend Review

Diwali (0:00:00) What do you know about Diwali? This holiday is celebrated in many countries around the world and is one of the largest and most significant religious observances today. Not only is it celebrated by Hindus, but many other religious and peoples as well. We want to understand more about this delightful and festive holiday. Here to help us is Neeta Bhasin, the president and CEO of ASB Communications, and a Diwali event organizer for Times Square. Joy Seeker (0:15:34) We all want to be happy, and we try to find joy in a million different places. We work really hard to be successful in our careers, to have interesting friends and live in cute, clean houses. But a lot of times those things don’t actually make us happy. If anything, they just make us stressed and grumpy. Shannon Kaiser realized that these things were not bringing her joy or fulfillment, so she set out to travel the world to find what makes her happy. She documents her journey and joins us to share what she learned about happiness in her new book, Joy Seeker. Family Dinners (0:30:53) Despite the obstacles that keep us from spending time as a family, dinner time is a great setting to be all together. Recent studies show that regularly eating dinner as a family is physically, emotionally and socially beneficial. Dr. Anne Fishel, founder of The Family Dinner Project, joins us to share more on the benefits of family dinner, as well as to give us tips on how to make it part of our schedule.  Wildfire Trauma (0:50:35) We’ve talked about it a little bit this week, but if you haven’t heard, California is suffering from some pretty horrible wildfires right now. The fires have displaced tens of thousands of people in the California area and put millions of people from California to Arizona on red flag warning. When disasters like this happen, it can be difficult to cope, especially if you’re directly affected. Dr. Joyce Mikal-Flynn, a California resident and researcher of trauma informed care and post-traumatic growth, is here to share with