“Life is made up of small pleasures.  Happiness is made up of those tiny successes.”  ~Norman Lear Cindy La Ferle It doesn’t happen as often as I’d like, but once in a while my work gets published in a magazine without much effort on my part. Late last year, for instance, I received an unexpected letter and a contract from an editor at Ideals magazine, requesting my permission to reprint a piece from my book, Writing Home.This week, two advance copies of Ideals Springtime 2018 arrived in the mail — a promising start for my new year. My essay in this issue is about a surprise gift (a box of…