I must admit that last night I was a bit overtired and very overly excited about the blog and so it is just absolutely full of typos and grammatical errors. I will try to do a little better tonight!
As previously mentioned, I am starting to undertake the Happiness Project, or my own Happiness Project at any rate. I have been motivated and am working hard to finish the book and organize my thoughts around how I want to approach it.
Melissa and I have discussed how starting the book makes you want to dive in and do everything all at once. That is a surefire way to fail or become discouraged, in my opinion. The areas that I am most looking to improve are, well, generally the things that make me feel guiltiest at the end of the day. I want to lay down to go to sleep at night and not be worrying that I am not doing enough, forgot to do something, or did something completely wrong and just then realized it. (I also think I need to work on confusing sentence structure, hah!)
I want to work on being a better mother. My girls are my life, and I want to be the kind of woman that I want them to become. That's so important to me and I hate when I act in ways that are anything less than that. Yes, I am realistic about it being impossible to be perfect, but I also know that I should be devoting as much time to learning to be a better parent as I would anything else. So this will be a major focus, and something I will probably tie a lot of my resolutions into. Mostly, my desire to be happier is because I want them to grow up feeling love and happiness all of the time.
Gretchen Rubin has a saying which is, "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good". And that could be applied here, as to not starting the project until I have it all organized and laid out and a plan, and all that happening could take me another month, so here are the few resolutions I am starting right now, and how they are working out so far.
#1 Get outside for at least 30 minutes every single day.
This is an important one for me, because we recently moved to Washington state, and habits formed right away will become habits for a long time. It's also an adjustment to be away from all the constant sunshine of Tampa, FL. I have done very well with this one, and as an added bonus, I have been outside playing with Zoe everyday. We are doing a lot of catch and batting to get her ready for T Ball, so Melissa and Dominic have been over several times this week and we have all played. This has been as enjoyable for us adults as it is for the kids I think. I truly forgot how much I love to play catch.
#2 Read to my kids everyday.
This one is not going as well, though I think it's because of all the time we have been spending outside. When we finally come in, it's dinner time, and right after dinner, life becomes a whirlwind of feeding babies, baths, cleaning up, getting ready for bed, etc. I think I am going to try moving the reading to first thing in the morning as a better way for us all to wake up.
#3 Alone time with Chris
I have read everywhere that marriages still need time alone, without kids. I just have no idea how to accomplish this with a nursing baby. We seem to have worked something out that also helps with #1 and it's become one of the highlights of my day. Simply enough, we walk. Alone at night, after Zoe is in bed, we hand the grandparents the baby monitor, leash up our adorable dog (Bella) and go for a walk. This gives us an uninterrupted time to talk, gets us both fresh air, and gets me a little bit of exercise. Tonight we went a mile and a half, and a hilly mile and a half at that. It was really amazing.
#4 Do my hair and put on make up (at least once in a while)
Too often I throw my hair up in a ponytail, throw on jeans and a shirt and run out. I have noticed a definite correlation between how I feel about myself and my mood, so I am trying to put a little extra effort in this area. So far, I have done my hair twice, and both times I really did have energetic days. Definitely a booster.
#5 Send someone mail everyday
This one I just decided today, but the truth is I have a ton of family and friends back in Florida that I miss. I text them, talk to them on Facebook, and call them,but nothing feels better than holding real mail. And making other people happy makes me happy, so I am going to start this resolution tomorrow. I am especially homesick for my mom, so I am thinking she is going to benefit from this one immensely.
#6 Do a little everyday
I have definitely been taking this to heart. We kind of have a mess here, having uprooted everthing and moving from one corner of the country to the other. There is a lot to organize, and we are also going through an entire storage unit worth of stuff to decide what to get rid of, keep and use now. I have gotten 3/4 way through the storage unit and made our room and office/living area look much better in the past few days. I organized the baby clothes, and labeled the drawer to keep everything straight. This has really helped. Next stop, Zoe's room!
Well, this has turned into quite the blog post. If I had any idea how to do one of those cuts, I would!
Today I am grateful for beautiful weather. It makes such a difference in a place like this. I am also grateful that Chris took the girls upstairs this morning, so I could sleep until 9:30 and I woke up to breakfast already made! I am spoiled!
Good night,.
Melissa #2
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