Okay, not bad.

I did make it to bed before 11 last night, but probably should have skipped the wine. Nonetheless, I got a good night's sleep, and a big chunk of the laundry cleaned out of our bedroom. We just found out that our kitchen demolition will start next week, so the bedroom will have to wait.

Maia fell into the pond today twice, the first time losing her flip flops, and the second time falling into it up to her waist. Right before getting in the car. We had a talk with her about listening afterward, (to which she actually seemed to listen) and then Greg gave her huge kudos for her bravery in pulling a leech off herself, and for her general curiosity and fearlessness. The successful parenting moment...does exist.

I went and did a little mental decluttering with my therapist after work, then stopped and grabbed a few binders for Greg, who just found out a few of the classes he'll be teaching next year. I came home to find that he'd had the same thought, but it was nice to pick a few things up unexpectedly anyhow.

Greg just told me that although he has no desire to whistle the Mexican Hat Dance, he keeps taking a deep breath to do just that, then catching himself. Personally, I can't resist the Star Wars Cantina song, so I can sympathize.

Step One - Mental Health

So today is the first day of this thing, and I'm starting with mental health. I kind of just want to concentrate on one thing per week, but the first thing I'm working on is "Get More Sleep." It doesn't really require that I do much beside lay off the wine and go to bed at a reasonable hour. So I'm also working on decluttering - making the spaces within my home into something a little more tranquil. The three places that stress me out the most are our bedroom, our office, and our living room. All three rooms are, at the moment, more storage areas for junk than they are living areas. The bedroom is the worst of the three. The bed is a wreck, there is clean laundry everywhere, and all sorts of bags and boxes and piles of stuff that got tossed in and forgotten the last time we had to do an emergency house cleaning. Eventually it needs to be refurnished, painted, and made into an actual bedroom, but for now I'm going to concentrate on making it livable.

About me

Several months ago I was facing down a milestone birthday, and a milestone anniversary, and the impending Growing Up of my kids. Becoming an old, boring lady was something that seemed to happen overnight, and I didn't like it. Like a lot of people in similar situations, I had become pretty complacent in my life, developed some bad habits, and become kind of insular. It was time for a change.

Opening your eyes to something like this is uncomfortable. Where do you even begin making a change to almost every part of your life? I'll admit, I was stressed out and anxious. I started with my doctor, who recommended exercise as a natural stress-buster. Anyone who knows me knows that this is a patently ridiculous suggestion, but what the heck. I started the Couch to 5k running program and I ended up loving it. I started looking up ways to relax and went down a rabbit hole of mindfulness, breathing exercises, and meditation. I read about optimism and positive affirmations, I journaled, I made gratitude lists. And I realized that it was actually working.

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine finished reading The Happiness Project, and lent it to me. Reading it, I realized two things: that I was really unorganized when it came to practicing all of the things I'd been learning about, and I needed a place to keep track of the things I was doing. My journal acts as a little jail for negative thoughts, and I started this blog to keep a record of the positive ones.

I want to focus on my first four areas of change - relationships, mental health, physical health, and household issues. There are lots more to come if I can measure some success, but these are the four that are, right now, most important.